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Booki^iZ^ 



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y 



A FAMILY 

HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES, 



FROM THE 



DISCOYERY OF THE AMERICM CONTIOTINT 



TO 



THE PRESENT TIME. 



BY 

BENSON j:^lossing, ll.d., 

AriBOB OV "PIOTOBIAl ITELD-BOOK 07 THE EETOLUTION," OF THE "WAB OP 1812," AND Of 

•' IHB UlVilj WAB ; " " HISTOEI OP THE XnaiED STATES FOB SCHOOLS ; " " IIVEB 

or ZUINSNT AMBBICANS ; " " BOUX OP WABHINOTON," SHO., SXO, 



ILLUSTRATED BY FOUR HUNDRED ENGRAVINGS. 



PUBLISHED BY 
HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT. 






Copyright, 1875 and 1881, by 
BENSON J. LOSSING, LL.D. 

CLt.Vt.l.?iiu> FUU. Li3. 
APR 8 1940 



PREFACE. 

This work liaa been prepared with great care, for the purpose of supply- 
ing a want long felt by the reading public, and especially by Heads of Fam- 
ilies. Every important event in the history of the United States, from the 
Aboriginal period to the present time, is presented in a concise, but perspic- 
uous and comprehensive manner, without giving those minute and often 
tedious details, which are valuable to the student, but irksome to the common 
reader. The History of our Republic is herein popularized, and adapted to 
the use of those who may not find leisure to peruse more extensive works 
upon the subject. The materials have been drawn from the earlier, most 
elaborate, and most reUable historians and chroniclers of our continent. The 
work is constructed upon a new plan, which, it is believed, will be found to 
";;^ be the most acceptable yet offered to the public, for obtaining, with facility, 
and fixing in the memory, a knowledge of the great events of our truly won- 
derful history. And having visited a greater portion of the localities made 
memorable by important occurrences in our country, the writer claims, in 
V- that particular, an advantage over his predecessors in this special field, for 
^ he has been able to correct errors and give truthfiil impressions of things and 
\ events. An endeavor has also been made to show the cause of every import- 
ant event, and thus, by developing the philosophy of our history, to make it 
more attractive and instructive than a bald record of facts. And wherever 
^ the text appeared to need further elucidation, additional facts have been given 
^ in foot-notes. 

— The arrangement of the work is new. It is in six Periods, each com- 

^i mencing where the history naturally divides into distinct epochs. The first 
Period exhibits a general view of the Aboriginal race who occupied the con- 
tinent when the Europeans came. The second is a record of all the Discov- 
eries and preparations for settlement, made by individuals and governments. 
The third delineates the progress of all the Settletnents until colonial gov- 
ernments were formed. The fourth tells the story of these Colonies from 
their infancy to maturity, and illustrates the continual development of Dem- 
ocratic ideas and Republican tendencies which finally resulted in a political 
confederation. The fifth has a full account of the important events of the 
War for Iridependence, and the sixth gives a concise history of the Re- 
public from its formation to the present time. The Supplement contains 



X 



yi PREFACE. 

the Articles of Confederation and tlie National Constitution. The former 
shows the final result of the efforts of the people of the Colonies, who had 
struggled together for general independence, to form a national organiza- 
tion, but which signallj' failed, because in that League of States the suprem- 
acy of each was recognized, and the vitality of unity, which is essential to 
the existence of a nation, was wanting. The National Constitution is given 
in Its original form, and with all of the amendments since adopted, accom- 
jianiod by explanatory notes. The Supplement also contains a brief outline 
History of the Progress of the Xation, in all its aspects, during the first 
one hundred years of the existence of our Republic. 

The system of concordance interwoven with the notes throughout the 
entire work, is of great importance to the reader. When a fact is named 
which bears a relation to another fact elsewhere recorded in the volume, a 
reference is made to the^Ja^e where such fact is mentioned. A knowledge 
of this relationship of separate events is often essential to a clear view of 
the subject, and without this concord.ance, a great deal of time would be 
spent in searching for that rclationsliiji. "With the concordance the matter 
may be found in a moment. Favorable examples of the utility of this new 
feature may be found on page 289. If strict attention shall be given to 
these references, the whole subject ■will be presented to the mind of the 
louder in a comprehensive aspect of unity not to be obtained by any other 
method. 

Tlie engravings are introduced not for the solo ])nrpose of embellishing 
the voluni.', but to enhance its uiility as an instructor. Every picture is 
intended to illustrate a fact, not merely to beautify the page. Great care 
has been taken to secure accuracy in all the delineations of men and things, 
so that they may not convey false instruction. Geographical maps have 
been omitted, because they must necessarily be too small to be of essential 
service. History may be read for the purpose of obtaining general infor- 
mation on the subject, without maps, but it should never be studied vf'iihout. 
the aid of an accurate Atlas. 

The author has endeavored to make this work essentially a Family 
IIiSTOKV, attractive and instructive ; and the Publishers Iiave generously 
co-worked with him in producing a volume that may justly claim to be 
excellent in every particular. With these few observations conccrnin'r the 
general plan and merits of the work, it is presented to the public, with aE 
entire willingness to have its reputation rest upon its own merits, 

B. J. L. 
The Ridge, Dover, N. Y., 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 



STEEL plates; 



1. PORTimT OF WASHryGTOS Frc>nti3pie< 

2. Db Soto on the Mississippi to face iisge 

3. Governor Cakvkr and Maesasoit " " 

4. Death of Wolfk " " 2i 

6. Washington at Kip's Bay. " " 2 

6. Jones BOASDiNa tub "Sesafis". ** ** 3i 



7. Washington rbsionimo his Commibsiox to fac« page 35? 

8. Hull's Surrbsder •* " 410 

9. Japanese Embassy , •< '• 512 

10. Grant and Pkmberton " '< 546 

11. Farhagut in the Rigolng of the Habtfobd,. " " 110 

12. Portrait o» Abraham Lincoln " " 72* 



ENGRAVINGS ON "WOOD. 



1. Sionx IndlflQS 9 

2. Portrait of Red Jacket. 9 

3. A Wigwam 13 

4. Waniptim 13 

5. Iniitim Hieroglyi>hic8. 13 

6. Indian Weapons , 14 

7. Calumeta 14 

». Inilhin Burial-place 15 

9. Indian Trttiim 15 

10. Profileof Black Hawk IS 

11. Uncas'3 Moniiineiit 21 

12. Portrait of S. Kirkland 25 

13. Southern Indiana SO 

14. Columbus before the Council S4 

15. Portrait of Vespucci 34 

1 6. North man 34 

IT. Norman Sbip 35 

IS. Old Tower at Newport 35 

1 9. Portrai t of Col umbiia 36 

20. Portrait of Isabella S3 

21. The Fleet of Columbus 39 

22. Banner of the Expedition 40 

33. Balboa 42 

24. Portrait of De Soto - 44 

25. Portrait of Cabr.t 4d 

26. Portrait of Verazaui 47 

27. Cartier'a Shi p 4S 

2S. Arms of France 4S 

f?i. French Nobleman, 1540 49 

30. Raleiijh'a Expedition 53 

. 31. Pnrtrait of Raleigh 55 

32. Rjile'eh's Ships 55 

33. Enirlish Gentleman, 15S0 57 

34. Portrait of Henrj* Hudson 59 

35. The Half-Moon 59 

36. Building Jamestown 61 

37. Portrait of Captain J. Smith 61 

3S. Portrait of Pocahontas. 66 

39. Seal of New Netherlaud 73 

40. A Puritan 75 

41. The Mayflower 77 

42. Governor Carver's Chair 79 

43. Portrait of Lord Baltimore ^ SI 

44. Hooker 'a Em igr 1 tion 83 

45. First Meet: ne;- House in Connecticut 86 

46. Portrait of Rn^er Wiltiama ; 90 

47. Portrait of William Penji 95 

4S. The Aasemblv House...: 97 

49. Oiilethorpe, at Savannah 101 

50. Eiubarkaiion of the Pilgrims li«4 

51. Portrait of Oglethorpe. li>4 

52. Church Tower at Jamestown. 112 

53. First Colony Seal, Massaclmaetta 117 

54. Portrait of John Winthrop 117 

55. First Monev Coined in the United States 12-2 

56. Portrait of King Philip 124 

57. Palisaded Buil<tinc 127 

55. Portrait of Captain Church 12S 

59. Portrait of Cotton Mather 133 

60. Wiliiams'a House 135 

61. Plan of the Siege of Louisbiirg 137 

62. Portrait of Peter Stuyvesant 142 

63. City of New York in 1664 144 

64. Stuyvesant'a J^urrender 145 

65. The Charter Oak 156 

66. Penn'3 House 162 

67. Plan of Charleston in 1650 166 

6<. Early New Euglnud Ht-ase 176 

69. Dutchman^ I660 176 

70. Plan of Fort Du Queane.. 1S6 

71. Portrait of Rraddock 1S6 

72. Burial uf Brnddock 1S7 

7:1. PhiJi of Fort Edward 190 

74. Portrait of Sir W. Johnson 190 

T5. Pl/rnof Fort William Henry 190 

T6. Portrait of Abercrombie 191 

77. Plans of Forts at Oswego 192 

75. Block House 192 

79. Map of Lake George 194 

SO. Portrait of Lord Amherst 196 

«1. Plan of Ticonderoga 196 

82. Ruins of Ticonderoga 197 

83. Portrait of Lord Howe 197 

84. Plan of Crown Point 200 

85. Plan of Fort Niaeara 200 

56. Genetnl Wolfs , 201 



PAOV 

S7. Military Operations at Qaebec 202 

88. Monument to Wolfe and Montcalm 202 

89. Pairick Henry before the Virginia Assembly 207 

90. Portrait of James Otis 207 

91. Portraitof Beuiamin West 210 

92. portrait of David RiUenhouse 211 

93. Portrait of Pairick Henry 214 

94. A Stamp " 215 

95. Portrait of Cadwallader Golden 216 

96. Portraitof William Pitt 217 

97. Portrait of John Dickenson 219 

98. Porlrait of Samuel Adams 221 

99. Portrait of Lord North 224 

00. F«neuil Hall 225 

101. Snake Device 226 

102. Portraitof Charles Thomson 227 

103. Carpenter's Hall , 223 

104. John Hancock 230 

1"S. Plan of B'lnker Hill Battle 235 

106. Bunker Hill Monument. 235 

1 07. Portrait of Joseph Warren 237 

in;^. Portrait of Philip Schuyler. 239 

109. Plan of the Walls of Quebec 24? 

no. Portrait of General Montgomery 242 

111. Culpepper Flag 24S 

1)2. Union Flag 245 

113 Continental Money. 245 

114. Portrait of General Lee 24-11 

115. Portraitof General Jloultrie 249 

116. State House, Philadelphia t50 

117. Portrait of Benjamin Rush 251 

liy. Portrait of General Putnam 253 

1 19. Plan of the Battle on Long Islaud 254 

12a Plan of Fort Washington 256 

121. Retreat from Long Island 257 

1 22. The Jwrsev Prison-Ship 259 

123. Plan of the Battle at Trenton 263 

124. Portraitof Robert Morris s 264 

1 25. Portrait of Silas Deane 266 

126. Portrait of Benjamin Franklin 267 

127. Plan of the Battle at Princaton 269 

1 28. Portrait of La Favette 27^ 

129. Plan of the Battle at the Brandy wine 371 

13iJ. Chevaux-de-Frise 274 

131. Plan of the Battle at Germantown 275 

13-.'. Portrait of General St. Clair. 276 

133. Portrait of Ki.scluszko 277 

134. Portrait of Joseph Brunt. 27S 

135. Portrait of General Burgoyne 273 

136. A Treaty 278 

137. 3urgoyne's Surrender. 279 

13S. Operations at Bentia's Heights 281 

139. Portrait of Francis Hopkinsan 2S4 

140. Encampment at Vallev Forge 2S5 

141. Porlvaii of Sir Henry "Clinton 2ST 

142. Plan of the Battle at Monmouth 2^8 

143. Portraitof Count D'Estaing 2«9 

144. Portrait of Baron Steuben 291 

145. Porlraitof General Lincoln 294 

146. Pluu of Sionv P.iint 298 

147. Portrai t of General Wavne 298 

14**. Portrait of Daniel Boone' - 299 

149. Porlrait of George R. Clarke 300 

150. Clarke'a Expedition 301 

151. Portraitof General Sullivan 304 

152. Plan of the Siege of Savannah 305 

153. Portrait of Count Pulaski 305 

154. Portrait of John Paul Jones .3l'7 

155. AGun-boatat Boston 307 

156. PiM'trait of Admiral Hopkins 308 

157. Cipher Alph.ibet 3(W 

las. Portrait of Governor Rutledge 31» 

159. Portrait of Comjiiodore Wliij.ple. 3!^. 

160. Plan of the Siego of Charleston Sit 

161. Portrait of David liamsav. 312 

162. Portn.il of General Gales. 314 

163. Porlrait of General Sumter 315 

164. Plan of Battle at Sanders's Creek , 315 

165. Portraitff Baron De Kalb 816 

166. Portrait of Colonel Tnreton 316 

167. Portrait of General Marion 317 

168. Po' trait of Lord Comwallis 3|S 

169. Marion's EncaiMpm><nt on the Pttdee. r.l'l 

170. P-rtrait of Governor Trumbull... ^ITt 

171. Portraitof Benedict Arnold 32.S 

I7i'. The Captors' Medal , 31!7 



rill 



ILLUSTRATION'S, 



JJf- PortTBlt of Ocnem! Greene S31 

"*■ Portrait of General Morgan 331 

''". Portrait of r..lojicl Wasliinjfton »9 

''*• portrait ..f Colonel Henry Lee 833 

»"• Plan of the llaitlc at Ouilford 833 

I'S. ria.ioftho Battle at liobkirk'sHUl 334 

"*- Portrait of Kcbecca Mottc 335 

jSti- Planof l-"ort Ninety-Six 335 

»*'• Portrait nf General Pickens 83S 

"2. Portrait. .f Count de Rochaunbeau 339 

1»4 Portrait of Count dc Cratse 340 

»**• Planoflhe Sieee of Yorktown 2-11 

186. Portrait of ncnj.imin Thompson 84« 

"t portrait of James Jackson 34T 

187. Portrait of Georee Clinton 350 

"8. portrailof John Marshall 851 

18». Portrait of General Mifflin , 355 

*90- Or.lcrofthc Cincinnati 353 

iti' Portrait of Bishop Carroll 354 

193. Franklin before the Convention 367 

•=** Ponraitof OlivLT liUsworth 360 

itr Portraitof Alexander Hamilton 361 

«5. Portrait of Rufus Putnam 3«3 

*'|J< Inau^ration of Washington 364 

inl' P'^rfait of Gouvemeur Morris 364 

198. Portrait of Washington 365 

199. Portrait of Robert R. LMngstoo 366 

»*0. Portrait of lench Coxc 369 

Spi- Portrait of General Kno» 310 

m. Waynes Dcfeatofthe Indians 376 

S03. Portrait of John Jay 379 

SO*- Portrait of Fisher Amei 380 

2X*' Portrait of John Adams 393 

*"». Portrait of C. C.Pinckney 884 

9U7. Portrait of Martha Washincton 387 

2^0. Portrait of Thomas Jelferson 889 

*?•■ Portrait of Commodore BainbridffC 891 

«J0. United States Frit'ate 891 

»}1- Portrait of Lieutenant Decatur 899 

S12. Mohammedan Soldier 892 

213. Burning of the Philadelphia at Tripoli 393 

S ■» Portrait of Rufus King 395 

Sjo- Portrait of v\aron Burr 396 

S»6- Portrait of Robert Fulton 398 

21". Fulton's first Steamboat 399 

21P. Portrait of William Pinkney 400 

219. A Felucca Gun-Boat 401 

25JO. Portraitof John Randolph. 403 

23L Portrait of James Madison 406 

281. Portrait of General Dcarljom 410 

223. PortraitofS. Van Rcnnssclaer 413 

SV4. Sloop-of.War 415 

Vi^S. Portrait of Governor Shelby 417 

2-ifi. Plan of Fort Mclgs 418 

'•^^l. Plan of Fort Sandusky 419 

S2i MajorCroghan 4i0 

i29. Perryon Lake Erie. , 4;il 

iSO. Portrait of Commodore Perry 423 

231, portraitof General Pike 425 

232. Fort Niagara in 1613 427 

238. Portrait of Captain Lawrence 429 

234 Portraitof Commodore Porter 431 

286. Portrait of General Brown 433 

'36. Mapof the Niagara Frontier 434 

237. Portrait of Commodore Macdonough 435 

238. Plan ofthe Battle of New Orleans. 439 

239. Portraitof W. C C.Claiborne 440 

240. Jackson at N"ew Orleans 



241. Portraitof James Monroe 447 |851. Pack'Mulea 



KX FortSomterln 1861 «, 

284. The C"nf*d«rat* flair SI 

285. Harper'i Ferrv In 1861 U,\ 

988. Pmralt of Salmon P. Chaw Ha 

287. S««l of Wwt Vlrelnia Ui 

288. Pcrtruitof R. f:. Lee ?« 

289. ElliworthZou.ve... .".'.".".*" «« 

290. Arienal at St. Loulfc .'.'.".!! II " 1! 166 

291. Portraitof S. Price i« 

292. Portrult of WiQfi«ld Scott S68 

293. Riilniiof the Stone-brldg* ['/, m 

294. I>6foDiea of Wa«hlD|fton *"* (7} 

295. portrait of L«otiidaa Poik B7i 

296. Fnrt lUtUraa Ua 

297. FortPlckoDi Si 

293. PorlrnU of a F. Dopont * ' u* 

299. Port Rovai Ferry... Sa 

30^1. Fori L./av«tt«... !;.!..": . .* 686 

301. Portrnilof C. WUkoi. " 5^8 

803. P^>rlrallof W. aSeward. '. " B88 

303. P'Ttrsit of A, E. Buro.lde fiflfl 

304. Portrait of S. A. Curlli. ...M..... HI 

805. Texoa KaD|;er 503 

306. Purtraitof R W. Ilallock !.....'!!"; S» 

307. ViowBtFort l>r.nel»on KM 

303. P.^rtrallof Lewis WaJlaea. "[, 597 

3U9. Island Number Ten Ug 

310. Portraitof U.S.Grant ""', $01 

311. Burning horMs at Sblloh (03 

312. Purlrait of Beoursgard 604 

313. A Mortar Boat....* /"./"/.,.[[.[' m 

314. Portrait of O. M. MitcLeL 008 

ifI5. Colyer'i Hea.i-QuRrt«r> '."* ft)! 

316. Fort PulaakI breached 608 

317. Portrnilof D. D.Porter '„ 609 

318. Ram Manawas , 610 

319. The Laveeat NowOrleani. '. 611 

J20. Portraitof G. B. McClellaa. 611 

321. Monitor and Merrimack 614 

322. Portraitof J. E. Johnston 611 

3-.'3. Portrait of T. J. Jackion 6I7 

324. View on the Chickabomloy «M 

326. Harriaon Mansion 69i 

8^6. Thoroughfare Gap 69S 

327. MoDuineut at Groveton 696 

323. Portraitof Philip Kearney 627 

829. linttle-Fleld of South Mountain 628 

330. AntieLun Battle-ground 630 

331- KruilerlckBDurt-oa fire 681 

332. ViewntNMhvllte. ^39 

333. Portraitof D.C.BuelL '. 633 

33<t Graves at luka 63< 

335. Confederate flaff 635 

836. Portrait of D. G. Farriunit 636 

837. Portrait of W. S. RoBecrans. ' 637 

338. MoDumeitt nt Stone's Rivsr. , ., ... 638 

839. Portraitof RSemmei. 6|I 

340. Portraitof J. C. Pamberton. 649 

341. A Loulbiana Swamp 6J4 

342. Cav»-L!feiQ Vickiburg 645 

343. Corpi Da.lpei 647 

344. Portrait of J. Hooker. 649 

345. Ruins ..f Chftncellorsville 651 

34fi. P.rtraltof O. G. Meade 65J 

347. Scene near GettyBbure. 66* 

848. Drafting. 657 

349. Abatli 660 

850. Libbv Prison. 6^2 



242. Capture ofi'ensacola 449 

243. Portraitof Edward Livingston 452 

244. Portraitof John Quincy Adams 455 

245. Portrait of Dcwitt Clinton 456 

246. Portrait of John C Calhoun «8 

247. Portrait of General lackscn 461) 

248. Portraitof Robert Y.Hayne 463 

249. Portrait of Osceola 466 

250. Mapof the Seat ofthe Seminole War *10j 

251. Portrait of Martin Van Huren , 4*0 

262. Portrait of William H. Harrison.., 474 

243. Portraitof John Tyler 476 

254. Portraitof James K.Polk 479 

266, Portraitof General Scott 486 

256. The Reglonof Taylor's Operations 486 

267. Portraitof John C. Fremont 498 

S&8. Planof Intrenchments at Vera Crut 489 

269. The Route of Scotfs Army in Mexico 490 

S60. Bombardment of Vera Cruz 491 

261. Operations near Mexico 49S 



2Cg. Cleneral Scott enteriiig the City of Mexico 

■563. Pi>rtrait of General Taylor. 

r_ ■ _ if Henrv Cla 

265. Portrait c 



496 



S64. Portraitof Henry Clay. 

265. Portraitof Millard Fillmore ou» 1375, Iranklln BalUa^rround. 

«66. Portraitof p.ir.iel Webster iOS 1376. Portraitof J. A. Vinilo' 



362. P.>rtrftilof G. H. Thorn aa. 666 

358. Tho Chattanooga. , 667 

854. Pulpit Rock 669 

355. Miisionoriee' Ridge. 669 

356. Portrait of J. LongttreeL 670 

857. A ParrottOun 673 

358. Torpedo 673 

3:9. Tlio. Swamp Angel 674 

36a Fort do Ruiay 671 

3C1. Nrwtra. 639 

362, Rod River Dam (8» 

863. Place where Se.igwick waa killed 690 

364. Portraitof P. H, Sheridan 6?5 

365. Pontoon Bridge 6M 

366. BelloUla....: 6j.« 

86T. Tho Butler Medal 696 

868. Viewat CadarCrnek t•f^ 

369. Portrait of W. T. Sherman. 693 

370. Kenee«w Mountain JyO 

371. Portrait of J. B. Mood 100 

an 'a Quarters In Atlanta 7fi2 

373. Sherman'* Quartort in Savannah. 703 

374. The Albemarla 704 



S&1. Portrait of Joseph Smith 604 1377. Blockaxie-Ri 

264. Mormon Fmigration 506 - - - 



ion Umigr 

lilofS.F 

470. P'lrtraitof E. K. Kane 509 

571. P"rtrait of Franklin Pierce 618 

S73. Portraitof Santa Anna 514 

S73. An Ocean Steamship 515 

274. Crystal Palace, New York 516 

S7J. Portraitof lames M. Mamn 692 

S74w Portrait of James BuchatuD 631 

t77. Portraitof John Slidell 535 

*7)5. South Carolina Institute 540 

t7». "Wi^wi 

tm Palinctti 



706 
708 
70« 



i^t. Portrait .jflclTerson Davk... 
^2. Portrait of Robert Anderson 



878. Portrait of C. I. Vallandlgbam 711 

879. Interior of F.-rt Kt»her tjj 

SSO. Inl«ri..r of Fori euadman. 717 

861. Capit-l at Richmond ;i» 

SS2. McLcan'i iJoute ISO 

883. portrait of A. Johiieon. 121 

184. Davit'* Pri«on, FortreM Monro* , TJ9 

Tho Cupii"! at Waihlngton 731 

3KS. The Senate Chamber, in which President JohnMB wu triad. 733 

887. Porlraltof Jottnh R. Ilawley T46 

, ,,. . --- , W8. Seal of Centennial CommiBilon. 147 

.1 (^hicago 543 «S9. Cf^nlenolal Medal 147 

l'-^*'*:--- M« '3W. Portrait of Rutherford B. Hmf 



SO 



.. K3 8«t. Portrait of Jam*i A Garfleld 7^6 

•• 660 1399. Portraitof Ch.»t«r A. Arthor 749 



HISTORY 



THE UNITED STATES. 




FIRST PERIOD. 
THE ABORIGINALS. 



CHAPTER I. 



^jj^ 



RED JACKET. 



Evert cultivated nation had its heroic 

age — a period when its first physical and 

moral conquests were achieved, and when 

mde society, with all its impurities, was fused and refined in the crucible of 

f)rogre3S. When civilization first set up its standard as a permanent ensign, in 

the western hemisphere, northward of the Bahamas and the great Gn^i and 



10 THE ABORIGINALS. 

the contests for possession bon;an between the wild Aboriginals, who thrust no 
spade into the soil, no sickle into ripe harvests, and those earnest delvers from 
the Old World, who came with tiie light of Christianity, to plant a new 
empire, and redeem the wilderness by cultivation — then commenced the heroic 
age of America. It ended when the work of the Revolution in the cijihteonth 
century was accomplished — when the bond of vassalage to Great Britain was 
severed by her colonies, and when thirteen confederated States ratified a Fed- 
eral Constitution, and upon it laid the broad foundation of our Republic' 

Long anterior to the advent of Europeans in America, a native empire, 
little inferior to old Rome in civilization, flourished in that region of our Con- 
tinent which now forms the south-western portion of our Republic, and the 
adjoining States of Central America. The Aztec Empire, which reached the 
acme of its refinement during the reign of Montezuma, and crumbled into frag- 
ments beneath the heel of Cortez, when he dethroned and destroyed that mon- 
arch,' extended over the whole region from the Rio Grande to the Isthmus of 
Darien ; and when the Spaniards came, it was gradually pushing its conquests 
northward, where all was yet darkness and gloom. To human aj)prehension, 
this people, apparently allied by various ties to the wild nations of North 
America, appeared to be the most efficient instruments in the hands of Provi- 
dence, for spreading the light of dawning civilization over the whole Continent. 
Yet, they were not only denied this glorious privilege, but, by the very race 
which first attempted to plant the seeds of European society in Florida, and 
amon<T the Mobilian tribes,' and to shed the illumination of their dim Chris- 
tianity over the dreary region of the North, was their own bright light e.\tin- 
guishcd. The Aztecs and their neighbors were beaten into the dust of 
debasement by the fiilchion blows of avarice and bigotry, and nothing remains 
to attest their superiority but the magnificent ruins of their cities and tcmiiles, 
and their colossal statuary, which has survived the fury of the Spanish icono- 
clast and the tooth of decay. They form, apparently, not the most insignificant 
atom of tlie chain of events which connects the history of the Aboriginal nations 
of America with that of our Republic. The position of the tribes of the 
North is different. From the beginning of European settlements, they have 
maintiiined, and do still maintain, an important relation to the white people. 

The first inhabitants of a country properly belong to the history of all sub- 
sequent occupants of the territory. The several nations of red or copper- 
colored people who occupied the present domain of the United States, when 
Europeans first came, form as necessary materials for a portion of the history 
of our Republic, as the Frenchmen* and Spaniards,' by whom parts of the 
territory were settled, and from whom they have been taken by conquest or 
purchase. 

The history of the Indian' tribes, previous to the formation of settlements 
among them, by Europeans,' is involved in an obscurity which ia penetrated 



' P.ige 360. ' Page 43 ' Pniro 29. * PaRO !«»• 

* I'ago 6i ' Page 40. ' Before the year 1607. 



THE ABORIGINALS. 



11 



only by vague traditions and uncertain conjectures. AVlience came they ? is a 
(question yet unanswered by established facts. In the Old World, the monu- 
ments of an ancient people often record their history. In North America, 
such intelligible records are wanting. Within almost every State and Terri- 
tory remains of human skill and labor have been found,' which seem to attest 
the existence here of a civilized nation or nations, before the ancestors of our 
numerous Indian tribes became masters of the Continent. Some of these 
appear -to give indisputable evidence of intercourse between the people of the 
Old World and those of America, centuries, perhaps, before the birth of Christ, 
and at periods soon afterward." The whole mass of testimony yet discovei-ed 
does not pi'ove that such intercourse was extensive ; that colonies from the 
eastern hemisphere ever made permanent settlements in America, or remained 
long enough to impress their character upon the country or the Aboriginals, if 
they existed ; or that a high degree of civilization had ever prevailed on our 
Continent. 

The origin of the Indian tribes is referred by some to the Phoenicians and 
other maritime nations, whose extensive voyages have been mentioned by 
ancient writers, and among whom tradition seemed to cherish memories of fai'- 
oiF lands beyond the sea, unknown to the earlier geographers. Others per- 
ceive evidences of their Egyptian or Hindoo parentage ; and others find their 
ancestors among the "lost tribes of Israel," who "took counsel to go forth 
into a further country where never mankind dwelt,'" and crossed from north- 
eastern Asia to our Continent, by way of the Aleutian Islands, or by Beh- 
ring's Straits.* These various theories, and many others respecting settlements 
of Europeans and Asiatics here, long before the time of Columbus, unsupported 
as they are by a sufficiency of acknowledged facts, have so little practical value 

'• Remains of fortifications, similar in form to those of ancient European nations, have been 
discovered. An idol, composed of clay and gypsum, represontintj a man witliout arms, and iu 
all respects resembling one found iu Southern Russia, was dug up near Nashville, in Tennessee. 
.tUso fireplaces, of regular structure ; weapons and utensils of cupper ; catacombs with mummies ; 
ornaments of silver, brass, and copper ; walls of fijrts and cities, and many other things which only 
a people advanced in civilization could have made. The Aboriginals, themselves, have various 
traditions respecting their origin — each nation liaviiig its distinct records in the memory. Nearly 
all have traditional glimpses of a great and universal deluge; and some say their particular pro- 
genitor came in a bark canoe after that terrible event. This belief^ with modifications, was current 
mong most of the northern tribes, and was a recorded tradition of the half-civilized Aztecs, 
.-he latter ascribed all their knowledge of the arte, and their religious ceremonies, to a white and 
hoarded mortal wljo came among tliem; and wlien his mission was ended, was made immortal by 
lh9 Great Spirit. 

2 A Roman coin was found in Missouri ; a Persian coin in Ohio ; a bit of silver in, Genesee 
county. New York, with the year of our Lord, 600, engraved on it; split wood and ashes, thirty 
leet below the surface of the earth, near Fredonia, New York ; and near Montevideo, South 
America, in a tomb, were found two ancient swords, a helmet and shield, with Greek inscriptions, 
showing that they were made in tlie time of Alexander the Great, 330 years before Christ. Near 
Marietta, Ohio, a silver cup, finely gilded witliin, was found in an ancient' mound. Traces of iron 
utensils, wholly reduced to rust, mirrors of isinglass, and glazed pottery, have also been discovered 
in tliese mounds. These are evidences of the existence of a race far more civilized than the tribes 
found by modern Europe.ans. 

3 2 Esdras, xiii. 40^5. 

* The people of north-eastern Asia, and on the north-west coast of America, have a near 
resemblance iu person, customs, and languages; and those of tlie Aleutian Islands present m.any 
of the characteristics of both. Ledy.ard said of tlie people of Eastern Siberia, " Universally and 
circumstantially they resemble the Aborigines of America." 



12 THE ABORIGINALS. 

for the student of our history, that we will not occupy space in giving a deline- 
ation of even their outlines. There are elaborately-written works specially 
devoted to this field of in(iuiry, and to those the curious reader is referred. 
The proper investigation of such subjects requires the aid of varied and exten- 
sive knowledge, and a far wider field for discussion than the pages of a volume 
like this. So we will leave the field of conjecture for the more useful and 
important domain of recorde<l history. 

The New World, dimly comprehended by Europeans, afforded materials for 
wonderful narratives concerning its inhabitants and productions. The few 
natives who were found upon the seaboard, had all the characteristics common 
to the human race. The interior of the Continent was a deep mystery, and 
for a long time marvelous stories were related and believed of nations of giants 
and pigmies ; of people with only one eye, and that in the centre of the fore- 
head ; and of whole tribes who existed without eating. But when sober men 
penetrated the forests and became acquainted with the inhabitjints, it was dis- 
covered that from the Gulf of Mexico to the country north of the chain of 
great lakes which divide the United States and the British possessions, the 
people were not remarkable in persons and qualities, and that a great similarity 
in manners and institutions prevailed over that whole extent of country. 

The Aboriginals spoke a groat variety of dialects, but there existed not 
more than eight radically distinct languages among them all, from the Atlan- 
tic to the Mississippi, and westward to the Rocky Mountains, namely: Al- 
ooNQUiN, IIuron-Iroquois, Cherokee, Catawba, Uchee, Natchez, 
MobiTjIan, and Dahcotah or Sioux. These occupied a region embraced 
within about twenty-four degrees of latitude and almost forty degrees of longi- 
tude, and covering a greater portion of the breailth of the north temperate 
zone. 

All the nations and tribes were similar in physical character, moral senti- 
ment, social and political organization, and religious belief They were all of 
a copper color ; were tall, straight, and well-proportioned ; their eyes black 
and expressive ; their hair black, long, coarse, and perfectly straight ; their 
constitutions vigorous, and their powers of endurance remarkable. Bodily 
deformity was almost unknown, and few diseases prevailed. They were indo- 
lent, tiiciturn, and unsocial ; brave, and sometimes generous in war ; unflinch- 
ing under torture; revengeful, treacherous, and morose when injuretl or 
offended ; not always grateful for favors ; grave and sagacious in council ; offen 
eloquent in speech ; sometimes warm and constant in friendship, and occasion- 
ally courteous and polite. 

The men were employed in war, hunting and fishing. The women per- 
formed all menial services. In hunting and fishing the men were assiduous 
and very skillful. They carried the knowledge of woodcraft to the highest 
degree of perfection ; and the slightest indication, such as the breaking of a 
twig, or the bending of grass, was often sufiicicnt to form a clew to the pathway 
of an enemy or of game. The women bore all burdens during journeys; 
spread the tents ; prepared food ; di-essed skins for clothing ; wove mats for 



THE ABORIOINALS. 



13 



,eds made of the bark of trees and the skins of animals; and planted and 

Lh'ered the scanty crops of corn, beans peas po atoe , 

Lions and tobacco. These constituted the chief agri- 

Tltural productions of the Aboriginals, under the most 

wlbJcircumstances. In these labors the men never 

ensac^ed- they only manufactured their implements of 

engageu, l j_ j wpvo rude huts, made 



ea; mey uuijr ^^-' , , , i„ 

Their wigwams, or houses, were rude huts, made 




A WIGWAM. 



war. ineir wigwiii"=>, v' - — — i , , ,. i 

of poles covered with mats, skins, or bark of trees ; and 
allrf their domestic arrangements -y^ --|^^- ^^^^ ^,,, ,f .^ones, 

\^' 't^b ":' ^^ZX7^^ food laHheir clothing and 
shells, and bon s w th wh ch tUcy p p ^^^_ ,^^^ ^^ ^ ^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^ 

:rrr:\f :;L t;tuS.lo, and bear gener.ly roasted upon the 
points of sticks; sometimes boiled in water heated by hot 
ston s and always eaten without salt. Their dress m summer 
w s a slight covering around the loins. In winter they were 
dad in the skins of wild beasts," often profuse y ornamented 
; ith the claws of the bear, the horns of the buffalo, the feathers 

tLr%^^y^^^^- -^^ of sh,lH fastened 
n Mts or strun- in chains, and called wampum.' It was 
upon belts or « ^>^"» ^ ^ ^^^^^ ,f friendship or alliance, 

Teul—Jrrr'of public transactions in the hands of a chief. 

There was no written language in all the 
New World, except rude hieroglyphics, or 
picture writings. The history of the 
nations, consisting of the records of warbke 
achievements, treaties of alhance, and 
deeds of great men, was, in the form ot 
traditions, carefully handed down from 




TVAJIPUM. 



Wampum 




INDIAN HIEBOOLYPHICS.' 



'^S^' 



. Th,v -..., w,. .!« .M.. .< tb. a»r, ft, en., ..d ft. b..r, pr.p«.4 wift ft. te 

on ; sometimes of the buifalo al^o. Weatem tribes, and ia manufactured, 

= Wampum ia yet in use. as ^'^^^y'^T^f^TZreo^lM^oounties of New Jersey. It is 

we believe, as an article of commerce on the sea shore ol o°^° g. ^ ,^„,3 -^ drilled in it, 

made of the dear parts of th'^.^rr^i'T known 11 the ^^13 produced by friction. They are 
and the form, which ia that of *e bead now known as the O^ie p ^.^ ^^^^.^^ ^^^^^^^ ^^^^ 

about half an inch long, general y disposed m ^'t^^ff if^'^^^tg f„ three of the black beads, 
valued, when they become a circulating '".«^'"";^'^i^ t°^ 'I^S a P nny, three pence, a shQling, 
or sbc'of the white. They were stmng i" P'^^^ *« j^^P" / f,t£m of white was worth 
and five shilUngs, of white; and double that i^ontin mac^ ^^^^^ ^^ ^^^ ^._^^^ ^^ 

.bout two doUars and a hall; and black about five ^''^^^''-^^'^^^^^ ^ ^u of wampum, 
our war for independence. The engraving sho«9 ^ Pa^ o^ ^ 'f^^^ ^^ ^^^ and left— -no with a 
3 This is part of a record of a war expedition. J' « ng""'^ °"^°^ ''^he one without a head, 
gunandthootherwithahatchet-deuoepriaone^takcnbyaOT^^ ^ ^l^^^^^j 

Sd holding a bow and arrow, denotes that one w^s k't^d.^^^^^J^^ ^.■,,^ ,Uie companions, 
^oTefb^r STl'Js! ^tiS^nunci^held b^y ^ chie. of the Bear and Xui.. tribes, 
Sted by rude figurek of these animals on each side of a fire. 



Tin: AHor.ioi N'ALS. 




IXDIAX WEAPON'S.-' 




CALUJIETS. 



iirtti practiced among them, sudi iis ni;ikiiig 'wampuui, constructing bows, 
arrows, ami spears, preparing matting ami skins for ilomostic use, and fashion- 
ing nido personal ornaments. 

Individual and national pride prevailed among the Ahoriginuls. They 
were aml)itious of distinction, and therefore war was the chief vocation, as wo 
have said, of the men.' Tiiey generally went forth in parties of ahout forty 
bowmen. Sometimes a half-dozen, like knights- 
errant,' went out upon the war-path to seek renown in 
combat. Tlieir weapons were bows and arrows, hatch- 
ets (tomahawks) of stone, and scalping-knives of bone. 
Soon after they became acquainted with tlie Euro- 
peans, they procured knives and liatehets made of 
iron, and this was a great advance in the 
increase of their power. Some wore 
sliields of l)ark ; others wore skin dresses 
for protection. They were skilU'iil in stratagem, and seldom met 
an enemy in open fight. Ambush and secret attack were their 
favorite methods of gaining an advantage over an enemy. Their 
close personal encounters were fierce and bloody. They made 
prisoners, and tortured them, and the scalps' of enemies were 
their trophies of war. Peace was arranged by sachems" in council ; 
and eaeii smoking the same " pipe of peace," called calumet,' was 
ft solenm jdedgo of fidelity to the contract. 

With the Indians, as with many oriental nations, women were regarded as 
inferior beings. They were degraded to the condition of abject slaves, and they 
never engaged with the men in their amusements of leaping, dancing, target- 
shooting, ball-playing, and games of clianee. Tliey were allowed as spectators, 
witli their cliildren, at war-danoes around fires, when the men recited the feats 
of their ancestore and of themselves. Marriage, among them, was only a tem- 
porary contract — a sort of purchase — the father receiving presents from the 

' It wiu« olTi'iisivo to a diiof or warrior to ask him liis namo, beonuso it iniplieil tliat lii.s brave 
deeds wore iniknown. Rod .Tiu-kot, tho (treat .Seneca chief (wlioso portrait is at the lieail of this 
chaptor), was iviked liis name in covn-t, in comiiliauce with a le^tal form. He was very indi|fiiant, 
nnd replied, "Look at tlie papers whieli tlie wliite people ke"p tlie most cari'fullv" — llaiid cession 
treaties) — "they will tell you who I am." Red .Jacket was born near Geneva, New York, about 
nflO, and died in ISSO. lie was the last givat chief of tho Seiiecas. For a biographical skctcli of 
him, see Lossing's " Kminent Americans." 

' Knights-errant of Europe, si.x hundred years ago, were men clothed in metal armor, who 
went IKim country to country, to win fame by pei-sonal combats with other knights. They also 
engaged in wars. For about three hundred years, kniglits-errant and their exploits formed the 
cliicf amusement of the courts of E\irope. It is curious to trace the eoimection of the spirit of 
knighthood, as cxliibiled by tho one hundred and thirty-live orders that have existed, at 
various times, in the Old World, with some of tho customs of the rudo Aboriginals of North 
America 

' n, bow and arrow ; ^, a war club ; c, an iron tomahawk ; d, a stone one ; «, a scalping- 
knife. 

• They seizeii au enemy by tho hair, and by a skillful use of the knife, cut and tore flxim the 
(op of the head a large portion of the skin. 

• Sachems were the civil heads of nations or tribes; rti>(5» were military leaders. 

• Tobacco was in general use among the Indiana for smokitii/. when the white men camo. The 
more filthy pnu-tice of chewing it was inventoii by tho white people. Tho calwiKt was made of 
pipo-clay, and w'as often oruamouted with feathers. 



15 

TIIK ABORIGINALS. 




UUlllAl.-rl.ACF. 



,1 n .,■ ^vlu. .'ouorallv, after being fondloa and 
hasW, in exchange for the chu.ghle . >, . - ^^^. ^^ ^^^^^^^^,^^.^ ^^^,.,,^,,,_ , 

favored Cor . few •-'»»'\7; Jf!"^: ^e^^^^^^^^^ th.n at pleasure; and 

best The men had the nght to take ^vives a ^^_.^^ .^ ^^^^^ ^^^^ 

^^igh polygamy was not ve^Y -unon ^^^ ^,;':;;::, ^^^ ^^^ ^^^^^^, ^,^^,,, 
obie^^iouaide. Evevy ud.an m.gl.t^ - ^^^^oi^ if she proved untaithl^d 
and maintain. The husband nngh put h. v ^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^ endearments 

to hiu. The affecfous were ruled y cv^to. ^.^ .^.^^^^ ^^^.^^^^ ^^^^^ 

,,a attentions toward .o^J^^ i .sentiment of eonjugal love w,. 
^vholly unknown among the Indians ya ^^^^ ,^,,^^^^.^ ^^^^^ ,^o 

^t iays wanting, and ^^^^^^ ;Zt beity, i^.r they had but 

eoeiety to eall for woman's ^f '""S q^^J i,l of their dead, 
fewlocalattachments, except fo. he bu. ^^^^.^ ^^^^^.^^^ eeremomes 

From the frozen North to t^^^ ^lop vl . ^^ ^.^^^^^^^,^^ .,^ ^^,„^_ 

and methods of burial were «;"';1- ; '' J/ „^. ,,,ed ^ ^ , 

upon sticks, in the bottom of ^^ ;*^^;"^^,,,Ahem 
tknn in a sitting posture, o> ^^^ ^^^, „f the 

reach of wdd beasts i" _ ' ,^ j^. 

and food, were Juried w.th them, to b us ^^^^ 

long journey^to the 7";;^^-^,^ ^^^^^learly and 

doctrine of the ^^^^^'^^l"^^^ ,,i,.itual, but as 

forcibly taught, not as ^ ^tn.eUvcly q _^^^^. ^,^^,^^ g.-aves they 

possessing the two-fold nature ot «>„ "^ ,j^^ ^.,., then.. The Algon- 

kised mound, and I'^^^^t ^.Xbc^ f-eral pyre, ibr several niglr^ 

quins, especially, always ^'^''^^ " '^^^^^,1,^ and enjoy the respect paid to the 

z;'''S:T:^r^::!^-^^ ^f .- h—tions dum. ti. 

burial, and they continued -^^l^^^^'^^'^l^'^^, religion was simple, with- 

Like that of the earlier nations of the '^'^^ ^ ^j^^,, j,,^ „o infidels 

out many ceremonies, ami -^^J^^i^:2n. u..od^ Indian faith- 

among them, ^^^f ^^'.^^fe ^ n the belief of all of the more advW 
a prominent tenet, at will be observed, 1 ^^^ .^^ ^^^^ ^^.^^^^^ ^^ ^^^ G,,^t 

oriental nations of antuiuity. ^^''H , g • j, . ^^^ the inferior was an 

Spirits: the one eminently great ^r.^s the Good bp r ^ ^^^^^_ 

Sil one. They also deified the sun - r C'su" elr 'to themselves, but 

tares. Thoy choso «omo »"« «f ';^,,?'J^e ani.nal for tl.u arms or symbo -, 

arose tho custom of havmR the ^t^'^^ " fT ,,,j, f,ve Nations («c pivf \2) ^.^^/'^V^ 

of a tribe, called Mum. For examiile, "i^h ot the t^ ^^^^^ ^,^^ ^.^^fc^ ^ I 

w^TlivU'led into several tr be^ WatM M° ''^j^,,, ,f t|,ese animals ^ ^ 

etc., and tboir rospeetivo Uwr^ ^^ I^, pclle, they sometimes sketctel -^^J 
Wb'en tbey fK^'of treaties with the wlute pc .p ^ ,_^^^ y^^ "^ .^^T'T 
outlines of their (oiums. I'J'O '^"^'^''"^ ; ' „., affixed by him to a deed 

^SBion.the heraldic devices of modem times. 



wtm 



16 THE ABORIGINALS. 

they never exalted their heroes or prophets above the sphere of humanity. 
They also aclored an invisible, great M;iater of life, in different forms, wliich 
they called Maiiitou, and made it a sort of tutelar deity. They had vague 
ide;is of the doctrine of atonement for sins, and made propitiatory sacrifices with 
great solemnity. All of thum had dim traditions of the creation, and of a great 
deluge which covered the earth. Each nation, as we have observed, had crude 
notions, drawn from tradition, of their own distinct origin, and all agreed that 
their ancestors came from the North. 

It can hardly be said that the Indians had any true government. It was a 
mixture of the patriarchal and despotic. Public opinion and common usage 
were the only laws of the Indian.' All political power was vested in a sachem 
or chief, who was sometimes an hereditary monarch, but frequently owed his 
elevation to his own merits as a warrior or orator. While in power, he was 
absolute in the execution of enterprises, if the tribe confided in his wisdom. 
Public opinion, alone, sustained him. It elevated him, and it might depose 
him. The office of chief was often hereditary, and its duties were sometimes exer- 
cised even by women. Unlike the system of lineal descent which prevails in 
the Old World, the heir to the Indian throne of power was not the chief's own 
son, but the son of his sister. This usage was found to be universal through- 
out the continent. Yet the accident of birth was of little moment. If the 
recipient of the honor was not worthy of it, the title might remain, but the in- 
Jlueiice piussed into other hands. This rule might be followed, with benefit, by 
civilized communities. Every measure of importance was matured in council, 
which was composed of the elders, with the sachem as umpire. His decision 
was final, and wherever he led, the whole tribe followed. The utmost decorum 
prevailed in the public assemblies, and a speaker was always listened to with 
respectful silence. 

We have thus briefly sketched the general character of the inhabitants of 
the territory of the United States, when discovered by Europeans. Although 
inferior in intellectual cultivation and approaches to the arts of civilization, to 
the native inhabitants of Mexico' and South America, and to a race which 
evidently occupied the continent before them, they possessed greater personal 
manliness and vigor than the more southern ones discovered by the Spaniards. 
They were almost all wanderers, and roamed over the vast solitudes of a fertile 
continent, free as the air, and unmindful of the wealth in the soil under their 
feet. The great garden of the western world needed tillers, and white men 
came. They have thoroughly changed the condition of the land and the people. 
The light of civilization has revealed, and industry has developed, vast tre;is- 
ures in the soil, while before its radiance the Aboriginals are rapidly melting 
like snow in the sunbeams. A few generations will pass, and no representa- 
tive C'f the North American Indian will remain upon the earth. 

• It was said of McGillivray, the half-brocd emperor of the Creeks, who died in 1793, that, not- 
withstanding ho called himself " Kinp of Isings," and was idolized by his people, " ho could neither 
restrain the meanest fellow of his nation from the commission of a crime, nor punish him after ha 
had committed it. lie might persuade, or advise — all the good an Indian liing or cliief uaa do, - 

' Page 43. 



THE ALGONQUINS. 17 

CHAPTER II. 

THE ALGONQUINS. 

The first tribes of Indians, discovered by the French in Canada, ' were in- 
habitants of the vicinity of Quebec, and the adventurers called them Mon- 
tagners, or Mountain Indians, from a range of high hills westward of that city. 
Ascending the St. Lawrence, they found a numerous trilje on the Ottawa 
River, who spoke an entirely different dialect, if not a distinct language. 
These they called Algonquins, and this name was afterward applied to that 
great collection of tribes north and south of Lakes Erie and Ontario, who spoke 
dialects of the same language. They inhabited the territory now included in 
all of Canada, New England, a part of New York and Pennsylvania, the 
States of New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia, eastern North Car- 
olina above Cape Fear, a large portion of Kentucky and Tennessee, and all north 
and west of these States, eastward of the Mississippi. 

The Algonquin nation was composed of several powerful tribes, the most 
important of which were the Knisteneau.K and Athapascas, in the far north, the 
Ottawas, Chippewas, Sacs and Foxes, Menomonees, Miamies, Piankeshaws, 
Pottowatomies, Kickapoos, Illinois, Shawnees, Powhatans, Corees, Nanticokes, 
Lenni- Lenapes, or Dela wares, Mohegans, the New England Indians, and the 
Abenakes. There were smaller, independent tribes, the principal of which 
were the Susquehannocks, on the Susquehanna in Pennsylvania ; the Manna- 
hoacks, in the hill country between the York and Potomac Rivers, and the 
Monocans, on the head waters of the James River in Virginia. All of these 
tribes were divided into cantons or clans, sometimes so small as to afford only a 
war party of forty bowmen. 

The Knisteneaux yet [1883] inhabit a domain extending across the con- 
tinent from Labrador to the Rocky Mountains, and are the hereditary ene- 
mies of the Esquimaux, their neighbors of the Polar Circle. The Athapascas 
inhabit a belt of country from Churchill's River and Hudson's Bay to within a 
hundred miles of the Pacific coast, and combine a large number of tribes who 
speak a similar language. They, too, are the enemies of the Esquimaux. The 
extensive domain occupied by these tribes and the Esquimaux, is claimed by 
the British, and is under the control of the Hudson's Bay Company. The 
orginal land of the Ottawas was on the west side of Lake Huron, but they 
were seated upon the river in Canada bearing their name, when the French dis- 
covered them. They claimed sovereignty over that region, and exacted tribute 
from those who passed to or from the domain of the Hurons.'^ They assisted 



' Page 48. 

2 Between the Ottawas and Hurons, was a tribe called Mississaguies, who appear to have left the 
ALGONQUINS, and joined the Five Nations, south of Lake Ontario. Remnants of this tribe are 
etill found in Canada. 



IS THE ABORIGINALS. 

the latter in a war with the Five Nations' in 1650, and suffered much. The 
Ilurons were almost destroyed, and tlie Ottawas were miieh reduced in num- 
\»ers. Some ot" them, with the Huron renuiant, joined tiie Cliippewas, and, 
finally, the whole tribe returned to their ancient seat [1G80] in the northern 
jiart of the Michigan peninsula. Under their great chief, Pontiac. they were 
confederated with several other Aloonquin tribes of the north-west, in an 
attempt to exterminate the white people, in 1763.- Within a fortnight, in the 
summer of that year, they took i)Ossession of all the English garrisons and 
trading posts in the West, except Detroit, Niagara,^ and Fort I'itt.' Peace was 
restored in 1764-5, the confederation was dissolved, and Pontiac took up his 
abode with the Illinois, where he was murdered.^ " This nnirder,'' says Nicol- 
let, " which roused the vengeance of all the Indian tribes Iriendly to Pontiac, 
brought about the successive wars, and almost extermination of the Illinois na- 
tion." His broken nation sought refuge with the French, and their dessendanta 
may yet [1883] bo found in Canada. 

Those two once powerful tribes, the Chippewas and Pottawatomies, were 
closely allied by language and friendship. The former were on the soutliern 
shores of Lake Superior ; the latter occupied the islands and main land on the 
western shores of Green Bay, when first discovered by the French in 17C1. 
These afterward seated tliemselves on the southern shore of Lake ^licbignn 
[I 701], where they remained until removed, by treaty, to lands upon the Little 
Osage River, westward of Missouri. They are now [1883] the most numerous 
of all the rt'iunants of the Ai-coxiiuix tribes. The Cliipjiewas and the Sioux, 
west of tlie Mississipi)i, were, for a long time, tlicir deadly enemies. 

The Sacs and Foxes arc really one tribe. They were first discovered by the 
French at the southern extremity of Green Bay, in 1680. In 1712 the French 
garrison of twenty men at Detroit, "^^ w;is attacked by the Foxes. The French 
repulsed them, with the aid of the Otfciwas, and almost destroyed the assailants. 
They joined the Kickapoos in 1722, in driving the Illinois from their lands on 
the river of that name. The Illinois took refuge with the French, and the 
Ivickapoos remained on their lands until 1819, when they went 
to the west l)ank of the Missouri in the vicinity of Fort Leav- 
enworth. The Sacs and Foxes sold their lands to the United 
States in 1830. Black Hawk, a Sac chief, who, with his 
people, joined the English in our second war with Great Brit- 
ain," demurred, and commenced hostilities in 1832.'* The In- 
dians were defeated, and Black Hawk,' with many of his war- 

, . !5L.\CK HAWK. 

riors. were made prisoners. 

Among the very few Indian tribes who have remained upon their ancient 

' Chapter TIL, p 23. ' Pape 205. ' Page 200. < Page 198. 

6 He w.Ls buried on tlie site of the city of St. Louis, in Missouri. " Neither mound nor tablet," 
BflTS Parkman, " marked the burial-place of Ponliae. For a mausoleum, a city has risen above the 
forest hero, and the race whom he hated with such burning rancor, trample with unceasing foot- 
steps over his forgotten grave." 

« Page 180. ' Page 409. ' Page 46.^. 

9 This picture is from a plaster-cast of the face of Black Hawk, taken when he was a prisoner in 
New York, in 1832. See page 463. 




THE ALGONQUINS. 19 

territory, during all the vicissitudes of their race, are the Menomonees, who 
were discovered by the French, upon the shores of Green Bay, in 1699. They 
yet [1883] occupy a portion of their ancient territory, while their southern 
neighbors and friends, the Winnebagoes, have gone westward of the Mississippi.' 

The MiAMiES and Piankeshaws inhabited that portion of Ohio lying be- 
tween the Maumee River of Lake Erie, and the ridge which separates the head 
waters of the Wabash from the Kaskaskias. They were called Twightwees by 
the Five Nations, and English. Of all the Western tribes, these have ever 
been the most active enemies of the United States. '-= They have ceded their 
lands, and are now [1883] far beyond the Mississippi. 

The Illinois formed a numerous tribe, twelve thousand strong, when dis- 
covered by the French. They were seated upon the Illinois River, and consisted 
of a confederation of five families, namely, Kaskaskias, Cahokias, Tamaronas, 
ISIichigamias, and Peorias. Weakened by internal feuds, the confederacy was 
reduced to a handful, by their hostile neighbors. They ceded their lands in 
1818, when they numbered only three hundred souls. A yet smaller remnant 
are now [1883] upon lands west of the Mississippi. It can not properly be said 
that they have a tribal existence. They are among the many extinct commun- 
ities of our continent. 

The once powerful Shawnoese occupied a vast region west of the AUeghan- 
ies,' and their great council-house was in the basin of the Cumberland River. 
At about the time when the English first landed at Jamestown* [1607], they 
were driven from their country Ijy more southern tribes. Some crossed the 
Ohio, and settled on the Sciota, near the present Chilicothe ; others wandered 
eastward into Pennsylvania. The Ohio division joined the Eries and Andastes 
against the Five Nations in 1672. Suffering defeat, the Shawnoese fled to 
the country of the Catawbas, but were soon driven out, and found shelter with 
the Creeks.'^ They finally returned to Ohio, and being joined by their Penn- 
sylvania brethren, they formed an alliance with the French against the En- 
glish, and were among the most active allies with the former, during the long 
contest known in America as the French and Indian War. They continued 
hostilities, in connection with the Delawares, even after the conquest of the 
Canadas by the English. "> They were subdued by Boquet in 1763,' and again 
by Virginians, at Point Pleasant, at the mouth of the Great Kenawha, in 1774.^ 
They aided the British durmg the Revolution, and continued to annoy the 
Americans until 1795, when permanent peace was established.' They were 
the enemies of the Americans during their second war with Great Britain, a 
part of them fighting with the renowned Tecumtha. Now [1883] they are but 

' The Winnebagoes are the most dissolute of all the Indian remnants. In August, 1853, a treaty- 
was made with them to occupy the beautiftil country above St. Paul, westward of the Mississippi, 
between the Crow and Clear Water Rivers. 

' Page 408. 

'The Alleghany or Appalachian Mountains extend from the Catskills, in the State of New York, 
in a south-west direction, to Georgia and Alabama, and have been called " the backbone of the 
country." Some geographers extend them to the White Mountains of New Hampshire. 

' Page 64. ' Page 30. • Page 203. 

' Note 7, page 205. ' Note 4, page 237. ' Page 374 



20 THE ABORIGINALS. 

a miserable remnant, and occupy lands soutli of the Kansas River The roud 
from Fort Independence' to Santa Fe passes through their territory. - 

The PowiiATANS constituted a confederacy of more than twenty tribes, in- 
cluding the Accohannocks and Accomacs, on the eastern shore of the Chesa- 
peake Bay. Powhatan (the father of Pocahontas^), was the chief sachem or 
emperor of the confederacy, when tlio English first appeared upon the James 
River, in 1G07. lie had arisen, by the force of his own genius, from tiie po- 
sition of a petty chief to that of supreme ruler of a great confederacy. He gov- 
ernetl despotically, for no man in his nation could a]iproach him in genuine 
ability as a leader and counselor. His court exhibited much barbaric state. 
Through fear of the English, and a selfish policy, he and his people remained 
nominally friendly to the white intruders during his lifetime, but after his 
death, they made two attempts [1622, 1G44J to exterminate the Englisli. The 
Powhatiins were subjugated in 1644,^ and from that time they gradually di- 
minished in numbers and importance. Of all that great confederacy in Lower 
Virginia, it is believed that not one represent;itive on earth remains, or that 
one tongue speaks their dialect. 

On the Atlantic coast, south of the Powhatans, were the Corees, Cheraws, 
and other small tribes, occupying the land once inhabited by the powerful Hat- 
teras Indians.^ They were allies of the Tuscaroras in 1711, in an attack upon 
the English,' suffered defeat, and have now disappeared from the earth. Their 
dialect also is forgotten. 

Upon the great peninsula between the Chesapeake and Delaware Bays, were 
the Nanticokes. They were early made vassals, and finally allies, on com- 
pulsion, of the Five Nations. They left their ancient domain in 1710, occu- 
pied lands upon the Susquehanna, in Pennsylvania, until the Revolutionary 
War commenced, when they crossed the Allcghanies, and joined the British in 
the west. They are now [1883] scattered among many tribes. 

The Original People,'' as the Lenni-Lenapes (who are frequently called Del- 

' United States fort on the Missouri. Santa Fe is in New Mexico, 765 miles south-west of Fort 
Independence. 

2 One of the most eminent of tlio Shawnoe chiefs, was Cornstalk, who was generally friendly to 
the Americans, and was always ready to assist in negotiating an honorable peace between ihem and 
his own people. But he cordially united with Logan, the Mingo chietj against the white people in 
1174 ; and during the same battle at Point Pleasant, his voice, stentorian in volume, was frequently 
heard, calling to liis men, "Be strong! be strongi" Ho made his warriors light withovit wavering, 
and actually sunk his tomahawk deep into the head of one who endeavored to escape. He was 
murdered by some exasperated soldiers at Point Pleasant. When ho perceived their intent, he 
calmly said to his son, wlio had just joined him, " My son, tlie Great Spirit has seen fit that we 
rfionld die together, and has sent you hither for that purpose. It is His will; let us submit." 
Turning to the soldiers, ho received the fatal bullets, and his son, who was sitting near him, was 
shot at the same time. The celebrated Tecunitha — meaning a tiger crouching for his prey —who 
endeavored to confederate all the Western tribes in oi)position to the white people, was also a 
Shawnoe chief. See page 408. 

' Pago 66. * Page 108. 

s This tribe numbered about three thousand warriors when Raleigh's expedition landed on 
Roanoke Island in 1584; when the English made permanent settlements in that vicinity, eighty 
years later, they were reduced to about fll\cen bowmen. ^ Page 168. 

' This name has been applied to the whole Ai-noNQmN nation. The Lenni-Lenapes claimed to 
have come from beyond the Mississippi, conquering a more civilized people on the way, who 
inhabited the great valleys beyond the Alleghany Mountains. 



THE ALGONQUINS. 21 

awares) named themselves, comprised two powerful nations, namely, the Minsi 
and the Delawares proper. The former occupied the northern part of ^eyr 
Jersey, and a portion of Pennsylvania, and the latter inhabited lower New Jer- 
sey the banks of the Delaware below Trenton, and the whole valley of the 
Schuylkill The Five Nations subjugated them in 1650, and brought them 
under degrading vassalage. They gradually retreated westward before the tide 
of civilization, and finally a portion of them crossed the Alleghanies, and settled 
in the land of the Hurons,' on the Muskingum, in Ohio. Those who remained 
in Pennsylvania joined the Shawnoese;^ and aided the French against the En- 
dish during the French and Indian War.^ In 1768, they all went over the 
mountains, Tnd the great body of them became friends of the British during the 
Revolution They were at the head of the confederacy of Western tribes who 
were ..'ushed by Wayne in 1794,^ and the following year they ceded all then- 
lands on the Muskingum, and seated themselves near the Wabash. In 181J, 
they ceded those lands also, and the remnant now [1883] occupy a territory 
north of the Kansas River, near its mouth. 

The MoHEGANS were a distinct tribe, on the Hudson River, but the name 
was -iven to the several independent tribes who inhabited Long Island, and the 
country between the Lenni-Lenapes and the New England Indians.^ Of this 
family the Pequods,^ inhabiting eastern Connecticut, on the shores of Long 
Island Sound, were the most powerful. They exercised authority over the 
Montauks and twelve other tribes upon Long Island. Their power was broken 
by the revolt of Uncas against his chief, Sassacus,' a short time before the ap- 
pearance of the white people. The Manhattans were seated upon the Hudson, 
in lower Westchester, and sold Manhattan Island, whereon New York now 
stands to the Dutch.^ The latter had frequent conflicts with these and other 
River 'Indians.' The Dutch were generally conquerors. The Mohawks, one 
of the Five Nations," were pressing hard upon them, at the same time and 
several of the Mohegan tribes were reduced to the condition of vassals oi that 
confederacy. Peace was effected, in 1665, by the English governor at New 
York. In the mean while, the English and Narragansets had 
smitten the Pequods," and the remaining independent Mohe- 
gans reduced to a handful, finally took up their abode upon the 
west bank of the Thames, five miles below Norwich,'^ at a place 
still known as Mohegan Plain. Their burial-place was at Nor- 
wich and there a granite monument rests upon the grave of 
_^^____ Uncas. The tribe is now almost extinct—" the last of the Mo- 
tracis- MONCMEXT. jijcans" wlll soon sleep with his fathers.' 

■Page 23. ' Page 19. » Fourth Period, Chap. XII. 'J^'f.Vz^ 

: s ?^o .' S: ^:. -. pai: f.. ;. no. . S "l 

prelnt and partook of a cold coUation prepared for them by a lady of that eity^ The ^°fi'°t^^ 
leaders amon- the New England Indians known to history, are Massasoit, the father of the re- 
nowned King PhUip, Caunbitant, a very distinguished captain; Hobomok; Canomcus; M.anto- 
noZh; Ninilret, his cousin; King Philip, the last of the Wampanoags; Canonchet, and Anna- 
nt-an. We shall meet them in future pages. 




22 THEABORIGINALS. 

The Aboriginals who inhabited the country from Connecticut to the Saco 
River, were called the New EN(iLANu Inhians. The principal tribes were the 
Narraganscts in Rhode Island, and on the western shores of Narraganset Bay : 
the Pokonokets and Wampanoags on the eastern shore of the same bay, and in 
a portion of Massachusetts ; the Nipmucs in the center of Massachusetts ; the 
Massachusetts in the vicinity of Boston and the shores southward; and the 
Pawtuckets in the north-eastern part of Massachusetts, embracing the Penna- 
cooks of New Hampshire. These were divided into smaller bands, having 
petty chiefs. The Pokonokets, for example, were divided into nine separate 
cantons or tribes, each having its military or civil ruler, but all holding alle- 
giance to one Grand Sachem. They were warlike, and were continually 
engaged in hostilities with the Five Nations, or with the Mohegans. The 
English and Dutch effected a general peace among them in 1673. Two years 
afterward [1675J, Mctacomet (King Philip) aroused most of the New England 
tribes against the English. A fierce war ensued, but ended in the subjugation 
of the Indians and };he death of Philip, in 1676.' The power of the New 
England Indians was then completely broken. Some joined the more eastern 
tribes, and others took refuge in Canada, from whence they frequently came to 
the border settlements on errands of revenge.' These incursions ceased when 
the French dominion in Canada ended in 1763.' When the Puritans came* 
[1620], the New England Indians numbered about ten thousand .souls; now 
[1883] probably not three hundred representatives remain ; and the dialects 
of all, excepting; that of the Narraganscts, are forgotten. 

Eastward of the Saco River were the Abenakes. The chief tribes were the 
Penobscots, Norridgewocks, Androscoggins, and Passamaquoddies. These, 
with the more eastern tribes of the Micmacs and Etchemins, were made nom- 
inal Christians by the French Jesuits ;' and they were all firm allies of the 
French until the conquest of Canada by the English, in 1760.' Most of the 
Abenakes, except the Penobscots, withdrew to Canada in 1754. A few 
scattered families of the latter yet [1883] dwell upon the banks of the Penob- 
scot River, and wanderers are seen on the St. Lawrence. Like other New 
England tribes, they are rapidly fading, and will, doubtless, be extinct before 
the dawn of another century. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE HURON-IHOQUOIS. 

We now come to consider the most interesting, in many respects, of all th& 
aboriginal tribes of North America, called Iroquois by the French. The pre- 
fix "Huron" was given, because that people seemed, by their language, to form 



' Page 128. ' Page 130. • Pago 202. * Page 114 • Page 130. • Page 20.3. 



THE HURON-IROQUOIS. 23 

a part of the IroquoiS nation, and like them, were isolated in the midst of the 
Algonquins, when discovered by the Europeans. The great body of the 
Iroquois occupied almost the whole territory in Canada, south-west of the 
Ottowa River, between Lakes Ontario, Erie and Huron ; a greater portion of 
the State of New York, and a part of Pennsylvania and Ohio along the south- 
ern shores of Lake Erie. They were completely surrounded by the Algon- 
quins, in whose southern border in portions of North Carolina and Virginia, 
were the Tuscaroras and a few smaller Iroquois tribes.' The Hurons occupied 
the Canadian portions of the territory, and the land on the southern shore of 
Lake Erie, and appeared to be a distinct nation ; but their language was found 
to be identical with that of the Iroquois. The Hurons consisted of four smaller 
tribes, namely, the Wyandots or Hurons proper, the Attiouandirons," the 
Eries, and the Andastes. The two latter tribes were south of the lake, and 
claimed jurisdiction back to the domains of the Shawnoese.' 

Those "Romans of the Western World," the Five Nations, or Iroquois 
proper, formed a confederacy composed of the Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, 
Oneida, and Mohawk tribes, all occupying lands within the present State of New 
York. They flmcifully called their confederacy the Long House. The eastern 
door was kept by the Mohawks ; the western by the Senecas ; and the Great 
Council fire was with the Onondagas, at the metropolis, or chief village, near 
the present city of Syracuse. The French, as we have observed, gave them 
the name of Iroquois ; the Algonquins called them Mingoes." At what time 
the confederacy was formed, is not known. It was strong and powerful when 
the French discovered them, in 1609, and they were then engaged in bloody 
wars with their kinsmen, the Wyandots.' i 

' The Southern Iroquois were the Tuscaroras, Chowans, Meherrins, and Nottoways. The thre^ 
latter were upon the rivers "in lower Virginia, called by their respective names, and were knowL 
under the general title of Tuscaroras. 

" Neutral Nation. When the Hurons and Five Nations were at war, the Attiouandirons fled 
to the Sandusky, and built a fort for each of the beUigerents when in that region. But their neu- 
trality did not save them from internal feuds which finally dismembered the tribe. One party 
joined the Wyandots ; the other the Iroquois. 

3 Page 19. 

< Mingoes, Minquas, and Maquas, were terras more particularly applied to the Mohawk tribe, 
who called themselves Kayingehaga, " possessors of the flint." Tlie confederation assumed tlie 
title of Aquinuschioni, " united people ;" or as some say, Konoshioni, "cabin builders." 

5 The time of the formation of the confederation is supposed to have been at about the year 
1539. According to their own ti'adition, it was about two generations before the white people 
canie to trade with them. Clarke, in his history of Onondaga county, has given, from the lips of an 
old chief of the Onondaga tribe, that beautiful legend of the formation of the great confederacy, 
which forms the basis of Longfellow's Indian Edda, " Hi-a-w.\t-h.\." Centuries ago, tlie story 
runs, the deity who presides over fisheries and streams, came from his dwelling-place in the clouds, 
to visit the inhabitants of earth. He was deliglited with the land where the tribes that afterward 
formed the confederacy, dwelt ; and having bestowed many blessings on that land, he laid aside his 
Divine character, and resolved to remain on earth. He selected a beautiful residence on the shore 
of Te-ungk-too (Cross lake), and all the people called him Hi-a-wat-ha, "the wise man." After a 
while, the people were alarmed by the approach of a ferociobs band of warriors from the country 
north of the great lakes. Destruction seemed inevitable. The inhabitants thronged around the 
lodge of Hi-a-wat-ha, from all quarters, craving his wise advice in this hour of great peril. After 
solemn meditalion, he told them to call a grand council of all the trilies. The chiefs and warriors 
from far and L\ar, assembled on the banks of Lake Oh-nen-ta-ha (Onondaga). The council-fire 
blazed three days before the venerable Hi-a-wat-ha arrived. He had been devoutly praying, in 
silence, to the Great Spirit, for guidance. Then, \vith his darling daughter, a virgin of' twelve 
years, he eniered ills white canoe, .and, to the great joy of the people, he appeared on the Oli-nen- 



24 THE ABORIGINALS. 

In tlic year 1649, the Five Nations resolved to strike a final and decisive 
blow against their western neighbors, and, gathering all their warriors, they 
made a successful invasion of the Wyandot, or Huron country. Great num- 
bers of the Wyandots were slain and made prisoners, and the whole tribe was 
dispersed. Some of the fugitives took refuge with the Chippewas ; others 
fled to Quebec, and a few were incorporated into the Iroquois confederacy. 
Yet the spirit of the Wyandots was not subdued, and they claimed and exer- 
cised sovereignty over almost the whole of the Ohio country. They had great 
influence among the Algonquin tribes,' and even as late as the treaty of 
Greenville, in 1795, the principal cession of lands in Ohio to the United 
States was made by the Wyandot chiefs in council.' They, too, are reduced to 
a mere remnant of less than five hundred souls, and now [ISS:!] they occupy 
lands on the Neosho River, a chief tributary of the Arkansas. 

Being e.xccedingly warlike, the Five Nations made hostile expeditions 
against the New England Indians^ in the East, the Eries, Andastes, and 

ta-ha. A great shout greeted him, and as he landed and walked up the bank, a sound like a 
rusliing wind was heard ; a dark spot, every moment increasing in size, was descending from tlie 
clear sky. Fear seized tlie people ; but Hi-a-wat-ha stood unmoved. Tlio approacliing object was 
an immense bii-d. It c;ime swiftly to earth, crushed tlie darling daughter of Hi-a-wat-ha — was itself 
destroyed, but the wise man was unharmed. Grief for his bereavement prostrated him in the dust 
for three days. The council anxiously awaited his presence. At length he came : the subject of 
the peril from invaders was discussed, and alter deliberating a day, the venerable Hi-a-wat-lia 
arose and said : 

"Friends and Brothers — ^Tou are members of many tribes and nations. You have come here, 
many of you, a great distJinee from your homes. "We liave met for one common purpose — to pro- 
mote one common interest, and that is, to provide for our mutual safety, and how it shall best be 
accomplished. To oppose these foes from the north by tribes, singly and alone, would prove our 
certain destruction. ^ We can make no progress in that way. We must unite ourselves into one 
connnon band of brothers; thus united, wo may drive the invaders back ; this nmst be done, and 
we shall be safe. 

'■ You, the Mohawks, sitting under the shadow of the ' Great Tree,' whose roots sink deep 
into the earth, and whose branches spread over a vast country, shall be the first nation, because 
you are warlike and mighty. 

'• And you, Oneidas, a people who recline your bodies against the ' Everlasting Stone,' that 
can not be moved, shall be the second nation, because you give wise counsel. 

" And you, Onokdagas, who have your habitation at the ' Great Mountain,' and are over- 
shadowed by its crags, shall be the tliird nation, because you ai-e greatly gifted ia speech, and 
mighty in war. 

" And you, Catugas, a people whose habitation is the ' Dark Forest,' and whose home is every- 
where, shall be the fourth nation, because of your superior cunning in himting. 

"And you, Seneca.s, a people who live in the 'Open Country,' and jiossess much wisdom, 
shall bo the fifth nation, because you understand better the ait of raising corn and beans, and 
making cabins. 

" You, five great and powerful nations, must unite and have but one common interest, and no 
foe shall be able to disturb or subdue you. If we unite, the Great Spirit will smile upon 
us. Brothers, these are the words of Hi-a-wat-ha — let them sink deep into your hearts. I hav» 
said it." 

They reflected for a day, and then the people of the "Great Tree," the "Everlasting Stone," 
the "Great Mountain," the "Dark Forest," and the "Open Country," formed a league like that of 
the Amphyctioni of Greeco. The enemy was repulsed, and the Five Nations became the terror 
of the Continent. Then Hi-a-wiitha said, 

" The Great Master of Breath calls me to go. I have patiently waited his summons. I am 
ready — farewell !" 

Myriads of singing voices burst upon the cars of the multitude, and the whole air seemed filled 
with music. Hi-a-wat-ha, seated in liis wliite canoe, rose niiijestically above the throng, and as all 
eyes gazed in rapture upon the ascending wise man, he disappeared liirever in the blue vault of 
heaven. The music melted into low whispers, like the soft summer breeze ; and there were 
pleasant dreams in every cabin of the Five Nations on that blessed night, 

' Page n. 2 Page 374, > Page 22. 



THE nURON-IROQUOIS. 



25 



Miamies in the West,' and penetrated to the domains of the Catawbas'' and 
Cherokees' in the South. They subjugated the Eries in 1655, and after aeon- 
test of" twenty years, brought the Andastes into vassahxge. They conquered 
the iliamies* and Ottawas^ in 1657, and made incursions as far as the Roanoke 
and Cape Fear Rivers to the land of their kindred in language, the Tuscaroras, 
in 1701/ Thirty years afterward, having been joined by the Tuscaroras, and 
the name of the confederacy changed to that of the Six Nations, they made 
war upon the Cherokees and Catawbas.' They were led on by Hi-o-ka-too, a 
Seneca chief The Catawbas were almost annihilated by them, after a battle 
of two days. So determined were the Five Nations to subdue the southern 
tribes, that when, in 1744, they ceded a part of their lands to Virginia, they 
reserved a perpetual privilege of a war-path through the territory. 

In the year 1712, the Tuscaroras having been signally defeated by the 
Carolinians,* came northward, and in 1714 joined the Five Nations. From 
that time the confederacy was known as the Six Nations. They were gen- 
erally the sure friends of the English and inveterate foes of the French." 







They were all friends of the British during the Revolution, except a part of 
the Oneidas, among whom the influence of the Rev. Samuel Kirkland'" wa& 



' Page 17. 2 Page 26. 3 Page 27. < Page 17. s Page 17 

6 Page 168. ' Page 17. « Page 168. 9 Page 192. 

1" Samuel Kirkland was one of the most laborious and self-sacriflcing of the earlier missionaries, 
who labored among the tribes of the Six Nations. He was bom at Norwich, Connecticut, in 
December, 1741. He was educated at Dr. Wheelock's school, at Lebanon, where he prepared for 
that missionary work in which he labored forty years. His eBbrts were put forth chiefly among 



26 THE ABORIGINALS. 

very powerful, in favor of the Republicans. The Mohawks were the most 
active enemies of the Americans ; and they were obliged to leave the State and 
take refuge in Canada at the close of the Revolution. Tlie others were allowed 
to remain, and now [1883] mere fragments of that great confederation e.xist, 
and, in habits and character, they are radically changed. The confederacy 
was forever extinguished by the sale of the residue of the Seneca lands in 
1838. In 1715, the confederacy liumbered more than forty thousand souls ; 
now [18.s:i] they are probably less than four thousand, most of whom are 
upon lands beyond the Mississippi.' 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE CATATVBAS. 



In that beautiful, hilly region, between the Yadkin and Catawba Rivers, on 
each side of the boundary line between North and South Carolina, dwelt tlic 
Catawb.\ nation. They were south-westward of the Tuscaroras, and were 
generally on good terms with them. They were brave, but not warlike, and 
• their conflicts were usually in defense of their own territory. They expelled 
the fugitive Shawnoese in 1672, ' but Avere overmatched and desolated by the 
warriors of the Five Nations' in 1701. They assisted the white people of 
South Carolina ag;xinst the Tuscaroras and their confederates in 1712;* but 
when, three years afterward, the southern tribes, from the Neuse region to that 
of the St. Mary's, in Florida, and westward to the Alabama, seven thousand 

the Oneidas ; and, during the Revolution, ho was active in restraining them from an .ilhance with 
the rest of the confederacy against tlie Patriots. He was exceedingly useful in trealy-making; for 
he had the entire conHdenee of the Indians. He died at Paris, in Oneida county, in February, 
1808, in the 67th year of his ago. See Lossing's "Eminent .\mericans" for a more elaborate slietcb. 
' The chief men of the Five N.vtioss, kuowu to tho while people, are Garangula, who was 
distinguished toward the close of the seventeenth century lor his wisdom and sagacity in council, 
and was of the Onondaga tribe. Logan, whose celebrated reply to a white messenger has been 
preserved by Mr Jellcrson, wits of tho Cayuga tribe. To the messenger he s;iid: ''I appeal to any 
white man to say if he ever entered Logan's cabin hnngrj', and he gave him no meat ; if ever he 
came cold and naked and he clothed him not." Then speaking of the cruelty of the white people, 
who, in cold blood had munlered Ins lamily, ho said : "They have murdered all the relations of 
Logan — not even sparing my women and children. This called on me lor revenge ; I have sought 
it I have killed many. I have tiilly glutted my vengeance. For my country, I rejoice at the 
beams of peace. But do not harbor the thought that mine is the joy of fear. Logan never felt 
fear. He will not turn on his heel to save his life. Who is there to mourn for Logan? Xoi 
one!" Joseph Brant (Thayendanega), w.as the most celebrated of the Mohawk tribe ; and Red 
Jacket (Sagoyewatha), wtus a very renowned Seneca, greatly distinguished for his eloquence. 
Complanter, who lived till past a century in age, was .also a distinguished Seneca chief. Red .facket 
was very intemperate toward the latter part of liis life. On one occasion a lady inquired after his 
children. Ho had lost fourteen by consumiition. Bowing his head, he Siiid : " Red Jacket was 
once a great man, and in favor witli the Great Spirit. He was a lofty pine among the smaller trees 
of the forest. But after years of glory, he degra<led himself by drinking the lire-water of the white 
man. The Great Spirit has looked upon him in anger, and llis lightning has stripped the pine of 
iU branches I" » Page 19. a Pago 23. ' Pago 168. 



THE CHER OKEES. 27 

Strong, confederated in an attempt to exterminate the Carolinians/ the Cataw- 
bas were among them. 

They were again the active allies of the Carolinians in 1760, when the 
Cherokees made war upon them,' and they remamed true friends of the white 
people afterward. They joined the Americans during the Revolution, and 
have ever since experienced the fostering care of the State, in some degree." 
Their chief village was upon the Catawba River, near the mouth of the Fishing 
Creek, in Yorkville district, South Carolina; and there the remnant of the 
nation, numbering less than a hundred souls, were living upon a reservation, a 
few miles square, when the late Civil War began. 



CHAPTER V, ' 

THE CHEROKEE S. 

Of all the Indian tribes, the Cherokees, who dwelt westward and adjoining 
the Tuscaroras^ and Catawbas,^ among the high hills and fertile valleys, have 
ever been the most susceptible to the influences of civilization. They have been 
properly called the mountaineers of the South. Their beautifiil land extended • 
from the Carolina Broad River on the east, to the Alabama on the west, includ- 
ing the whole of the upper portion of Georgia from the head waters of the Ala- 
tamaha, to those of the Tennessee. It is one of the most delightful regions of 
the United States. 

These mountaineers were the determined foes of the Shawnoese,' and after 
many conflicts, they finally di'ove them from the country south of the Ohio 
River. They joined with the Catawbas and the white people against the Tus- 
caroras in 1712,'' but were members of the great confederation against the 
Carolinians in 1715,^ which we shall consider hereafter. 

The Five Nations and the Cherokees had bloody contests for a long time. 
A reconciliation was finally eflfected by the English about the year 1750, and 
the Cherokees became the allies of the peace-makers, against the French. 
They assisted in the capture of Fort Du Quesne in 1758,^ but their irregular- 
ities, on their return along the border settlements of Virginia, gave the white 
people an apparent excuse for killing two or three warriors. Hatred was en- 
gendered, and the Cherokees soon afterward retaliated by spreading destruction 

1 Page 170. 2 Page 204. 

' In 1822, a Catawba warrior made an eloquent appeal to the legislature of South Carolina for 
aid. "I pursued the deer for subsistence," he said, "but the deer are disappearing, and I must 
starve. God ordained me for the forests, and my ambition is the shade. But the strength of my 
arm decays, and my feet foil me in the chase. The hand that fought for your liberties is now open 
to you for rehef" A pension was granted. 

< Page 25. s Page 204. « Page 19. 

' Page 16S. 8 Page 170. ' Page 186. 



•28 THE ABORIGINALS 

■along the frontiers." Hostilities continued a greater portion of three years, 
when peace was established in 1761, and no more trouble ensued. 

During the Revolution the Cherokees adhered to the British ; and for eight 
yeai-s afterward they continued to annoy the people of the upper country of the 
Carolinas. They were reconciled by treaty in 1791. They were friends of the 
United States in 1812, and iissisted in the subjugation of the Creeks.* Civili- 
zation was rapidly elevating them from the condition of roving savages, to agri- 
culturists and artisans, when their removal west of the Mississippi was required. 
They had established schools, a printing press, and other means for improve- 
ment and culture, when they were compelled to leave their farms for a new 
home iu tlie wilderness.^ They are in a fertile country, watered by the 
Arkansas and its tributaries, and now [1883] number about fourteen thousand 
souls. They were in a prosperous condition wlien the late Civil War began.' 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE UCHEES. 



In the pleasant country extending from the Savannah River, at Augusta, 
westward to Milledgeville, and along the banks of the Oconee and the head 
■waters of the Ogeechee and Chattahooche, the Europeans found a remnant of 
the once powerful nation of tlie Uchees. Their language was exceedingly 
harsh, and totally unlike that of any other people on the continent. They 
claimed to be descendants of the most ancient inhabitants of the country, and 
took great pride in the fact ; and they had no tradition of their ever occupy- 
ing any other territory than the domain on which they were found. They, 
too, have been driven beyond the Mississippi by the pressure of civilization, 
and have become partially absorbed by the Creeks, with whom less than 
800 souls yet [1883] remain. They are, in fact, an extinct nation, and 
their language is almost forgotten. 



> Page 204. ' Page 428. 

3 A native Cherokee, named by the white people, Georpro Guess (Sequoyah), who was ignorant 
of every language but his own, seeing books in the missionary schools, and being told that the 
characters represented the words of the spoken English language, conceived the idea of forming a 
written language for his people. He first made a separate character for each word, but this made 
the whole matter too voluminoiis, and he formed a syllabic alphabet of eighty-Bve characters. It 
was soon ascertained that this was sufficient, even for the copious language of the Cherokecs, and 
this syllabic alphabet was soon adopted, in the preparation of books for the missionary schools. In 
182G,"a new-spaper, called the Cherokee Phoenix, printed m the new characters, was established. 
Many of the native Cherokees are now well educated, but the great body of the natives are in ig- 
norance. 

* Note 4. page 32. 



THE MOBILIAN TRIBES. 29 

CHAPTER YII. 

THE NATCHEZ. 

Op this once considerable nation, who inhabited the borders of the Missis- 
sippi, where a modern city now perpetuates their name, veiy little is known. 
When first discovered by the French, they occupied a territory about as large 
as that inhabited by the Uchees. It extended north-easterly from the Missis- 
sippi along the valley of the Pearl River, to the upper waters of the Chickasa- 
haw. For a long time they were supposed to belong to the nation of Mobilian 
tribes, by whom they were surrounded, but their language pi'oved them to be a 
distinct people. They were sun-worshippers; and from this circumstance, 
some had supposed that they had once been in intimate communication with 
the adorers of the great luminary in Central and South America, in many 
things they were much superior to their neighbors, and displayed signs of the 
refinement of a former more civiUzed condition. They became jealous of the 
French on their first appearance upon the Mississippi, and finally they con- 
spired, with others, to drive the intruders from the country. The French fell 
upon, and almost annihilated the nation, in 1730. They never recovered from 
the shock, and after maintaining a feeble nationaUty for almost a century, they 
have become merged into the Creek confederacy. They now [1S8.3] number 
less than three hundred souls, and their language, in its purity, is unknown. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE MOBILIAN TRIBES. 

Like the Algonquins and Iroquois nations, the Mobilian was composed of 
a great number of tribes, speaking different dialects of the same language. 
Their territory was next in extent to that of the Algonquins.' It stretched 
along the Gulf of Mexico, from the Atlantic to the Mississippi, more than six 
hundred miles ; up the Mississippi as far as the mouth of the Ohio ; and along 
the Atlantic to Cape Fear. It comprised a greater portion of the present State 
of Georgia, the whole of Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi, and parts of South 
Carolina, Tennessee, and Kentucky. The nation was divided into three grand 
confederacies of tribes, namely, Muscogees or Creeks Choctaws, and Chick- 
asaws. 

" Page 17. 




30 THE ABORIGINALS. 

The Creek Confederacy extended from the 
Atlantic westward to the high lands which sep- 
arate the waters of the Alabama and Tombigbee 
Rivers, including a great portion of the States of 
Alabama and Georgia, and the whole of Florida. 
Oglethorpes first interviews' with the natives at 
Savannah, were with people of this confederacy. 

SODTHERN INDIAN& ml_ ir c-. i ^ /-, • i 

Ihe xamassees, or bavannahs of Georgia and 
South Carolina, and the Seminoles of Florida, were of the Creek confederacy. 
The latter were strong and warlike. They were at the head of the Indian 
confederacy, to destroy the white people, in 1715.'^ When the general dis- 
persion followed that abortive attempt, the Yamassees took refuge with the 
Spaniards of Florida. Small bands often annoyed the white frontier settle- 
ments of Georgia, but they were not engaged in general hostilities until the 
Revolution, when the whole Creek confederacy^ took part with the British. 

The most inveterate and treacherous enemy of the white people, have ever 
been the Seminoles. Bands of them often went out upon the war-path, with 
the Yamassees, to slay the pale-faces. They joined the British in 1812-14; 
and in 1817 they renewed hostilities.* They were subdued by General Jack- 
son, and afterward remained comparatively quiet until 1835, when they agam 
attacked the white settlements.^ They were subjugated in 1842, after many 
lives and much treasure had been sacrificed." A few of them yet [1883] 
remain in the ev^erglades of Florida, but a greater portion of the tribe have 
gone west of the Mississijipi, with the other iia-nibers of the Creek confederacy. 
The Creeks proper now [1883] number about fifteen thousand souls. The 
number of the whole confederacy is about twenty-four thousand. They 
occupy lands upon the Arkansas and its tributaries, and are among the most 
jieaceable and oider-loving of the banished tribes. 

Ill the beautiful country bordering upon the Gulf of Mexico, and extending 
west of tlie Creeks to the Mississippi, lived tlie Chootaws. They were an agri- 
cultural people when the Europeans discovered theui ; and, attached to lionie 
and quiet pursuits, they have ever been a peaceful people. Their wars have 
always been on tlie defensive, and they never liad public feuds with eillier their 
Spanisli, French, or English neighbors. They, too, have been compelled tc 
abandon their native country for the uncultivated wilderness west of Arkausab, 
between the Arkansas and Red Rivers. They now [1883] number about thirteen 
thousand souls. Thoy retnin their peaceable character in their new homes. 

The Chickasaw tribe inhabited the country along the Mississippi, from the 
borders of the Choctaw domain to the Ohio River, and eastward beyond the Ten- 
nessee to the lands of the Cherokees' and Shawnees.'' This warlike people were 
the early friends of the English, and the most inveterate foes of the French, 

'Page 102. s Page 170. 

' ThU confederacy now [1883] consists of the Creeks proper, Seminoles, Natchez, Hichittiea, 
and Alabamas. The Creeks, like many other tritjes, claim to be the Original People. 

* Page 448. ' Page 466. ' Page 468. ' Page 27. ^ Page 19. 



THE DAHCOTAH OR SIOUX TRIBES. 31 

■who had twice [1736-17-10] invaded their country. They adhered to the 
British during the Revolution, but since that time they have held friendly rela- 
tions with the Government of the United States. The remnant, about four 
thousand in number, are upon lands almost a hundred leagues westward of the 
Mississippi. 

Thus, with almost chronological brevity, we have given an outline sketch 
of the history of the Aboriginal nations with whom the first European settlers 
in the United States became acquainted. They have now no legal habitation 
eastward of the Mississippi ; and the fragments of those powerful tribes who 
once claimed sovereignty over twenty-four degrees of longitude and twenty 
degrees of latitude, are now [1883] compressed within a quadrangle of about 
nine degrees, between the Red and Missouri Rivers.' Whether the grave of 
the last of those great tribes shall be within their present domain, or in some 
valley among the crags of the Rocky Mountains, expediency will hereafter 
determine. 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE DAHCOTAH OR SIOUX TRIBES. 

The French were the earliest explorers of the regions of the Middle and 
Upper Mississippi, and they found a great number of tribes west of that river 
who spoke dialects of the same language. They occupied the vast domain from 
the Arkansas on the south, to the western tributary of Lake Winnipeg on the 
north, and westward to the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains. These 
have been classed into four grand divisions, namely, the Winnebagoes, who 
inhabited the country between Lake Michigan and the Mississippi, among the 
Algonquins f the Assinniboins and Sioux proper, the most northerly nation ; 
the Minetaree Group in the Minnesota Territory, and the Southern Sioux, 
who dwelt in the country between the Arkansas and Platte Rivers, and whose 
hunting-ground extended to the Rocky Mountains. 

The most uneasy of these tribes were the Winnebagoes, who often attacked 
the Sioux west of the Mississippi. They generally lived on friendly terms 
with the Algonquins, after their martial spirit was somewhat subdued by the 
Illinois, who, in 1640, almost exterminated them. They were enemies to the 

' Mr. Bancroft [IT., 253] after consulting the most reliable authorities on the subject, makes the 
following estimate of the entire Aboriginal population in 1650 Algonquins, 90,000; Eastern 
Sioux, less than 3,000; Iroquois, including their southern kindred, about 17,000; Catawbas, 3,000, 
Cherokees (now more numerous than ever), 12,000; Mobihan tribes, 50,000; Uchees, 1,000; 
Natchez, 4,000— in all, 180,000. These were the only nations and tribes then known. With the 
expan.sion of our territory westward and southward, we have embraced numerous Indian nations, 
some of them quite populous, until the number of tlie estimate above givea has been almost 
doubled, according to the late census. 
^ Page n 



82 THE ABORIGINALS 

United States during the second war with Great Britain," and they confeder- 
ated with the Sues and Foxes in hostilities against the wliite people, under 
Black Hawk, in 1832.^ The tribe, now [1881] less than four thousaud strong, 
are seated upon the Mississippi, about eighty miles above St. Paul, the capital 
of Minnesota. Fear of the white peojjle k('eps them (juiet. 

In the cold, wet country of the North, the Assiniboins yet inhabit their na- 
tive land. Having separated from the nation, they are called " rebels." Their 
neighbors, the Siou.x proper, were first visited by the French in 1G60, and 
have ever been regarded as the most fierce and warlike people on the continent. 
They also occupy their ancient domain, and are now [1883] about fifteen 
thousand strong. 

Further westward are the Minetarees, Mandans, and Crows, who form the 
MiNETAREE Group. They are classed with the Dahcotahs or Sioux, although 
the languages have only a slight affinity. The Minetarees and Mandans num- 
ber about three thousand souls each. They cultivate the soil, and live in vil- 
lages. The Crows number about fifteen hundred, and are wanderers and 
hunters. The Mandans are very light-colored. Some suppose them to be 
descendants of a colony from Wales, who, it is believed, came to America 
under Madoc, the son of a Welsh prince, in the twelfth century.' 

There are eight in number of the Southern Sioux tribes, namely, the 
Arkansas, Osages, Kansas, lowas, IMissouries, Otoes, Omahas, and Puncahs. 
They are cultivators and hunters. They live in villages a part of the year, 
and are abroad upon their hunting-grounds during the remainder. Of these 
tribes, the Osages are the most warlike and powerful. All of the Southern 
Sioux tribes are upon lands watered by the Missom-i and the Platte, and their 
tributaries. 



CHAPTER X. 

THE EXTREME WESTERN TRIBES. 

Within a few years, our domain has been widely expanded, and in our 
newly-acquired possessions on the borders of Mexico and the Pacific coast, and 
the recently organized Territories in the interior of the continent, are numer- 
ous powerful and warlike tribes,^ of whom little is known, and whose history 

' Page 260. s Page 287. 

' It is .said that Madoc, son of Prince Owen Gwicrnedd, sailed from Wales, ^vith ten ships and- 
three hundred men, at about the year 1170, on an e.xplorint; voyasre, and never returned. Many 
learned conjectures have been expressed, .and among them the belief that the expedition reached 
the American continent, and became the progenitors of the Mandans, or White Indians, of our 
western plains, 

* The whole number of Indians within the present limits of the United States, in 1881, accord- 
hig to otficial estimates, was a little lees than 300,000. There are about 1 5.000 in the t^tates east- 
ward of the Mississippi, principally in New York, Michigan, and Wisconsin: the remainder, consi.st- 
iug of Cherokees, Choclaws. and Seniiuoles, being in North Uaroliiia. Mississippi, and Florida. The- 



THE EXTREME WESTERN TRIBES. 33 

has no connection with that of the people of the United States, except the fact 
that thej were original occupants of the soil, and that some of them, especially 
the California and Oregon Indians, yet [1883] dispute our right to sovereignty. 
Of these, the Comanches and Apaches of California are the most warhke. The 
Pawnees upon the Great Plains toward the Rocky Mountains are very numer- 
ous, but not so warlike ; and the Utahs, among the Wasatch and neighboring 
ranges, are strong in numbers. Further northward and westward are the 
Blackfeet, Crow, Snake, Nezperces, and Flathead Indians, and smaller clans, 
with petty chiefs, whose domains stretch away toward the Knisteneaux and 
Esquimaux on the extreme north. 

These tribes are rapidly fading in the light of modern civilization, and are 
destined to total annihilation. The scythe of human progress is steadily cut- 
ting its swathes over all their lands ; and the time is not far distant when the 
foot-prints of the Indians will be no more known within the domain of our Re- 
public. In future years, the dusky son of an exile, coming from the far-off 
borders of the Slave Lake, will be gazed at in the streets of a city at the mouth 
of the Yellow Stone, with as much wonder as the Oneida woman, with her blue 
cloth blanket and bead-work merchandize is now [1883] in the city of New 
York. So the Aboriginals of our laud are passing away, and even now they 
may chant in sorrow : 

" We, the rightfial lords of yore, 
Are the rightM lords no more; 
Like the silver mist, we fail, 
Like the red leaves on the gale — 
Fail, like shadows, when the dawning 
Waves the bright flag of the morning." 

J. McLellan, Je. 

" I will weep for a season, in bitterness fed. 
For my kindred are gone to the hUJs of the dead ; 
But they died not of hunger, or hngering decay — 
The hand of the white man hath swept them away." 

Henrt Eowe Schoolcraft. 



number in Minnesota and along the frontiers of the Western States and Texas (most of them emi- 
grants from the country eastward of the ilississippi), is estimated at 80,000. Those on the Plains 
and among the Rocky Mountains, not within any organized Territory, at 50,000; in Texas, at 
•J.),000; in New Mexico, at 30,000; in California, at 78,000; in Utah, at 10,000; in Oregon and 
Washington Territories, at 20,000; — total, 308,000. For more minute accounts of the' Indians, 
see Heckewelder's "History of the Indian Nations:" Schoolcraft's "Algic Researches;" 
M'Kinney's "History of the Indian Tribes;" Drake's "Book of the Indians;" CatUn's "Letters 
and Notes;" Schoolcraft's "Notes on the Iroquois." 

To the Department of the Interior of the National Government is intrusted the administration 
of Indian affairs. At this time [1883] the stocks and bonds held by the Department in trust for 
the Indians, from the income of which annuities are paid to them, amount to more than three 
millions of dollars. „ 




AMb:Kllill \ Hsl'L L'CI. 



SECOND PERIOD. 
DISCOVERIES. 

CHAPTER I. 

SCANDINAVIAN VOYAGES AND DISCOVERIES- 

One of the most iiiterestiiii:; of the un- 
solved problems of history, is that which re- 
lates to the allej;ed iliscovery of America hy marinei"s of nortli- 
ern Europe, almost five huudreil years before Columbus letl 
Palos, in Spain, to accomplish that great event. The tales and 
poetry of Iceland abound with intimations of sueh discoveries ; 
and records of early voyages from Iceland to a continent south- 
westwai-d of Greenland, have been found. These, and the re- 
sults of recent investigations, appear to prove, by the strongest 
circumstantial evidence, that the New England' coast was vis- 
ited, and that settlements thereon were attempted by Scandi- 
nanan navigjitors,'- almost five centuries before the great Genoese 
imdertook his first voyage in quest of a western passage to 
India. 

' The States of our Union eastward of New York are collectively called New England. P. 7-4. 
' The ancients called the territory wliioh conuiiiis modern Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Lapland^ 
Iceland, Finland, etc, by tlio generiil uamo of Scaudinaria, 




SCANDINAVIAN VOYAGES AND DISCOVERIES. 



35 



The navigators of northern Europe were remarkable for their boldness and 
perseverance. They discovered Iceland in the year 860, and colonized it. 
In 890 they colonized Greenland, and planted colonies there also. There was 
traffic, friendly and lucrative, between the colonists of Iceland and Greenland, 
and the parent Norwegians and Danes, as early as the year 950, and no mar- 
iners were so adventurous as these Northmen. In 
the year 1002, according to an Icelandic chronicle, a 
Norwegian vessel, commanded by Captain Lief, sailed 
from Iceland for Greenland. A gale drove the voy- 
agers to the coast of Labrador. They explored the 
shores southward to the region of a genial climate, 
where they found noble forests and abundance of 
grapes. This, it is supposed, was the vicinity of 
Boston. Other voyages to the new-found land were 
afterward made by the adventurous Scandinavians, and they appear to have 




NORMAN SHIP. 



-perhaps 



far south as 



extended their explorations as far as Rhode Island- 
Cape May. 

It is further asserted that settlements in that pleas- 
ant climate were attempted, and that the child of a Scan- 
dinavian mother was born upon the shore of Mount Hope 
Bay, in Rhode Island.' In the absence of actual charts 
and maps, to fix these localities of latitude and longitude, 
of course they must be subjects of conjecture only, for 
these explorers left no traces of their presence here, un- 
less it shall be conceded that the round tower at New- 
port,'- about the origin of which history and tradition are 
silent, was built by the Northmen. 

The period of this alleged discovery was that of the dark ages, when ig- 
norance brooded over Europe, like thick night. Information of these voyages 
seems not to have spread, and no records of intercourse with a western conti- 
nent later than 1120, have been found. The great discovery, if made, was for- 
gotten, or remembered only in dim traditionary tiles of the exploits of the old 
" Sea-Kings" '^ of the North. For centuries afterward, America was an un- 




TOWER AT NEWPORT. 



' The old chronicle referred to says that Gudrida, wife of a Scandinavian navigator, gave birth 
to a child in America, to whom she gave tlie name of Snorre ; and it is further asserted that Ber- 
tel Thorwalsden, the great Danish sculptor, was a descendant of this early wliite Americau. The 
records of these voyages were compiled by Bishop Thorlack, of Iceland, who was also a descendant 

I of Snorre. 

' 2 Tliis structure is of unhewn stone, laid in mortar made of the gravel of the soil around, and 
oyster-shell lime. It is a cylinder resting upon eiglit round columns, twenty-three feet in diameter, 
and twenty-four feet in height It was originally covered with stucco. It seems to have stood 
there when the white people first visited Rhode" Island, and the Narraganset Indians, it is as- 
serted, had no tradition of its origin. There can be Httle doubt, all things considered, of its haring 
been constructed by those northern navigators, who made attempts at settlement in that vicinity. 

3 This name was given to bold adventurers of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, who rebelled 
iigainst Gorm the Old of Norway, and Harold Fairhair of Denmark, their conquerors, forsook their 
country, settled upon the islands of the North Sea, and Greenland, and from thence went forth 
Mpon piratical expeditions, even as far south as the ple-isant coasts of France. They trafficked, a." 
well as plundered; and finally sweeping over Denmark and Germany, obtained possession of sonw 



36 DISCOVERIKS. [1492. 

known region. It had no place upon maps, unle.ss as an imaginary island 
without a name, nor in the nio.st at-ute geojirapliical theorie.s of the learned. 
When Columbus coneeived the grand idea ot" reaching Asia by sailing westward, 
no whisper of those Scandinavian voyages was heard in Europe. 



CHAPTER IT. 

SPANISH VOYAGES AND DISCOVERIES. 

The first half of the fifteenth century was distinguished for great commer- 
cial activity. Sluggish Europe was just awaking from its slumber of centuries, 
and maritime discoveries were prosecuted with untiring zeal by the people 
inhabiting the great south-western peninsula covered by Spain, Portugal, and 
France. The incentives to make these discoveries grew out of the political 
condition of Europe, and the promises of great commercial advantages. The 
rich commerce of the East centered in Rome, when that empire overshad- 
owed the known world. When it fell into fragments, the Italian cities con- 
tinued their monopoly of the rich trade of the Indies. Provinces which had 
arisen into independent kingdoms, became jealous of these cities, so rapidly 
outstripping them in power and opulence ; and Castile and Portugal, in par- 
ticular, eni^iiged in efforts to open a direct trade with the East. The ocean was 
the only highway for such commerce, toward which the rivals could look with 
a hope of success. The errors of geographical science interposed great obsta- 
cles. Popular belief pictured an impassable region of fire beyond Cape Baja- 
dor, on the coast of Africa; but ))old navigators, under the auspices of Prince 
Henry of Portugal, soon penetrated that dreaded latitude, crossed the torrid 
zone, and, going around the southern extremity of Africa, opened a pathway 
to the East, through the Indian Ocean. 

The Portuguese court at Lisbon soon became a 
point of great attraction to the learned and advini- 
turous. Among others came Christopher Columbus, 
the son of a wool-carder of Genoa, a mariner of 
great experience and considerable repute, and tiien 
in the prime of life, In person he was tall and 
commanding, and, in manners, exceedingly winning 
and graceful, for one unaccustomed to the polish of 
courts, or the higher orders in society. The rudi- 
ments of geometry, which he had learned in the 




of the best portions of Gaul. They flnnlly invaded the Britisli Islands, and placed Canute upon 
the throne of Alfred. It was anioiij; tlieso people that cliivalry, as an institution, originated ; and 
back to those " Sea- Kings" wo may look for tlie hardiest elements of progress among the people 
of tlio United States. 



1609.] SPANISH VOYAGES AND DISCOVERIES. 37 

university of Pavia, had been for years working out a magnificent theory in 
his mind, and lie came to Lisbon to seek an opportunity to test its truth. 

Fortune appeared to smile beneficently upon Columbus, during his early 
residence in Lisbon. He soon loved and married the daughter of Palestrello, 
a deceased navigator of eminence, and he became possessed of nautical papers 
of great value. They poured new light upon his mind. His convictions 
i-especting the rotundity of the earth, and the necessity of a continent in the 
Atlantic Ocean, to balance the land in the eastern hemisphere ; or at least a 
nearer approach of eastern Asia to the shores of western Europe, than geo- 
graphical science had yet revealed, assumed the character of demonstrated 
realities. He was disposed to credit the narratives of Plato and other ancient 
writers, respecting the existence of a continent beyond the glorious, but long- 
lost, island of Atlantis, in the waste of waters westward of Europe. He was 
convmced that Asia could be reached much sooner by sailing westward, than 
by going around the Cape of Good Hope.' He based his whole theory upon 
the fundamental belief that the earth was a terraqueous globe, which might be 
traveled round from east to west, and that men stood foot to foot at opposite 
points. This, it should be remembered, was seventy years before Copernicus 
announced his theory of the form and motion of the planets [lo-tS], and one 
hundred and sixty years [1633J before Galileo was compelled, befoi'e the 
court of the Inquisition at Rome, to renounce his belief in the diurnal revolu- 
tion of the earth. 

A deep religious sentiment imbued the whole being of Columbus, and he 
became strongly impressed with the idea that there were people beyond the 
waste of waters westward, unto whom he was commissioned by heaven to 
carry the Gospel." With the lofty aspirations which his theory and his faith 
gave him, he prosecuted his plans with great ardor. He made a voyage to 
Iceland, and sailed a hundred leagues beyond, to the ice-fields of the polar cir- 
cle. He probably heard, there, vague traditions of early voyages to a western 
continent,'' which gave strength to his own convictions ; and on his return, he 
laid his plans first before his countrymen, the Genoese (who rejected them), 
and then before the monarchs of England' and Portugal. 

The Portuguese monarch appeared to comprehend the grand idea of Colum- 
bus, but it was too lofty for the conceptions of his council and the pedantic 
wise men of Lisbon. For a long time Columbus was annoyed by delays on the 
part of those to whose judgment the king deferred ; and attempts were meanly 
and clandestinely made to get from Columbus the information which he pos- 
sessed. While awaiting a decision, his wife died. The last link that bound 
him to Portugal was broken, and, taking his little son Diego by the hand, he 

' Tliis point was first discovered by Diaz, a Portuguese navigator, who named it Stormy Cape. 
But King Jolin, believing it to be that remote extremity of Africa so long sought, named it Cape 
of Good Hope. Vasco de Gama passed it in 1497, and made his way to the East Indies beyond. 

'^ His name was suggestive of a mission. Christo or Christ, and Colombo, a pigeon — carrier- 
pigeon. By this combination of significant words in his name, he believed himself to be a Christ, 
or Gi'spel-bearer, to the heathen, and he often signed his name Christo-ferens, or Christ-bearer, 

J Page 34. < Page 46 



IHSCOVKIUKS. 



[ 1 102. 



departed on foot to l:iy liis ])i()|iositioii iH-forc Ferdiiiaiul and Isabella.' the 
nionarchs of Spain — occupants of the united thrones of Arragon and Castile. 

Very poor, and greatly di.spirite<l, ('olunil)us arrived at the gate of the 
monastery of l{al)i(la, near the little port from uiience lie afterward sailed, and 
begged food and shelter for himself and ehild. The good Father Marehena 
received him kindly, entered warmly into his plans, and was of essential service 
to him afterward. Tlirough him Columl)us obtained access to the court: but 
the war witii the Moors, then raging, delayed an opportunity for an audience 
with the nionarchs for a long time. Yet he was not idle. lie cm])!oyed him- 
self in tlie allernate pursuits of science, and engagements in some of tiie military 
campaigns, lie was continually treated with great deference by the court and 
nobility, and at length his importunities were heeded. A council of the learned 
men of the nation was convened at Salamanca, to consider his plans and propo- 
sitions.^ The majority pronounced his scheme vain and impracticable, and 
unworthy of the support of the government. But a minority of the council, 
wiser than the rest, did not acquiesce in this decision, and, with Cardinal j\len- 
doza and other officei"s of government, they encouraged the navigator by prom- 
ises of their continual support. 15ut he became disgusted by procrastination, 
and abandoning the hope of royal aid, he applied to two wealthy dukes for 
assistjince. They refused, and he left with a determination to lay his plans before 



the King of France. 




Columbus had been encouraged by Father Mar- 
ehena (who had been Isabella's confessor),' and through 
his intercession, the navigator was recalled before he 
had entered France. lie sought and obtained a per- 
sonal interview with the ([ueen. To her he revealed 
all his plans ; told her of the immense treasures that 
lay hidden in that far distant India' which might be 
easily reached by a shorter way, and pleaded eloquently 
for aid in his ])ious design of carrying the Gospel to the 
heathen of unknown lands. Tiie last appeal aroused 
the religious zeal of Isabella, and with the spirit of the 
Crusaders,' she dismissed Columbus with the assuranci 



' I.sabella was a sister of Uio prollisato Ilonry tlio Fourth of Castile ami Loon. Slie was a pious, 
virtuous, ami liigh-iniudcd woman, tlion almost a plicnomoiion in vamts. She was of middle size, 
and well formiMJ, with a fair complexion, auliurn hair, and olonr, blue eye.s. 

2 See the picture at the head of this chapter. The Council was composed of the professors of 
tlio university, various dignitaries of Iho Church, and learned friars. They were nearly .ill preju- 
diced against the poor navigator, and ho soon discovorod that ignorance and bigotry would defeat 
bis purposes. . . , . 

3 All Roman Catholics are obliged to confess their sins to a priest Rich and titled persons 
often had a priest confes.sor for themselves and their families exclusively. 

• Marco Polo ami other travelers had related wonderful stories of the beauty and wealth 
of a country beyond the limits of ),'eojrraphieal knowledge, and hiul thus inllamed the avarice ;iiid 
ambition oi'the rich and powerful. The country wius called Xipamji, and also CaUiaij. It included 
China ami adjacent islands. 

5 .\bout Tint years ago, the Christian powers of Europe fitted out expeditions to conquer 
Palestine, witli the avowed object of rescuing the sepuleher of .Tesu.s at Jerusalem, from the hands 
of the Turks. These were ojiUed crvaades—hohj wars. The lives of two millions of people wero 
lost in them. 



1609.] SPANISH VOYAGES AND DISCOVERIES. 39 

that he should have her aid in fitting out an e.xploring expedition, even if it should 
require the pawning of her crown jewels to obtain the money. And Isabella was 
faithful to her promise. She fitted out two cai-avels (light coasting ships), and 
Columbus, by the aid of friends, equipped a third and larger one. With this little 
fleet, bearing one hundred and twenty persons, he left Palos, on the Tinto River, 
in Andalusia, on Friday, the 3d of August, 1492, to explore the stormy Atlantic' 

Columbus started on that perilous voyage without a reliable chart for his 
guidance, and no director in his course but the sun and stars, and the imperfect 
mariner's compass, then used only by a few in navigating the pleasant seas of 
the Old World. After various delays at the Canary Islands, they left them in 
the dim distance behind, on Sunday, the 9th of September. The broad At- 
lantic, mysterious and unknown, was before them. A voyage of great trial for 
the navigator was now fairly entered upon. His theory taught him to believe 
that he would reach Asia in the course of a few days. But weeks wore away • 
the needle^ became unfaithful ; alarm and discontent prevailed, and several 
times his followers were on the point of compelling him to turn back. 

One pleasant evening (the 11th of October), the perfumes of flowers came 
upon the night breeze, as tokens of approach to land. Tlie vesper hymn to the 
Virgin was sung, and Columbus, after recounting the blessings of God thus far 
manifested in the voyage, assured the crews that he confidently expected to see 
land in the morning. Yet they hesitated to believe, for twice before they had 
been mocked by other indications of land 
being near.^ On the high poop of his 
vessel the great navigator sat watching 
until midnight, when he saw the glim- 
mer of moving lights upon the verge of 
the horizon. He called others to con- 
firm his vision, for he was fearful of 
mistake. They, too, perceived blazing 
torches, and at dawn the next morning 
their delighted eyes saw green forests ^„^ „^^.„ „„ „„,„,.„™ 

O •' » THE FLEET OF COLUMBUS. 

Stretching along the horizon ; and as 

they approached, they were greeted by the songs of birds and the murmur of 

human voices. 




' Columbus was appointed high-admiral of all seas which he might discover, witli the attendant 
honors. Also viceroy of all lands discovered. He was to liavo one-tenth of all protits of tlie first 
Toyage, and by contributing an eighth of the expense of future voyages, was to have an eighth of 
all the profits. Althougli Isabella paid the whole expense, the contract was signed, also, by her 
husband. 

2 Needle, or pointer, of the mariner's compass. This instrument was first known in Europe, at 
Amalti, about 1302. The Chinese claim to have possessed a knowledge of it more than 1 100 years 
before the birth of Christ. The needle was supposed to point toward the nortli star at all times. 
There is a continual variation from this line, now easily calculated, but unknown until discovered 
by Columbus. It perplexed, but did not dismay him. 

3 They had seen bhds, but they proved to be the petrel, an ocean fowl. Bits of wood and sea- 
weeds had also been seen. These had undoubtedly been seen on the outer verge of the Gulf 
Stream, north-east of the Bahamas, where, according to Lieutenant Maury [Physical Geography of 
the Sea], there may always be found a drift of sea-weed, and sometimes "objects that have floated 
from the land. 



40 



DISCOVERIES. 



[1492. 




BANNER OF THE 
EXPEDITION. 



Arrayed in scarlet, and bearing his sword in one hand, 
and the banner of the expedition in the other, Columbus 
landed, witli his followers, and in the midst of the gorgeous 
scenery and the incense of myriads of flowers, they all knelt 
down and ehaunted a hymn of thanksgiving to God. The 
natives had gathered in wonder and awe, in the grove near 
by, regarding the Europeans as children of their great 
deity, the Sun." Little did they comprehend the fatal signif- 
icance to them, of the act of Columbus, when, rising from 
the ground, he displayed the royal standard, drew his sword, 
set up a rude cross upon the sjiot where he landed, and took 
formal possession of the beautiful country in the name of 
Ferdinand and Isabella.' The land first discovered by Colum- 
bus was one of the Bahamas, called by the natives Guana- 
hama, but since named by the English, Cat Island. The 
navigator named it San Salvador (Holy Saviour) ; and believing it to be near 
the coast of further India, he called the natives Indians. This name was after- 
ward applied to all the natives of the adjacent continent,^ and is still retained. 

The triumph of Columbus was now complete. After spending some time 
in examining the island, becoming acquainted with the simple habits of the 
natives, and unsuccessfully searching for "the gold, and pearls, and spices of 
Zipangi,"^ he sailed southward, and discovered several other small islands. He 
finally discovered Cuba and St. Domingo, where he was told of immense gold- 
bearing regions in the interior. Impressed with the belief that he had dis- 
covered the Ophir of the ancients, he returned to Spain, where he arrived iu 
March, 1493. He was received with great honors,' but considerations of State 
policy induced the Spanish government to conceal the imporfcmee of his dis- 
covery from other nations. This policy, and the jealousy which the sudden 
elevation of a foreigner inspired in the Spaniards, deprived him of the honor 
of having the New World called by his name. Americus Yespucius,'' a Flor- 
entine, unfairly won the prize. In company with Ojeda, a companion of Colum- 



' Almost all the natives of the torrid zone of America worshiped the sun as the chief visib'e 
deity. The grc.it temples of the sun in Mexico and I'eru were among the most magniliceut struc- 
tures of the Americans, when Europeans came. 

- It was a common practice then, as now, for the discoverer of new lands to erect some monu- 
ment, and to proclaim the title of his sovereign to the territories so discovered. The banner of the 
expedition, borne on shore by Columbus, was a wliito one, with a greeu cross. Over the initials 
F. and Y. (Ferdinand and Yssabella) were golden nniral crowns. 

' Chapter I, page 9. * Note 4, page 38. 

' Columbus carried back mth him several of the natives, and a variety of the animals, birds, 
and plants of the New World. They excited the greatest astonisliment. His journey frum Palos 
to Barcelona, to meet the sovereigns, was like the march of a king. His reception was slill more 
magnilicent. The throne of the monarch was placed in a public square, and the great of tlie king- 
dom were there to do homage to the navigator. The higlicst honors were bestowed upou Colum- 
bus; and the sovereigns granted him a coat of arms bearing royal devices, and the motto, "To 
Castile and Leon Columbus gave a new world." 

« See the protrait of Yespucius at tlie he.ad of this Chapter. The Italians spell his name Amer- 
igo Vespucci [.\m-e-ree-go Ves-puto-se]. He died while in the .service of the king of Spain, in 
1514. He IkwI made several voyages to South America, and explored the eastern coast as far 
southward as the harbor of Rio Janeiro. 



1609] SPANISH VOYAGES AND DISCOVERIES. 41 

bus during lais first voyage, Americus visited the West Lidies, and discovered 
and explored the eastern coast of South America, north of the Oronoco, in 
1499. In 1504, he published a glowing account of the lands he had visited," 
and that being the first formal announcement to the world of the great discov- 
ery, and as he claimed to have first set foot upon the Continent of the West, 
it was called America, in honor of the Florentine. This claim was not 
founded on truth, for Columbus had anticipated him ; and two years earlier, 
Cabot, in command of an expedition from England, discovered Labrador, New- 
foundland, and portions of the New England coast. 

Columbus made three other voyages to the West Indies,- established settle- 
ments, and in August, 1498, he discovered the contuient at the mouth of the 
Oronoco. This, too, he supposed to be an island near the coast of Asia, and he 
lived and died in ignorance of the real grandeur of his discoveries. Before 
departing on his third voyage, he was appointed Viceroy and High Admiral of 
the New World. During his absence, jealous and unscrupulous men poisoned 
the minds of the king and queen with false statements concerning the ambitious 
designs of Columbus, and he was sent back to Spain in chains. The navigator 
was guilty of serious wrongs, but not against his sovereign. He made slaves 
of the natives, and this offended the conscientious Isabella. But she was soon 
undeceived concerning his alleged political crimes, and he was allowed to depart 
on a fourth voyage. When he returned, the queen was dead, his enemies were 
in power, and he who had shed such luster upon the Spanish name, and added a 
new hemisphere to the Spanish realm, was allowed to sink into the grave in 
obscurity and neglect. He died at Valladolid on the 20th of May, 1506. 
His body was buried in a convent, from whence it was afterward cari-ied to St. 
Domingo, and subsequently to Havana, ni Cuba, where it now remains. 

It was an unlucky hour for the nations of the New World when the eyes of 
Europeans were first opened upon it. The larger islands of the West India 
group were soon colonized by the Spaniards ; and the peaceful, friendly, gen- 
tle, and happy natives, were speedily reduced to slavery. Their Paradise was 
made a Pandemonium for them. Bending beneath the weight of Spanish 
cruelty and wrong, they soon sunk into degradation. The women were com- 
pelled to intermarry with their oppressors, and from this union came many of 
the present race of Creoles, who form the numerical strength of Cuba and other 
West India Islands. 

The wonderful stories of gold-bearing regions, told by the natives, and ex- 
aggerated by the adventurers, inflamed the avarice and cupidity of the Span- 
iards, and exploring voyages from Cuba, St. Domingo, and Porto Rico, were 
undertaken. The eastern coast of Yucatan was discovered in 150G ; and 
in 1510, Vasco Nunez de Balboa, with a colony, settled upon the Isthmus 

' First in a letter to Lorenzo de Medici, and then [1507] in a volume, dedicated to the Duke of 
Lorraine. These publications revealed what the Spanish Government wished to conceal. Note 4, 
page 4,7. 

2 In his second voyage [1493], Columlius took with him several horses, a buU, and some cows. 
These were the first animals of the kind taken from Europe to Araeric:i- 




42 DISCOVERIES. [1192. 

•of Darien. This was the first colony planted on the continent of America. 
Crossing the Isthmus in search of gold in 1513, Balboa saw the Pacific 
Ocean in a southerly direction from the top of a high 
mountain, and he called it the " South Sea." In full 
costume, and bearing tiie Spanish flag, lie entered its 
waters and took po.ssession of the "seas, lands," etc., "of 
the South," in the name of his sovereign. 

In the year 1512 Florida was discovered by Juan Ponce 
de Leon, an old visionary, who iiad been governor of 
Porto Kico. With three siiips he sailed for the Baiiamas 
in search of a fountain which unlettered natives and 
wise men of Spain believed to e.xist there, and who.se 
waters possessed the quality of restoring old age to the 
BALBOA.' bloom of youth, and of making the recipient immortal. 

It was on Easter Sunday,' March 27, 1512, the Pasquas de Fiores^ of the 
Spaniards, when the adventurer approached the shores of tlie great southern 
peninsula of the United States and landed near the site of St. Augustine.* The 
forests and the green banks were laden with flowers ; and when, soon after 
landing. Ponce de Leon took possession of the country in tlie name of his sov- 
ereign, this fact and the holy day were regarded, and he called the beautiful 
domain, Florida. He continued his searches for the Fountain of Youth ail 
along the coast of the newly-discovered country, and among the Tortugas (Tor- 
toise) Islands, a hundred miles from its southern cape, but without success ; 
s,nd he returned to Porto Rico, an older if not a wiser man. He soon afterward 
Trent to Spain, where he remained several years. 

While Ponce de Leon was absent in Europe, some wealthy owners of plant- 
ations and mines in St. Domingo, sent Lucas Vasquez d'Ayllon, one of their 
number, with two vessels, to seize natives of the Bermudas, and bring them 
home for laborers. It was an unholy mission, and Gods displeasure was made 
manifest. A storm drove the voyagers into St. Helen's Sound, on the coast of 
South Carolina, and after much tribulation, they anchored [1520] at the moutii 
of the Combahee River. The natives were kind and generous ; and, judging 
their visitors by their own simple standard of honor, they unsuspectingly went 
upon the ship in crowds, to gratify their curiosity. While below, the hatches 
"Were closed, the sails were immediately spread, and those free children of the 
forest were borne away to work as bond-slai"'s in the mines of St. Domingo. 
But the perpetrators of the outrage did not accomplisli their designs. One of 
the vessels was destroyed by a storm ; and almost every prisoner in the other 
refused to tal<e food, and died. The fruit of this perfidy was a feeling of hos- 
tility to white people, which spread throughout the whole of the Mobilian 
tribes,^ and was a source of much trouble afterward. 



' Tliis little picture gives a correct representation of tliose .irmod Spaniards wlio .attcnipled con- 
quests in the New World. Balboa's fellow-adventurers became jealous of liis fame, and on their 
«ix;usations he wa.>( put to deatli by the Governor of Darien, in 1517. 

' Tlie dav in which i.s commemorated in the (Vnristiau Church tho resurrection of Jesus ChrisL 
• Feast of llowera. * Page 51. ' Cliapter VIII., page 29. 



i6fl9.] SPANISH VOYAGES AND DISCOVERIES. 43 

Ponce de Leon returned to the West Indies soon after D'Ayllon's voyage, 
bearing the commission of Governor of Florida, with instructions to plant settle- 
ments there. In his attempts to do so, the angry natives, who had heard of the 
treachery of the Spaniards, attacked him furiously. He was mortally wounded, 
and almost all of his followers were killed. D' Ayllon was then appointed governor 
of the country which he ha<l discovei-ed and named Chicora. He went thither 
to cont^uer it, and was received with apparent friendship by the natives on the 
banks of the Combahee,' near the spot where his great crime of man-stealing 
had been perpetrated. Many of his men were induced to visit a village in the 
interior, when the natives practiced the lesson of treachery which D' Ayllon had 
taught them, and massacred the whole party. The commander himself was 
attacked upon his own ship, and it was with difficulty that he escaped. He died 
of his wounds at St. Domingo. 

Another important discovery was made in 1517, by Francisco Fernandez 
de Cordova, who commanded an expedition from Cuba : the rich and populous 
domain of Mexico was revealed to the avaricious Spaniards. Cordova's report 
of a people half civilized, and possessing treasures in cities, awakened the keen- 
est cupidity of his countrymen ; and the following year Velasquez, the governoi 
of Cuba, sent another expedition to Me.xico, under Juan de Grijalva. That 
captain returned with much treasure, obtained by trafficking with the Mex- 
icans. The avarice, cupidity, and ambition of Velasquez were powerfully 
aroused, and lie determined to conquer the Mexicans, and possess himself 
of their sources of wealth. An expedition, consisting of eleven vessels, and 
more than six hundred armed men, was placed under the command of Fernando 
Cortez, a brave but treacherous and cruel leader. He landed first at Tobasco, 
and then at San Juan de Ulloa,- near Vera Cruz [April 12, 151'J], where he 
received a friendly deputation from Montezuma, the emperor of the nation.' 
By falsehood and duplicity, Cortez and his armed companions were allowed to 
inarch to Mexico, the capital. By stratagem and boldness, and the aid of 
native tribes who were hostile to the Mexican dynasty, Cortez'' succeeded, after 
many bloody contests during almost two years, in subduing the people. The 
city of Mexico surrendered to him on the 23d of August, 1521, and the vast 
and populous empire of Montezuma became a Spanish province. 

Florida continued to command tlie attention of the Spaniards, in whose 
minds floated magnificent dreams of immense wealth in cities and mines within 
its deep forests ; and seven years after the conquest of Mexico [1528], Pamphilo 

' D'Ayllon named this river, Jordan, for he regarded the country as the new Land of Promise. 

° Pronounced San-wliahn-da-Ooloo-ali. 

' The Mexicans at tliat time were making rapid advances in tlie marcli of civilization. They 
were acquainted with many of tlie useful arts of enlightened nations, and appear to have been as 
far advanced in science, law, religion, and domestic and public social organization, as were the 
Romans at the close of the Republic. 

■• Born at Medellon, in Estramadura, Spain, in 1485. He went to St. Domingo in 1504, and 
in 1511 accompanied Velasquez to Cuba. He committed many horrid crimes in Mexico. Yet he 
had the good fortune, unlike the more noble Columbus, to retain the favor of the Spanish monarch 
until his death. When, on his return to Spain, he urged an audience with the emperor, and waa 
asked who lie was, the bold adventurer replied, " I am the man who has given you more provinces 
than your father left you towns." He died iu Estramadura, in 1554, at the age of 69 years. 



44 DISCOVERIES. [1492. 

de Narvaez having been appointed governor of that region, went from Cuba, 
with three hundred men," to conquer it. Hoping to find ;i weaUhy empire, 
liiie Mexico, lie penetrated tlie univnown interior a.s far as the soutiiern borders 
of Georgia. Instead of cities filled with treasures, he found villages of huts, 
and the monarch of the country living in a wigwam." Disapjiointed, and con- 
tinually annoyed by liostile savages, w ho had heard of the treachery at tlie Com- 
bahee," he turned southward, and reaching the shores of Apallachee Bay, near 
St. Marks, he constructed rude Ijoats and embarked for Cuba. The commander 
and most of his followers perislied ; only four escaped, and these wandered from 
tribe to trilje for several years before reaching a Spanish settlement in Mexico. 
Yet the misfortunes of Narvaez did not suppress the spirit of adventure, and 
Florida (the name then applied to all North America) was still regarded by 
the Spaniards as the new Land of l*romise. All believed that in the vast 
interior were mines as rich, and people as wealthy as those of Me.\ico and Yu- 
catan. Among the most sanguine of the possessors of such 
an opinion, was Ferdinand de Soto, a brave and wealthy 
cavalier, who had gained riches and military honors, with 
Pizarro, in Peru.* He obtained permission of the Spanish 
emperor to conquer Florida at his own expense, and for that 
purpose, was appointed governor of Cuba, and also of Flor- 
ida. With ten vessels and six hundred men, all clad in 
armor, he sailed for the New World early in 1539. Leav-- 
DE SOTO. ing his wife to govern Cuba, he proceeded to Florida, and 

on the 10th of June landed on the shores of Tampa Ba^-. 
He then sent most of his vessels back, and made his way, among hostile sav- 
ages, toward the interior of the fancied land of gold.'^ He wintered on the 
banks of the Flint River, in Georgia, and in the spring crossed the Appal- 
lachian Mountains, and penetrated the beautiful country of the Cherokees." 

This, all things considered, was one of the most remarkable expeditions on 
record. For several months, De Soto and his followers wandered over the hills 
and valleys of Alabama, in vain searches for treasure, fighting tlie fierce Mo- 
bilian tribes,' and becoming continually diminished in number by battle and 
disease. Tliey passed the winter of 1541 on the banks of the Yazoo River, in 
the land of the Chickasaws.' In May of that year, they discovered and crossed 
the Mississii)pi River, probably not far below Memphis ; and there, in the pres- 
ence of almost twenty thousand Indians, De Soto erected a cross made of a 
huge pine tree, and around it imposing religious ceremonies were performed. 

' They took with them about forty horses, the first ever landed upon tlie soil of the present 
United States. 'These all perished by starvation, or the weapons of the Indiana 

2 Page 13. ' Page 42. 

< Pizarro was a follower of Balboa. He discovered Peru m 152-t. and in connection with Al- 
niaRro and Liicquo, he conquered it in 1532. after much bloodshed. He was born, out of wedlock, 
in Estramadura. Spain, m 1475. He could neither read nor write, but seemed eminently fitted for 
the field of effort in which he was enpised. Ho quarreled with Almagro, civil war ensued, and he 
was murdered at Lima, in Peru, in 1541. 

5 De Soto had a largo number of liorses. He also landed some swine. These rapidly increased 
in the forests. They were the first of their species seen in America. 

6 Pago 27. ' Chapter VIII., p. 29. 8 Page 30. 





Srawn byHL Stejlieri 



BIE S®!"® (SM TWE, SIEIOmE (D)]F TTMIS MULSSISSHIPIPH o 



16C9.] ENGLISH AND FRENCH DISCOVERIES.. 45 

To De Soto belongs the honor of first discovering that mighty river of our wide 
continent. After resting two days, the adventurers went up the western shore 
of tiie Mississippi as far as New Madrid. The ensuing summer and winter 
were spent by them in the wilderness watered by the Arkansas and its tributa- 
lies, and in the spring of 1542 they returned to the Mississippi, at the mouth 
of the Wachita, wliere De Soto sickened and died, after appointing his succes- 
sor.' In these painful and perilous journeyings, they had marched full three 
thousand miles. 

The death of their leader was a terrible blow to the followers of Do Soto. 
They were now reduced to half their original number ; and, abandoning all 
hopes of finding gold, or a wealthy people, they sought for Spanish settlements 
in Mexico. For many months they wandered over the prairies, and among the 
tributary streams of the Red River, as far as the land of the Comanches,^ when 
impassable mountain ranges compelled them to retrace their steps to the Mis- 
sissippi. At a little below Natchez they remained until the following July 
fl543J, engaged in constructing several large boats, in which they embarked. 
Reaching the Gulf of Mexico, they crept cautiously along its coast ; and, on the 
20th of September, the little remnant of De Soto's proud army, half naked and 
Starving, arrived at a Spanish settlement near the mouth of the Panuco, thirty 
miles north of Tampico. This was the last attempt of the Spanish cotempo- 
raries of Columbus to explore, or to make settlements within the present terri- 
tory of the United States, previous to the appearance of the English'' in the 
same field. They were impelled by no higher motive than the acquisition of 
gold, and treachery anu violence were the instruments employed to obtain it. 
They were not worthy to possess the magnificent country which they coveted 
only for its supposed wealth in jirecious metals ; and it was reserved for others, 
who came afterward, with loftier aims, better hearts, and stronger hands, to 
cultivate the soil, and to establish an empire founded upon truth and justice. 
The Spaniards did finally become possessors of the southern portion of the Con- 
tinent ; and to this day the curse of moral, religious, and political despotism 
rests upon those regions. 



CHAPTER III. 

ENGLISH AND FRENCH DISCOVERIES. 

With all its zealous vigilance, the Spanish court could not conceal the fact 
that a New World had been discovered,* and over Continental Europe and the 

' De Soto's followers sunk the body of their leader deep in the Mississippi, so that the Indians 
should not find it. 2 Page 33. 

' Page 46. While De Soto was engaged in this expedition, another, no less adventurous, was 
undertaken by Coronada, at the command of Mendoza, Viceroy of Mexico. He took with him, 
fiom the .south-eastern shore of the Gulf of California, three hundred and fifty Spaniards, and eight 
hundred Indians. He penetrated tlie country to the head waters of the Rio del Norte, and onward 
into the great interior desert, as far as the fortieth degree of uorth latitude. It was a perilous, but 
iruitless expedition. « Page 40. 




46 DISCOVERIES. [1492. 

British Isles, were spread the most extravagant tales of gold-bearing regions 
beyond the Atlantic Ocean. By means of a papal bull,' Portugal and Spain 
vainly attempted to secure to thonisolves a monopoly of oceanic navigation. 
But in all maritime countries, cupidity and curiosity urged men to bravo both 
the perils of the sea and the thundei-s of the Vatican, in search of the western 
paradise and the regions of gold. Jlonarchs and wealthy subject.s projected 
new expeditions. Among those whose zeal in the cause of maritime discovery 
was newly awakened, was Henry the Seventh of England, who had turned & 
deaf ear to the appeals of Columbus before his great first voyage.' 

The town of Bristol, in the west of England, was 
then one of the most importmit sea-ports in the realm ; 
and among its adventurous niariners who had pene- 
trated the polar waters, probably a.s far ;is tireenland, 
was Sebastian Cabot, sou of a wealthy Venetian mer- 
chant of Bristol, whose father sought the aid of the 
king in making a voyage of discovery. Willing to 
secure a portion of the prize he luid lost, Henry read- 
ily yieldeil to the solicitations of Cabot, and gave him 
SEBvsTiw c\BOT. '^'"^ ^''^ ^'^'"s ^ counuissiou of discovery, dated March 

10, 1496, which was similar, in some i-espects, to that 
which Columbus had received from Ferdinand and Isabella :' but unlike Jiis 
Spanish cotcmporaries, the English monarch did not bear the expenses of tlie 
voyage. The navigatore were permitted to go, at their own expense, " to search 
for islands or regions inhabited by infidels, and hitherto unknown to Christen- 
dom," and take possession of them in the name of the King of England. They 
were to enjoy the sole right of trading thither — paying to the King, " in lieu 
of all customs and imposts," a fifth of all net profits, and tlie same proportion 
of tlie products of all mines. 

According to recent discoveries made in searching the ancient records of 
England, it a]i]ieai-s to be doubtful whether the elder Calx)t, who was a mer- 
chant and a scientific man, ever voyaged to America. It is certain, however, 
tliat his son, Sebastian, accompanied, and, doubtless, commanded, the fii^st 
expedition, which consisted of two vessels freighted by his father and others of 
Bristol and of London, and which sjiiled from the former port in May, 149S. 
They steered north-westerly until they encountered immense fields of ice west- 
ward of Cape Farewell, when they turnetl to the south-west, and on the 3d of 
July, of that year, discovered the rugged coast of Labrador. Passing Cape 
Charles, they savr Newfoundland ; and. after touching at several points, prob- 
ably as fiir southward as the coast of Maine, they hastened to England to 
announce the fact that tliey had fii-st discovercd a great western continent. 

' This is the name of special edicts issued by tlie Pope of Rome, They are written on parch- 
ment, and have a prcat soal attaoheil, made of wax, lead silver, or s?ild. The name is derived from 
the seal, htdla. On one side, are tlie heads of Teter and Paul and on the other, the name of the Pope 
imd the year of liis pontificate. The seal of the celebrated golden hull of the Emperor Charles IV., 
was made of gold. That bull became the fundamental law of the German Empire, at the Diet of 
Nurembuig, a. d. 1536. « Page 31. ' Note 1, page 39. 



1609.] ENGLISH AND FRENCH PISCOVKRIES. J^ 

The skill and energy of young Cabot secured the confidence of his father 
and friends in his ability to command successfully ; and the following year, 
although he was only twenty-one years of age, he was placed in charge of 
another expedition, fitted out by his family and some Bristol merchants, for the 
purpose of traffic, and of discovering a north-west passage to India, a desire for 
which had now taken hold upon the minds of the commercial world. Ice in the 
polar seas presented an impassable barrier, and he was compelled to go south- 
ward. He explored the coast from the frozen regions of Labrador to the sunny 
land of the Carolinas. Nineteen years afterward [1517] he navigated the 
northern waters, as far as the entrance to Hudson's Bay ; and nine years later 
[1526], while in the service of the monarch of Spain,' he explored the coast of 
Brazil, discovered and named the great Rio de la Plata, and penetrated the 
southern continent, in boats, upon the bosom of that river, almost four hundred 
miles. To the Cabots, father and son, belong the imperishable honor of first 
discovering the coast of the United States, through at least ten degrees of lati- 
tude. Italy may claim the glory of having given birth to the two great discov- 
erers, Columbus and Americus Yespucius, whose name our continent now 
bears : while Seb;xstian Cabot drew his first breath in England. - 

The immense numbers and commercial importance of the cod fishes in th» 
vicinity of Newfoundland, were first discovered and made known by the Cabots ; 
and within five or six years after their first voyages, m;my fishermen went 
thither from England, Brittany, and Normandy, for those treasures of the deep. 
Every French vessel that went to America, was on a com- 
mercial errand only, until 1523, when Francis the first fitted 
out four ships, for the purpose of exploring the coasts of the 
New World. He gave the command to John Verrazani, an 
eminent Florentine navigator. Verrazani sailed in Decem- 
ber, 1523, but a tempest disabled three of his ships, and he 
was compelled to go with only one. He proceeded due west 
from the Madeiras on the 27th of January, 1524, and first 
touched the American Continent, in March following, near verrazani. 

the mouth of the Cape Fear River, in Noi'th Carolina. After 
seeking a good harbor for fifty leagues further south, he sailed northward, and 

' Sebastian Cabot was bom at Bristol, in 1461. He was inrestod witli the honorable title of 
Chief Pilot of both England and Spain : and to him England is indebted for her first maritime con- 
nection with Russia, by the establishment of the Russian Trading Company, of which he was 
appointed governor for life. He published a map of the world, and also an account of his southern 
voyages. He died in 1557, at the age of 90 years. 

2 King John of Portugal, like Hemy of England, had refused to aid Columbus, and lost tho 
great prize. After the return of the navigator, he felt a desire to fit out an expedition for dis- 
coveries in the New 'World, but the Pope having given to Spain the whole region westward, 
beyond an imaginary line three hundred leagues west from the A!zore.s, he dared not interfere with 
tlie Spanish mariners. But when the northern voyages of the Cabots became known, King John 
dispatched an expedition in th.at direction, under Gasper Cortoreal, toward the close of the year 
1500, for the o.stensible purpose of seeking a north-west passage to India. Cortoreal coasted along 
the shores of Labrador several hundred miles, and then freighting his ship with fifty natives whom 
he had caught, he returned to Portugal, and sold his living cargo, for slaves. Finding the adven- 
ture profitable, he sailed for another cargo, but he was never lieard of afterward. Almost sixty 
years later some Portuguese settled in Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, and first imported cattla. 
and swme there. 




48 



DISCOVERIES. 



[U92. 




CARTIERS SHIP. 



cxijloii'il tlie coast from the Carolinas to Newfoundland. He anchored in the 
Bay.s of Delaware and New York,' the harbor of Newport, and probably that 
of ]5ost()ii, ;ui(l held intercourse with the natives, who were sometimes friendly 
and sometimes hostile. A'^errazani gave the name of New France to the vast 
regions within the latitudes of the coasts which he had discovered. But at that 
time tlie French King was too nmch engrossed and impoverished by war with 
the Sjjanish monarch, to pay much attention to the 
important discoveries of Verrazani, or to listen to plans 
for future expeditions. Ten years elapsed before Admi- 
ral Chabon induced Francis to encourage another explor- 
ing enterprise, when a plan for making settlements in 
New France was arranged [1534], and James Cartier, a 
mariner of St. Malo, was appointed to the command of 
an expedition. He reached Newfoundland early in 
June, 1534. After exploring its coasts, 
he passed through the Straits of Belle- 
isle, into the Gulf beyond, planted a 
cross with tlie arms of France upon it, on the shore of Gaspe 
inlet, and took possession of the whole country in the name of 
his king. After discovering the mouth of the great river of 
Canada, he sailed for France, in time to avoid the autumn 
storms on the American coast. 

There was great joy at the French court, in the capital, 
and throughout the whole kingdom, because of the success of 
Cartier. He was commissioned for another voyage ; and in 
May following [1535] he sailed for Newfoundland with three 
ships, accompanied by several young noblemen of France. 
They p:issed the Straits of Belleisle, and entered the Gulf on the day dedicated 
to St. Lawrence ; and, on that account, Cartier gave the name of the mart3^r to 
the broad sheet of water over which they were sailing. They passed up the 
river which afterward received the same name, and mooring their ships at Que- 
bec," proceeded in a pinnace and boats to Hochelaga, where Montreal now 
stands, tlien the capital of the Huron king." The natives were everywhere 
friendly and hospitable. 

The land in all that region was very level, except a high mountain in the 
rear of the Indian town. Cartier ascended to its summit, and was so impressed 
with the glorious view that he called it Mont-Real (royal mountain), which 
name the fine city at its base yet retains. After exchanging presents and 
friendly salutations with the Indians, they returned to Quebec, and passed the 
severe winter on board their ships. In the spring, after setting up a cross, and 




ARMS OF FRANCE. 



' Some authors say that Verrazani landed where the lower extremity of New Tork city is, and 
ifiving the natives some spirituous liquors, made many of them druuk. The Indians called tlio 
place Manna-ha-ta, or "place of drunkenness,'' and they wore ajtcrward called ilanna-ha-hins. 
But this scene of intoxication probably occurred on board the IIa}f-Moon, the oxplorinp ship of 
Hondrick Hudson. See page 59. ' Pronounced Ke-bec. ^ Pago 23. 



1609.] 



ExN^GLISH AND FRENCH DISCOVERIES. 



49 




FRENCH NOIiLEMAN 
IN 1540. 



taking formal possession of the country, they returned to France, having lost 
twenty-five seamen with the scurvy, a disease until then unknown. Their de- 
parture was disgraced by an act of treachery, which planted the seeds of hatred 
of the white people among the natives of the St. Lawrence. Cartier, under 
pretense of friendship, decoyed the hospitable Huron king on board one of his 
vessels and carried him off to Fi'ance. 

The results of this voyage were little else than a series 
of disappointments. Cartier's report of the rigors of the win- 
ter and the barrenness of the land in precious stones and 
metals, was discouraging, and four years elapsed before an- 
other expedition was planned. At length, Francis de la 
Roque, better known as lord of Robertval, in Picardy, ob- 
tained permission of the king to make further discoveries, and 
to plant settlements in New France.' The king invested 
him with the empty title of Viceroy of the whole country. 
Cartier's services being indispensable, he, too, was commis- 
sioned, but for subordinate command. He was ready long 
before Robertval's extensive preparations were completed, 
and being unwilling to bow to the new Viceroy's authority, 
he sailed, with five ships, in June, 1541, some months before the departure of 
his official superior. He had intended to take the Huron king back with him, 
i)Ut the broken-hearted monarch had died in France. It was an unfortunate 
occurrence. The natives received Cartier first with coldness, and then showed 
open hostility. Fearing the Indians, the French built a fort upon the island 
of Orleans, a little below Quebec. There they passed the winter without 
accomplishing any important achievement, and in June following [1542], de- 
parted for France, just as Robertval arrived at Newfoundland, with two hun- 
dred persons. Robertval passed up the St. Lawrence, built two more forts 
near Quebec, endured a winter of great distress,- and, abandoning the idea of 
settlement, returned to France in the spring of 1543. Six years afterward, he 
again sailed for the St. Lawrence, and was never heard of again. The discov- 
eries of Verrazani and Cartier, and also of French fishermen, served as the foimd- 
ation for a claim by France to the northern portion of the American continent. 

France was now convulsed by the conflicts of religious opinions. It waa 
the era of the Reformation there.- The doctrines and the teachings of Calvin 
and others, in opposition to the faith and practice of the Roman Catholic 
Church, had already arrayed great masses of the people in violent hostility to 
each other. The religious war was an absorbing idea, and for fifty years the 
French government made no further attempts at discovery or colonization. 
But private enterprise sought to plant a French settlement in the land discovered 
by D'Ayllon.' The Huguenots, or French Protestants, who maintained the 
faith of early Christianity, were the weaker party in number, and felt the heavy 
heel of oppression. They had a powerful friend in Jasper Coligny, admiral of 
France, but a weak protector in the reigning monarch, Charles the Ninth. 



' Page 48. 



» Note 14, page 62. 



' Page 42. 



50 DISCOVERIES. [1492- 

The fires of persecution were continually burning, and at length Coiigny 
conceived the noble idea of providing a place of refuge for his Protestant 
brethren, beyond the Atlantic. The king granted him a commission for that 
purpose ; and early in 1562 [Feb. 28], a squadron, under John Ribault, 
sailed for America. The little Huguenot fleet touched fir.st near the haxlxir 
of St. Augustine, in Florida.' Sailing northward, they saw the moutli of the 
beautiful St. John's River [May, 1562], and, it being the fifth month of the 
year, tliey named it the "River of May." Making their way along the coast, 
they discovered I'ort Royal entrance, were charmed with the beauty of the 
scene, cho.se the spot for their future home, and built a small fort, which they 
named Carolina, in honor of the king. Leaving a garrison of twenty-six men 
to defend it, Ribault went back to France with the ships, for reinforcements. 
Bitter disappointment ensued. Civil war was raging in France, and Coiigny 
was almost powerless. The reinforcements were not supplied, and the little 
garrison, though treated with hospitality by the Indians, became very discon- 
tented. Despairing of relief, they built a frail vessel, and, with insuflScient 
stores, they emljarked for France. Tempests assailed them, and famine was 
menacing them with death, when they were picked up by an English bark, and 
conveyed to Great Britain. Thus perished the first seeds of religious freedom 
which the storms of persecution bore to the New AVorld. 

The noble Coiigny was not discouraged ; and, during a lull in tlie tempest 
of civil commotion, another expedition was sent to America, under the com- 
mand of Laudoiniiere, who had accompanied Ribault on his first voyage. 
They arrived in July, 1564, pitched their tents on the banks of the St. John's 
River (River of May), and built another Fort Carolina. But there were ele- 
ments of dissolution among these immigrants. Many were idle, vicious, and 
improvident ; and provisions soon became scarce. Under pretext of returning 
to France, to escape famine, quite a large party sailed, in December, in one of 
the vessels. They turned pirates, and depredated extensively upon Spanish 
property in the West Indies. The remainder became discontented, and were 
about to embark for France, when Ribault arrived with immigrants and sup- 
plies, and took command.^ 

Spanish jealousy and bigotry were now aroused, and when the monarcli of 
Spain, the narrow Philip the Second, heard of the settlement of the French 
Protestants within his claimed territory, and of the piracies of some of the 
party, he adopted measures for their expulsion and punishment. Pedro Melen- 
dez, a brave but cruel military chief, was appointed Governor of Florida, on 
condition that he would expel the Frenclimen from the soil, conquer the natives, 
and plant a colony there within three years. That was an enterprise exactly 
suited to the character of Melendez. He came with a strong force, consisting 
of three hundred soldiers furnished by the king, and twenty-two hundrcxl vol- 

' Page 42. 

5 James Le Moyne, a Bkillful painter, was sent with this expedition, with instnictions to make 
colored drawinjra of every object worthy ofprcscrr.ition. His illustrations of the costume and cus- 
toms of the natives are very i»terestmg, because authentic. 



1609.J ENGLISH AND FREXCII DISCOVERIES. 51 

unteers — priests, sailors, mechanics, laborers, ■women, and cliildren. The fleet 
■was scattered by storms, and with only one third of his original number. Me- 
lendez landed in a fine harbor on the coast of Florida. There he laid the 
foundations of a city, which he named St. Augustine [Sept. 17, 1565], and 
formally proclaimed the king of Spain to be monarch of all North America. 
On hearing of the arrival of the Spaniards, a large party of the French, under 
Ribault, proceeded from the St. John's, by water, to attack them. A tempest 
wrecked every vessel ; and most of the survivors, who fell into the hands of the 
Spaniards, were put to death. In the mean while, Melendez made his way 
through the swamps and forests with a strong force, to the defenseless French 
settlement, where he massacred about nine hundred men, ■women, and children, 
and over their dead bodies placed an inscription, avowing that he slew them, not 
" because they were Frenchmen, but Lutherans."" Upon that field of blood 
the monster erected a cross, and laid the foundation of a Christian church to 
commemorate the deed ! • 

Charles the Ninth of France was not only a weak monarch, but an enemy 
to the Huguenots. He therefore took no steps to avenge the outrage, per- 
petrated under the sanction of the bigot of Spain. But one of his subjects, a 
fiery soldier of Gascony, named Dominic de Gourges, obtained permission to 
inflict retribution. He had suffered Spanish bondage and Spanish cruelty, and 
panted for revenge. He fitted out three ships at his own expense, and with one 
hundred and fifty men, sailed for Florida. He attacked the Spaniards upon the 
St. John's, surprised and captured Fort Carolina, which they occupied, made 
two hundi'ed prisoners, and hanging his captives upon the trees almost upon the 
spot where his countrymen had been murdered, he placed over them the inscrip- 
tion — " I do not this as unto Spaniards or mariners, but unto traitors, robbers, 
and murderers." Too ■weak to brave the vengeance of Melendez, who was at St. 
Augustine, De Gourges immediately left the coast, and returned to France. 
The natives were delighted at seeing their common enemies thus destroy- 
ing each other. The Spaniards, however, held possession, and a Spanish 
settlement was ever afterward maintained at St. Augustine, except during a 
few years. 

It was now more than three quarters of a century since Columbus discov- 
ered the West India Islands, and yet no real progress toward a permanent 
European settlement, within the domain of the United States, had been made. 
Although the English seem not to have wholly relinquished the idea of plant- 
ing settlements in America, it was not until the twentieth year of the brilliant 
reign of Queen Elizabeth, and almost eighty years after the discovery of the 
continent by Cabot,- that healthy efforts to found colonies in the New World, 
were made. Sir Martin Frobisher^ (an eminent navigator) and others had 

' The Protestants were often called by the general name of Lulherans, becaiise the later Reform- 
ation was commenced by the bold opposition of Mart in Lutlier to the corrupt practices of the Ronii.<!h 
Church. Note 14, page 62. 2 Page 4G. 

' Bom in Yorkshire, England ; -was trained in the navigator's art ; made several voyages for 
discovery ; and died of wounds received in a naval battle near Brest, on the French coast, in 
1594. 



52 DISCOVKRIES. [1J92. 

uxploied tlic north- estcrn coast uf North America, to the dreary region north 
of Hudson's Bay,' in search of precious metals and a north-west j>assagc to 
India,' but without beneficial results. Newfoundland was visited every year 
by numerous English and French fishing-vessels, and the neighlwring continent 
was frequently touched by the hardy mariners. Yet no feasible plans for col- 
onization were matured. Finally, when the public mind of England was turned 
from the cold regions of Labrador and the fancied mineral wealth in its rujrired 
mountains, to the milder South, and the more solid benefits to be derived from 
plaufatioiis than miii s, a new and brilliant era in the history of civilization 
began. This change was produced incidentally by the Huguenot adventurers.' 
The remnant of Coligny's first colony, who were picked up at sea and taken to 
England, informed the queen of the glory of the climate, and the fertility of 
the soil of Carolina. When De Gourgcs returned from his foray upon the 
Spaniards,^ Walter Raleigh, then a young man of much promise, was learning 
the art of war with Coligny, in France, and he communicated to his friends in 
England that chevalier's account of Florida, which was yet a wilderness free 
for the sons of toil. Enterprise was powerfully aroused by the promises of that 
warm and beautiful land, and tlie Protestant^ feeling of England was strongly 
stirred by the cruelties of Melendez. These dissimilar, but auxiliary causes, 
produced great effects, and soon many minds were employed in planning 
schemes for colonizing the pleasant middle regions of North America. The 
first healthy plan for settlement there was proposed by the learned Sir Humph- 
rey Gilbert, a step-brother of Walter Raleigh. He had served witii honor in 
the wars of Ireland, France, and the Low Countries, and then was not only prac- 
tically engaged in maritime affairs, but had written and published a treatise on 
the north-west passage to India. Having lost money in a vain endeavor to 
transmute baser metals into gold, he resolved to attempt to retrieve his fortune 
by planting a colony in the New World. In June, 1578, he obtained a liberal 
patent or grant from the queen. Raleigh gave him the ai<lof his hand and for- 
tune; and early in 1579, Gilbert sailed for America, with a small squadron, 
accompanied by his step-brother. Heavy storms and Spanish war-vessels com- 
pelled them to return, and the scheme was abandoned for a time. Four years 
afterward [1583] Gilbert sailed with another squadron ; and after a series of 
disasters, he reached the harbor of St. John's, Newfoundland. There he set up 
a pillar with the English arms upon it,° proclaimed the sovereignty of his 
queen, and then proceeded to explore the coast southward. After being ter- 
ribly Ijeaten by temjiests off the shores of Nova Scotia and Maine, and losing 
his largest ship, he turned his vessel toward England. At midnight, in Sep- 
tember, during a gale, his own little bark of ten tons went down, with all on 
board, and only one vessel of the expedition returned to England to relate the 
dreadful narrative. 

The melancholy fate of the second expedition did not dismay the heart of 

' Note 8, page 59. ' Page 47. " Page 60. 

« Page 51. ' Note 14, page 62. • Note 2, paKO 40. 










■ Ar S"' / 1 ^ ^ ' 





RALEIGH'S EXPEDITION TO ROANOKE. 



1609.1 



ENGLISH AND FRENCH DISCOVERIES. 



55 




Raleigh. He was a young man of great spirit, "the most restless, and am- 
bitious, as ho was the most versatile and accomplished, of all Elizabeth's court- 
iers." He now obtained a patent for himself [April, 
1584], which made him lord proprietor of all lands 
that might be discovered by him in America, be- 
tween the Santee and Delaware Rivers. lie dis- 
patched Philip Amidas and Arthur Barlow, with 
two well-furnished ships, to explore the American 
coast. They approached the shores of Carolina' 
in July, and landing upon the islands of Wocoken 
and Roanoke, which separate the waters of Pamlico 
and Albemarle Sounds from the Atlantic, they took 
possession of the country in the name of Elizabeth. ealeigh. 

They remained a few weeks, exploring the Sounds and trafficking with the 
natives, and then returned to England with two sons of the foi-est." The gloW' 
ing accounts of the newly-discovered country filled Raleigh's^ heart with joy ; 
and the queen declared the event to be (what it really was) one of the most 
glorious of her reign. In memorial of her unmarried state, she gave the name 
of Virginia to the enchanting region. Raleigh was knighted, his patent was 
confirmed by act of Parliament, and the queen gave him a monopoly in the sale 
of sweet wines, as a means for enriching him. 

The ardent and ever hopeful Raleigh now indulged 
in brilliant dreams of wealth and power to be derived 
from the New World, and he made immediate prepar- 
ations for planting settlements on his trans-Atlantic 
domains. lie dispatched a fleet of seven vessels on 
the 19th of April, 1585, under the command of Sir 
Richard Grenville. He was accompanied by Ralph 
Lane, the appointed governor of the colony, with 
learned companions ; and also by Manteo, the native 
chief. They narrowly escaped shipwreck on the Caro- 
lina coast, in June, and in consequence of that danger, 

they named the land where their peril was greatest. Cape Fear. Entering 
Ocracock Inlet, they landed upon the island of Roanoke, in Albemarle Sound, 
and there prepared for a permanent residence.' 




eaieigh's ships. 



I The French Protestants had given the name of Carohna to the region whem they attempted 
settlement, and it has ever since retained it. See page 50. 

« Manteo and Wanchese, natives of the adjacent continent: probably of the Hatteras tribe. 

' Born in Devonshire, England, 1552. He was one of the most illustrious men of the reign of 
Queen Elizabeth, which was remarkable for brilliant minds. His ettbrts to plant colonies in Amer- 
ica, were evidences of a great genius and indomitable courage and perseverance. He was also a 
tine scholar, as well as a statesman, mariner, and soldier. His name will ever be held in reverence 
by all who can appreciate true greatness. He wrote a History of the World, while in prison under 
a false charge of high treason, and was beheaded in London, October 29, 1628. 

' The picture of the meeting of the P'nglish and natives of Roanoke, on page 53, exliibita 
truthful delineations of the persons and costumes of the Indians found there. They were copied 
and grouped from Harriot's " Brief and True Report of the new found land of Virginia." which was 
published iu 1590. Harriot accompanied the expedition as historian and naturalist, remained a 



50 DISCOVKRIKS. [1492. 

The English made some fatal mistakes at the outset. Instead of lookiiiir to 
tlie fruition of seed-time for true riches, they turned from the wealthy soil u\)uii 
which tlioy stood, and wont upon vain searches for gold in the forests of the 
adjoining continent. Instead of reciprocating the hospitable friendship of the 
natives, they returned harshness for kindness, and treachery for confidence, 
until a flame of revenge was kindled among the Indians which nothing but the 
blood of Englishmen could quench. Schemes for the destruction of the white 
intruders were speedily planned, and tribes in the interior stood ready to aid 
their ]>rctlircn upon the sealioard. As soon as Grenvillo departed with the 
ships, for England, the natives withheld supplies of food, drew the English into 
perilous positions by tales of gold-bearing shores along the Roanoke River, and 
finally reduced the colony to the verge of ruin. At that moment, Sir Francis 
Drake arrived from the AVcst Indies, with his fleet, and afforded them relief 
But misfortune and fear made them anxious to leave the country, and the emi- 
grants were all conveyed to England, in June, 1586, by Di-ake. A few days 
after their departure, a well-furnished vessel, sent by Raleigh, arrived ; and a 
fortnight later, Grenvillo entered the inlet with three ships well provisioned. 
After searching for the departed colony, Grenvillo sailed for England, leaving 
fifteen men upon Roanoke. 

The intrepid Raleigh was still undismayed by misfortune. He adopted a 
wise policy, and instead of sending out mere fortune-hunters,' he collected a 
band of agriculturists and artisans, with their families, and dispatched them 
[April 26, 1587], to found an industrial State in Virginia. He gave them a 
charter of incorporation for the settlement ; and John White, who accompanied 
them, was appointed governor of the colony. They reached Roanoke in July ; 
but instead of the expected greetings of tho men left by Grenville, they encoun- 
tered utter desolation. The bones of the fifteen lay bleaching on the ground. 
Their rude tenements were in ruins, and wild deer were feeding in their little 
gardens. They had been murdered by the Indians, and not one was left. 
Manteo' did not share in the Indian hatred of the white people, and like Massa- 
soit of New England,' he remained their friend. By command of Raleigh, he 
received Christian baptism, and was invested, by White, with the title of Lord 
of Roanoke, the first and last peerage ever created in America. Yet Manteo 
could not avert nor control the storm that lowered among the Indian tribes, and 
menaced the Enrjlish with destruction. The colonists were conscious that fear- 
ful perils were gathering, and AVhite hastcneil to England toward the close of 
the year for reinforcements and provisions, leaving behind him his daugiiter, 
Eleanor Dare (wife of one of his lieutenants), who had just given birth to a 
child |x\.ugust 18, 1587], whom they named Virijinia. ViROixi.v D.uiE was 
the first oifspring of English parents born within tho territory of the United 
States.* 

year in VirKini.!, and had correct drawinps made of the inhabitants, their dwellings, their grardens, 
and every tiling .-jf interest perUiining to tlieir costumes, customs, and general eliaracteristic-s. Thes- 
picture may bo accepted as historically correct ' Page 62. ° Note 2, page 65. 

3 Page 114. * Note 6, page 78. 



160J.] ENGLISH AND FRENCH DISCOVERIES. 57 

The great Spanish Armada' was preparing for an invasion of Great Britain, 
when White reached England; and Raleigh, Grenville, and others, were deeply 
eigaged in public affairs. It was not until the following May 

[1589J, that White departed, with two ships, for Virginia. ^ 

According to custom, he went by the way of the West Indies, ^^„ 

and depi-edated upon Spanish property found afloat. He was J^#^ 

beaten in an engagement, lost one of his vessels, and was MEjBk\ 

obliged to return to England. Raleigh's fortune being mate- tBT^W? 

rially impaired by his munificence in efforts at colonization, he ■|V"ilp\ 

assigned his proprietary rights to others ; and it was not until ^ , |TpflE|^ 

1590 that White was allowed to return to Roanoke in search I W / 

of his daughter and the colony he had left. Both had then ^^^/v,^ 

disappeared. Roanoke was a desolation ; and, though Raleigh, ^^^^^^_M' 

who had abandoned all thoughts of colonization, had five times -=- 

1 I , , 1 p il ■ i. ENGLISH GENTLE- 

sent marmers, good and true, to searcli tor the emigrants, j[^jj -^im. 

they were never found." Eighty years later, the Corees^ told 
the English settlers upon the Cape Fear River, that their lost kindred had been 
adopted by the once powerful Hatteras tribe,'' and became amalgamated with 
the children of the wilderness. The English made no further attempts at colo- 
nization at that time ; and so, a century after Columbus sailed for America, 
there was no European settlement upon the North American Continent. Sir 
Francis Drake had broken up the military post at St. Augustine [1585], and 
the Red Men were again sole masters of the vast domain. 

A dozen years after the failure of Raleigh's colonization efforts, Bartholo- 
mew Gosnold, who had been to America, and was a friend of the late proprietor 
of Virginia, sailed in a small bark [March 26, 1602] directly across the Atlan- 
tic for the American coast. After a voyage of seven weeks, he discovered the 
Continent near Nahant [May 14, 1602], and sailing southward, he landed 
upon a sandy point which he named Cape Cod, on account of the great number 
of those fishes in that vicinity. Contiiuiing southward, he discovered Nan- 
tucket, Martha's Vineyard, and the group known as Elizabeth Islands. Upon 
one of them, which he named Elizabeth, in honor of his sovereign, Gosnold and 
his company prepared to found a settlement. Upon an islet, in a tiny LiKe, 
they built a fort and store-house.' Becoming alarmed at the menaces of the 
Indians and the want of supplies, they freighted their vessel with sassafi'a& 

' This was a great naval armament, fitted out liv Spain, for the invasion of England, in tha- 
summer of 1588. It consisted of one hundred and fifty ships, two tliousand six hundred and fifty- 
great guns, and thirty thousand soldiers and sailors. It was defeated [July 20] by Admirals- 
Drake and Howard. 

2 While Raleigh was making these fruitless searches, the Marquis de la Roche, a wealthy 
French nobleman, attempted to plant a French colony in America. He was commissioned by tne 
King of France for the purpose, and in 1598 sailed for America with a colony, chiefly drawn from 
the prisons of Paris. Upon the almost desert island of Sable, near the coast of Nova Scotia, La, 
Roche left forty men, while he returned to France for suppMes. He died soon afterward, and for 
seven years the poor emigrants were neglected. When a vessel was finally sent for them, only 
twelve survived. They were taken to France, their crimes were pardoned by the knig, and their 
immediate wants were supplied. 3 Page 20. * Note 5, page 20. 

■5 Dr. Jeremy Belknap, the historian of New Hampshire, discovered the cellar of this storehoustu 
Jn IVOT. 



58 P I S C V K R I K S . 11492. 

roots, !iik1 returned to England in June, ltJ02. The glowing accounts of the 
country which Gosnold gave, awakened the enterprise of some Bristol mer- 
chants," and the following year |11j();5) tliey fitted out two vesselS^br the pur 
j)ose of exploration and traffic with tlie natives. The command wi« given to 
Martin Pring, a friend of both Raleigh and Gosnold. Following the track of 
the latter, he discovered the shores of Maine, near the nioutli of the Penobscot 
[.June], and coasting westward, he entered and explored several of the larger 
rivers of that State. He continued sailing along the coast as far as Martha's 
A'ineyard, trading with the natives : and from that island he returned to En- 
gland, after an absence of only six months. I'ring made another voyage to 
Maine, in 1606, and more thoroughly explored the country. Maine was also 
visited in 160-''), by Captain George Weymouth, who had explored the coast of 
Labrador, in search of a north-west passage to India.' He entered the Saga- 
dahock, and took formal possession of the country in the name of King James. 
There he decoyed five natives on board his vessel, and then sailed for England. 
These forest children excited much curiosity ; and the narratives of otiiei' mari- 
ners of the west of England, who visited these regions at about the same time, 
gave a new stimulus to colonizing efforts. 

The French now began to turn their attention toward the New World 
again. In 1603, Dc Monts, a wealthy French Huguenot,' obtained a commission 
of viceroyalty over six degrees of latitude in New France,* extending from Cape 
May to Quebec. He prepared an expedition for settlement, and arrived at 
Nova Scotia,' with two vessels, in May, 1604.° He passed the summer there, 
traffickiii" with the natives ; and in the autumn he crossed over to the mouth 
of the St. Croix (the eastern boundary of Maine), and erected a fort there. He 
had left a few settlers at Port Royal (now Annapolis), under Poutrincourt. 
These De Monts joined the following spring |1G05|, and organized a perma- 
nent colony. He named the place Port Royal ; and the territory now included 
in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and the adjacent islands, he called Acadie.' 
His efforts promised much success ; but he was thwarted by jealous men. In 
1608, lie was deprived of his vice-royal commission, when he obtained a grant 
of the monopoly of the fur trade upon the St. Lawrence, for one year, and 
another commission, to plant a colony elsewhere in New France. The new 
expedition was placed under the command of Samuel Champlain (who accom- 
panied tlie viceroy on his first voyage), and on the 3d of June, 1608, he 
arrived, with two vessels, at the mouth of the Saguenay, on the St. Lawrence. 
They ascended the great river, and on the site of Quebec, near where Cartier 
built his fort almost seventy years before," they planted the first permanent 



' Page 46. ' Page 510. ' Paia:e 49. * Page 48. s Note 2. page 80. 

« De Monts first broui,'lit swine, ami other dnmcstic aniniaLs, into tliis portion of Amerioa. 
Some were also lal<en from thence to French settlements planted in Canada a few years later. The 
company of which he wan chief, fitted ont four vessels. Do Monts commanded the two here men- 
tioned, assisted by Champlain and Poutrincourt. 

■ In 1GI3, Sanniel ArgaU made a piratical visit to these co:ists, under the direction of the gov- 
ernor of the Virginia colony. He de.stroyed the riMunant of De ilonts' settlement at St. Croix, 
broke up the peaceful colony at Port Uoyal, and plundered the people of every thing of value. See 
page 12. ' * Page 49. 



1609. 



ENGLISH AND FRKNCH DISCOVERIES. 



59 




HENRY HUDSON. 



French settlement in the New 'VVorlcl. The following summer, Champlain 
ascended the Richelieu or Sorel River, the outlet of Lake Champlain, witli a 
war party of Huron' and Algonquin' Indians, and discovered the beautiful lake 
w-hich 1)ears his name, in the north-eastern part of the State of New York.' 

The Eno-lish were not idle while the French were 
exploring, and making efforts at settlement in the 
direction of the St. Lawrence. Several private enter- 
prises were in progress, among the most i-jportant of 
which was that of a company of London merchants 
who sent Henry Hudson, an intimate friend of Captain 
Smith,* to search for a supposed north-eastern ocean 
passage to India. He made two unsuccessful voyages 
to the regions of polar ice [1607-8], when the attempt 
was abandoned. Anxious to win the honor of first 
reaching India by the northern seas, Hudson applied 

to the Dutch East India Company' for aid. The Amsterdam directors afforded 
it, and on the 4th of April, 1609, Hudson departed from Amsterdam, in com- 
mand of the Half-Moon, a yacht of eighty tons. He 
sought a north-eastern passage ; but after doubling the 
capes of Norway, the ice was impassable. Turning his 
prow, he steered across the Atlantic, and first touching 
the continent on the shores of Penobscot Bay, he 
arrived in sight of the capes of Virginia in August, 
1609. Proceeding northward, he entered the mouths 
of several large rivers, and finally passed the Narrows" 
and anchored in New York Bay. He proceeded almost 
sixty leagues up the river that bears his name, and 
according to the formula of the age, took possession of the country in the name 
of the States General of Holland.' He returned to Europe' in November 




THE HALF-JIOON'. 



' Page 22. ^ Page 17. 

3 Champlain penetrated southward as far as Crown Point ; perhaps .south of Ticonderoga. It 
wa.s at about the same time that Hudson went up the river tliat bears his name, as far as Water- 
ford, so tliat these eminent navigators, e.xploring at different points, came very near meeting in tlie 
wilderness. Sbc years atter^vard Cliamplain discovered Lal<e Huron, and tliere lie joined some 
Huron Indians in an expedition agaiiist one of the Five Nations in Western New Yorlc. They had 
a severe battle in the neighborhood of the present village of Canandaigua. Champlain published 
an account of his first voyage, in 161H, and a continuation in 1620. He published a new edition 
of these m 1632, which contains a history of New France, from the discovery of Verrazani to tlie 
year 1631. Champlam died in 1634. ■• Page 65. 

5 Dutch mariners, following the track of the Portuguese, opened a successful traffic with Kast- 
em Asia, about the year 1594. The various Dutch adventurers, in the India trade, were united in 
one corporate body in 1602, with a capital of over a milMon of dollars, to whom were given the 
exclusive privilege of trading in the seas east of the Cape of Good Hope. This was the Dutch. 
East India Company. 

« Entrance to New York Bay between Long and Staten Islands. 

' Tliis was the title of the Government of Holland, answering, in a degree, to our Congress. 

8 Hudson, while on another voyage in search of a north-west passage, discovered the great Bay 
in the northern regions, which bears his name. He was there frozen in the ice during the winter 
of 1610-11. Wlule endeavoring to make his way homeward in the spring, his crew became muti- 
nous. They finally seized Hudson, bound his arms, and placing him ana his son, and seven sick 
companions, in an open boat, set them adrift upon the cold waters. They were never heard of 
afterwai'd. 



60 DISCOVKRIES. 11492. 

1609, and liis rcpoi-t of the iroodlv land ho liad discovered set in motion those 
eomnierciiil measures which nsulted in the founding of a Duttdi empire in the 
New World. 

With these discoveries commenced the epoch of settlements. The whole 
Atlantic coast of North America hiul been thoroughly or partially explored, the 
general character and i-esources of the soil had Iwcome known, and henceforth 
the leading connnercial nations of Western Europe — England, France. Spain, 
and Holland — regarded the transat! intic continent, pot as merely a rich garden 
•without a wall, where depredators from every shore might come, and, without 
hinderance, bear away its choicest fruit, but a.s a land where the permanent 
foundations of vast colonial emjjires might be laid, from which parent states 
would receive almost unlimited tribute to national wealth and national glory. 

When wo contem[ilato the.sc voyages across the stormy Atlantic, and con- 
sider the limited geographical knowledge of the navigators, the frailty of their 
vessels' and equipments, the vast labors and con.*tant privations endured by 
them, and the dangers to which they were continually exposed, we can not but 
feel the highest respect and reverence for all who were thus engaged in opening 
the treasures of the New World to the advancing nations of Europe. Although 
acquisitiveness, or the desire for worldly possessions, was the chief incentive to 
action, and g.ave strength to resolution, yet it could not inspire courage to 
encounter the great dangers of the deep and the wilderness, nor fill the heart 
■with faith hi prophecies of success. These sentiments must have been innate: 
and those who braved the multitude of perils were men of true courage, and their 
faith came from the teachings of the science of their day. History and Song, 
Paintiii" and Sculpture, have all commemorated their deeds. If Alexander the 
Great was thought worthy of having the granite body of Mount Athos hewn 
into a colossal image of himself," might not Europe and America appropriately 
join in the labor of fashioning some lofty summit of the Alleghanies' into a huge 
monument to the memory of the Navig.^TORS who liftetl the vail of forgetful- 
ness from the face of the New World ?* 



' The first ships were generally of less than one hundred tons burden. Two of the vessels of 
Columbus were without decks ; and the one in wliich Frobisher sailed was only twenty-five tons 
burden. 

2 Dinocrates, a celebrated architect, olTored to cut Mount Athos into a statue of Alexander the 
Great, so larfro, that it might hold a city in its riglit hand, and in its left a basin of sutlicicut capa- 
city to liold all the waters that poured "from the mountain. ^ Note H, page 19. 

* Page 47 There li.as been much discussion concerning the claims of certain navigators, to the 
honor of lirst discovering the Continent of America. A " Memoir of Sebiustian Cabot," illustrated by 
documents li-om the UoUs, published in Ixmdon in 1832, appears to prove conclusively that he. aud 
tiot hts fathr, was the navigator who discovcrtxl Nortli America. John Cabot w;is a man of science, 
and a I'licrchant, and may have accompanied his son, in his first voyage m 1497. Yet, in the patent 
of Feliruarv, 1498, m wliich the first voyage is referred to, are the words, "the land and isles of late 
found by liie said John, in our name, and by ourconnnamlment." The first commission being issued 
in the name of .lolm Cabot, the discoveries made by those employed l)y him, would of course be in 
his name. \ little work, entitled " Researches respecting Americas Vespuciu.s and his Voyages," 
prepared by Viscount Sant.arem, ex-prime minister of Portugal, casts just doubts upon the statemcnW 
of Vespuciiis, conc-erning his command on a voyage of discovery when, he claims, he discovered 
South America [page 41] in 1499. He was doulitlcss an officer under Ojcda ; and it is quite cer- 
tain tliat he got pos.scssion of the narratives of Ojcda and putilished them as liis own. The mo.«t 
accessible works on .\mcrican discoveries, are Irving's "Life of Columbus;" rrcscntt's "Ferdinand 
and bsabclla:" laves ofCabntand Hudson, in Sparks's " American Biography, ' and Histories of the 
Vnitcd Stales by Graham, U^mcnfi and Ilildrcth. 




JOHN SMITH. 



There is a distinction to be observed 
in considering settlements and colonies. 
The act of forming a settlement is not 
equivalent to the establishment of a colony or the founding of a State. It is 
the initiatory step toward such an end, and may or may not exhibit permanent 
results. A colony becomes such only when settlements assume permanency, 
and organic laws, subservient to those of a parent government, are framed for 
the guidance of the people. It seems proper, therefore, to consider the era of 
settlements as distinct from that of colonial organization. 

The period of settlements within the bounds of the thirteen original colonies 
which formed the Confederacy in the War for Independence,' extends from 1607 
to 1733. For fifty years previous to the debarkation [1607] at Jamestown, - 
fishing stations had been estiiblished at various points on the Atlantic coast: 
and at St. Augustine,^ the Spaniards had kept a sort of military post alive. 
Yet the time of the appearance of the English in the James River, is the true 
point from which to date the inception or beginning of our great confederacy of 



Page 229. 



2 Page 64. 



3 Page 51. 



62 SETTLEMENTS. [1607. 

free States. Twelve years [1607 to 1G19] were spent by English adven- 
turers in efforts to plant a permanent settlement in Virginia.' For seventeen 
years [IGUl) to 1623J Dutch traders were trafficking on the Hudson River, 
before a jjermauent settlement was established in New York.' Fourteen years 
[1606 to 1620] were necessary to effect a permanent settlement in Massachu- 
setts ;' and for nine years [1622 to 1G31] adventurers struggled for a foothold 
in New llauipshire.'' Tlie Roman Catholics were only one year [1634-5] in 
laying the foundation of the Maryland colony.' Seven years [1632 to 1639] 
were employed in effecting permanent settlements in Connecticut ;''■ eight years 
[1636 to 1643] in organizing colonial government in Riio<le Island;' and about 
fifty years [1631 to 1682] elapsed from the landing -^f the Swedes on South 
River,' before Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania (whose several histo- 
ries of settlements are interwoven), presented colonial features." Almost sixty 
years [1622 to 1680] passed by before the first settlements in the Carolinas 
became fully developed colonies;'" but Georgia, the youngest of the thirteen 
States, had the foundation of its colonial government laid when Oglethorpe, 
with the first company of settlers, began to build Savannah in the winter of 
1733." The first jicrnianent settlement within the bounds of the original 
colonies, was in 

VIRGINIA. [1607—1619]. 

A century had not elapsed after the discoveries of Columbus [1492],'* 
before a great social and political revolution had been effected in Europe. 
Commerce, hitherto confined to inland seas and along the coasts, was sending 
its ships across oceans. The art of printing had begun its wonderful work :" 
and, through its instrumentality, intelligence had become generally diffused. 
Mind thus acting upon mind, in vastly multiplied opportunities, had awakened 
a gre^vt moral and intellectual power, whose presence and strength had not been 
suspected. The Protestant Reformation'* had weakened the bonds of spiritual 
dominion, and allowed the moral faculties fuller play : and the shadows of feudal 
institutions," so chilling to individual effort, were rapidly disappearing before 

' Page 71. s Page 7.^. 3 Page 79. * Page 80. 

" Page 82. 6 Page 89. ' Page 91. « Page 92. 

9 Page 97. '» Page 99. " P;ige 103 " Page 40. 

'3 About the year 1450. Kude printing from engraved blocks wa.s done before that time: but 
when Peter Sdiccfter cast tlie first metal types, each letter separately, at about 1450, the art of 
printing truly had birth. .Tolm Faust established a printing-office at Mentz, in 1442. John Gutten- 
Derg invented cut metal types, and used them in printing a liible wliicli was commenced in 1445, 
and finished in 14G0. Tlie names of these three men are usually associated as the mveutors of 
printing. 

'^ Commenced by Wicklitfe, in Enghmd, in 13G0; by Huss. in Bohemia, in 1405; by Luther, 
In Germany, in 1517. From this period until 1562, the movement was general throughout Europe. 
It was an effort to purge the Thristian Church of all impurities, by reforming its doctrine and 
ritual. The Uefcirmer.s jirotested against some of the practices of the Roman Catliolic Church, 
and the movement received the title of the I'mtesiant Relbrmation. The name of Protestania 
was first given to Lutlier and others iu 1529. 

'" The nature of feuilal laws may be illustrated by a single example: William, the Norman 
con(iiieror of England, divided the land of that country into parts called Imronii:-^, and gave them 
to certain of his i^avorites, who became masters of the conquered people on their respective estates, 
i'or these gifts, and certain privileges, the haronx. or masters, were to furnish the king with a stipu- 



1619.] TIHGIXIA. 63- 

the rising sun of the new era in the history of the ivorld. Freedom of thought 
and action expanded the area of ideas, and gave birth to those tolerant princi- 
ples which lead to brotherhood of feeling. The new impulse developed nobler 
motives for human action than the acquisition of wealth and power, and these 
soon engendered healthy schemes for founding industrial empires in the New 
World. Aspirations for civil freedom, awakened by greater religious liberty, 
had begun the work, especially in England, where the Protestants were already 
divided into two distinct parties, called, respectively, Churchmen and Puritans. 
The former supported the throne and all monarchic ideas; the latter were 
more republican ; and from their pulpits went forth doctrines inimical to kingly 
power. These religious diiferences had begun to form a basis of political 
parties, and finally became prime elements of colonization. 

Another event, favorable to the new impulse, now exerted a powerful influ- 
ence. A long contest between England and France ceased in 1604. Soldiers, 
an active, restless class in England, were deprived of employment, and would 
soon become dangerous to the public peace. While population and general 
prosperity had greatly increased, there was another large class, who, by idle- 
ness and dissipation, had squandered fortunes, and had become desperate men. 
The soldiers needed employment, either in their own art, or in equally exciting 
adventures ; and the impoverished spendthrifts were ready for any thing which 
promised gain. Such were the men who stood ready to brave ocean perils and 
the greater dangers of the Western World, when such minds as those of Fer- 
nando Gorges, Bartholomew Gosnold, Chief Justice Popham, Richard Hakluyt, 
Captain John Smith, and others, devised new schemes for colonization. The 
weak and timid James the First,' who desired and maintained peace with other 
nations during his reign, was glad to perceive a new field for restless and 
adventurous men to go to, and he readily granted a liberal patent [April 20, 
1606] to the first company formed after his accession to the throne, for planting 
settlements in Virginia. The English then claimed dominion over a belt of 
territory extending from Cape Fear, in North Carolina, to Halifax, in Nova 
Scotia, and indefinitely westward. This was divided into two districts. One 
extended from the vicinity of New York city northward to the present southern 
boundary of Canada, including the whole of New England, and westward of it, 
and was called North VirCtINI,\. This territory was granted to a company 
of "knights, gentlemen, and merchants" in the west of England, called the 
Plymoutk Company.^ The other district extended from the mouth of the 
Potomac southward to Cape Fear, and was called South Virginia. It was 

lated amount of money, and a stated number of men for soldiers, when required. The people had no 
Toice in this matter, nor in any public affairs, and were made essentially slaves to the barons. Out 
of this state of things originated the exclusive privileges yet enjoyed by the nobility of Europe. 
Except in Russia, the people have been emancipated from tliis vassalage, and the ancient forms of 
feudal power have disappeared. 

' He was the Sixth James of Scotland, of the house of Stuart, and son of Mary, Queen of Scot- 
land, by Lord Damley. The crowns of England and Scotland were united by his accession to th& 
throne of the former kingdom, in March, 1603. 

2 The chief members of the company were Thomas Hanhara, Sir John and Raleigh Gilbert (sona 
nf Sir Hi;mphrey Gilbert), William Parker, George Popham, Sir John Popham (Lord Chief Justice- 
of England), and Sir Fernando Gorges, Governor of Plymouth Fort. 



^4 SETTLEMENTS. [1GU7. 

granted to a company of " noblemen, gentlemen and merchants," chiefly resi- 
dents of London, callwl the Loudon Cowpatnj.' The internic(iiate domain of 
almost two hundred miles, was a dividing line, so In-oad tiiat disputes about 
territory coukl not occur, as neither company was allowed to make settlements 
more than iifty miles beyond its own boundary. 

The idea of popular freedom was as yet the heritage of a favored few, and 
the poHtical cliaracter of the first colonial charter, under which a permanent 
settlement was made within the territory of the Ignited States, was vmfavorable 
to the best interests of all. The king reserved to himself the right of appoint- 
ing all officers, and of exercising all executive and legislative power. The 
colonists were to pay homage to the sovereign, and a tribute of one fifth of the 
net products of gold and silver found in Virginia ; yet they possessed no rights 
of self-government. They were to be governed by a council of seven appointed 
by the king, wlio were allowed to choose a president from amon,- themselves. 
There was also a Supreme Council in England, appointed by the kmg, wiio had 
the general supervision of the colonies, under the direction of the monarch. 
Tliat charter was the conception of a narrow mind, and despotic temper, and 
proved totally inadequate as a constitution of government for a free peojde. 

Tiie North Virginia, or Plymouth Company, made the first attempt at set- 
tlement, and failed.' The South Virginia, or London Company, sent Captain 
Christopher Newport, with tliree vessels and one liundred and five emigrants 
[Dec, 1606J, to make a settlement upon Roanoke Island, ^ where Rileigh's 
colony had perished almost twenty years before. Among them was Bartholo- 
mew Gosnold, the projector of the expedition. They possessed very poor 
materials fi)r a colony. There was no family among them, and only " twelve 
laborers and a few mechanics." The remainder were " gentlemen,"' many of 
whom were vicious, dissolute men, totally unfit for such an enterprise, and 
(juite unworthy to be actors in the glorious events anticipated by Gosnold and 
his enlightened associates at home. The voyage was a long and tedious one. 
Newport pursued the old route by the Canaries and the West Indies, and did 
not arrive upon the American coast until April, 1607, when a storm drove his 
vessels into Chesapeake Bay, where he found a good harbor. He named the 
capes at the entrance, Charles and Henry, in honor of the king's sons. A 
pleasant point of the Virginia peninsula, between the York and James Rivers, 
which they next landed upon and enjoyed repose, he named Point Comfort ; and 
the noble Powhatan River which he soon afterward entered he called James. 
Sailing up the broad stream about fifty miles, the immigrants landed upon a 
beautiful, shaded peninsula,' where they chose a site for the capital of the new 
empire, and called it Jamestown. 

' Tho oliiof members of the eompany were Sir Thomas Gates, Sir Georpe Somers. Richard Hak- 
luyt (tlic historian), and Edward MariaWingfield, who was the first governor of Virpinia. 

' Pago 73. ^ Pape 55. 

* This name wa.s given to wealthy men, who were not enpaped in any industrial pursuit, and 
often spent their lives in idleness and dis,<ii)ation ; a class which, in our day and country, number, 
happily, very few. Labor is wortliily honoro<l as more noble than idleness. 

5 Tliis niav be called an island, for the marsh which connei'ts it with the mainland Is often over- 
flowed. Tho currents of tho river have washed away large portions of tho original island. 



1619] VIRGINIA. 65 

111 feelings had been engendered before they reached the Canary Islands, 
and violent disputes had arisen during the long voyage. As the silly king had 
placed the names of the colonial council in a sealed box, with instructions not 
to open it until their arrival in Virginia, there was no competent authority on 
board to restore harmony. Captain Smith,' who was the most able man among 
them, excited the envy of his companions ; and being charged with a design to 
murder the council, usurp government, and proclaim himself king, he was 
placed in confinement. On opening the sealed box, it was discovered that 
Smith was one of the council. He was released from confinement; but, 
through the influence of Wingfield, an avaricious, unprincipled, but talented 
man, he was excluded from office. Smith demanded a trial upon the absurd 
■charges. The accusation was withdrawn, and he took his seat in the council, 
over which Wingfield was chosen to preside. 

Soon after landing, Newport, Smith, and twenty others, ascended the 
James River to the Falls at Richmond, and visited the emperor of the Powhat- 
ans,' whose residence was a mile below the foot of the rapids. The title of the 
emperor was Powhatan, which signified supreme ruler, as did Pharaoh in the 
ancient Egyptian language— the chief man in Egypt. He was a man of great 
ability, and commanded the reverence of the whole confederation. He appeared 
friendly to the English, notwithstanding his people murmured at their presence ; 
and the visitors returned to Jamestown much gratified. 

Early in June, 1607, Newport sailed for England, to obtain more settlers 
and provisions. The little band of emigrants soon perceived the perils of their 
situation. A large portion of their provisions had been spoiled during the 
voyage. They had not planted, therefore they could not reap. The neighboring 
tribes evinced hostility, and withheld supplies. Poisonous vapor arose from 
the marshes ; and before the close of summer, one half of the adventurers per- 
ished by disease and famine. Among the victims was Gosnold. The settlers, 
in their despair, reproached themselves and the leaders of the expedition, and 
longed to depart for the Old World. In the midst of their despondency, the 
survivors discovered that president Wingfield was living on choice stores, and 
was preparing to abandon the colony and escape to the West Indies in the pin- 
nace^ left by Newport. Their indignation was thoroughly aroused, and he was 
deposed. Ratchffe, a man as weak and wicked as Wingfield, was chosen his 
successor. He, too, was speedily dismissed ; and the settlers, with one con- 
sent, wisely turned to Smith as ruler. 

It was a happy hour for the Virginia settlers when Captain Smith took the 
reins of government. All was confusion ; but he soon restored order ; and by 
his courage and energy, inspired the Indians with awe, and compelled them to 
bring him supplies of food. In October, wild game became plentiful ; and at 
the beginning of November, the abundant harvest of Indian corn was gathered 

' See portrait at the head of this Chapter. Smith was one of the most remarkable men cf hia 
time. He was bom in Lincolnshire, England ; and after many adventures in Europe, went to 
America. He died in 1631. He -ftTOte a History of Virginia, and several other works. 

'' Page 20. ' A small, light vessel, with sails and oars, 

5 



6G 



8 K T T L E H B NT 8. 



[l607. 



by the uatives, and they suppUed the Battlers with all they needed. Having 
estabhshed a degree of comfort and prosperity, Smith started, with some com- 
[lauious, to explore the sui-roundiug country. He ascended the Chickahommiuy 
River fifty miles from its mouth, and then, with two companions, penetrated 
the vast forest that covered the laud. His companions were slain by the na- 
tives, and he was made a captive. After being exhibited in several villages, bo 
was taken to Opechancanough, ' the eldest brother of Powhatan, who, regarding 
Smith as a superior being, spiu-ed his life, and conducted him to the emperor, 
then at Weroworomoco, on the York lliver.' A solemn council decided that 
the captive must die, and Smith was prepared for execution. His head was 
placed upon a stone, and the heavy clubs of the executioners were raised to- 
irush it, when Pocahontas, a child of "ten or twelve years,"' the favorite 




^ 'W^ 



POCAHONTAS. 



daughter of Powhatan, rushed from her father's side, and casting hei"self upon 
the captive, besouglit the king to spare liis life. Powliatjvn consented, and 
Smith was conducted in safety to Jamestown by a guard of twelve men, after 
an absence of seven weeks. 

God, in his providence, overrules every thing for good. It is seen in this 
event, for Smith's captivity was a public benefit. He had acquired a knowl- 
e<l,ge of the Indian cliaracter, and of tlie country and its resources, and also h;ui 
formed friendly relations with the sacliems and ciiiefs. Had his companions 



' Note 6, page 106. 

» At Shelly, nearly opposite the mouth of Queen's Creek, Gloucester County, Yiigtnia. 

' Page 70. 



1619.] VIRGINIA. 67 

possessed half as much energy and honesty as Smith, all would have been -well. 
But they were idle, improvident, and dissolute. As iisual, he found every 
thing in disorder on his return from the forest. Only forty men were living. 
and a greater portion of them were on the point of escaping to the West Indie.s 
in the pinnace ; but the courage and energy of Smith compelled them to re- 
main. Conscious of the purity of their ruler and the wickedness of themselves, 
they hated him intensely, and from that time they plotted for his destruction, 
or the overthrow of his power. 

Captain Newport arrived with supplies and one hundred and twenty im- 
migrants, early in 1608. These were no better than the first adventurers. 
Instead of agriculturalists and mechanics, with families, they were idle "gentle- 
men," "packed hither," as Smith said, "by their friends, to escape ill destin- 
ies." There were also several unskillful goldsmiths, the very men least needed 
in the colony. Some glittering earth in the vicinity of Jamestown, was by them 
mistaken for gold ; and in spite of the remonstrances of Smith, the whole indus- 
try of the colony was directed to the supposed treasure. " There was no talk, 
no hope, no work, but dig gold, work gold, refine gold, load gold." Newport 
loaded his vessel with the worthless earth, and returned to England, believintr 
himself exceedingly rich ; but science soon pronounced him miserably poor in 
useful knowledge and well-earned reputation. 

The gold-fever had taken strong hold upon tlie indolent dreamers, and 
Smith remonstrated against idleness and pleaded for industry, in vain. He 
implored the settlers to plow and sow, that they might reap and be happy. 
They refused to listen, and he turned from Jamestown with disgust. With a 
few sensible men, he went to explore the Chesapeake hi an open boat, and 
every bay, inlet, and creek, received his attention. He went up the Potomac 
to the falls above Washington city ; and then, after exploring the shores of the 
Rappahannock to the site of Fredericsburg, he returned to Jamestown. A 
few days afterward he returned again to the Chesapeake, carefully explored 
each shore above the mouth of the Potomac, and entered the Patapsco, and ate 
Indian corn on the site of Baltimore. He also went up the Susquehannah to 
the beautiful vale of Wyoming,' and penetrated the forests even to the territory 
of the Five Nations,' and established friendly relations with the dusky tribes. 
Within three months he traveled full three thousand miles. It was one of the 
most wonderful of exploring expeditions, considered in all its aspects, ever re- 
corded by the pen of history ; and the map of the country, which Smith con- 
structed on his return, is yet in existence in England, and is remarkable for ita 
general accuracy. 

Captain Smith returned to Jamestown on the 7th of September, 1608, and 
three days afterward he was formally made president of the settlement. New- 
port arrived soon afterward, with seventy immigrants, among whom were two 
females, the first English women ever seen upon the James River.' To the 
soil they were compelled to look, chiefly, for their food, and Smith exerted all 

Page 290 " Page 23. ' Page 10.^ 



68 SETTLEMENTS. [1607 

his energies to turn the little industry of the settlers to agriculture. He suc- 
ceeded, in a degree, but he had poor materials out of which to form a healthy, 
self-sustaining commonwealth. lie wrote to the Supreme Council' to send over 
a different class of men. "I entreat you," he said, '-rather send but thirty 
carpenters, husbandmen, gardeners, fishermen, blacksmiths, masons, and diggers 
of trees' roots, well provided, than a thousand such as we have." Yet. with all 
liis exertions, idleness and improvidence prevailed. At the end of two years 
from the first landing at Jamestown, and when the settlement numbered two 
hundred strong men, not more than forty acres were under cultivation. To the 
Indians the white people were compelled to look for their chief supply of food. 

The London Company were disappointed, for the anticipations of sudden 
wealth, in which they had indulged, were not realized, and they sought and ob- 
tained a new charter [June 2, 1009], which gave them more ample privileges. 
The territory of South Virginia' was extended northward to the head of the 
Chesapeake. The Supreme Council was vested with power to fill vacancie,? in 
its own body, and to appoint a governor for Virginia, whose rule was made ab- 
solute. The lives, liberties, and property of the settlers were at his disposal, 
and they were compelled to contribute a certain share of their earnings to the 
proprietors. Thus they were mere vassals at will, under a petty despotism, 
without any inherent power, then recognized, to cast off the yoke. 

Under that charter, Lord De la Warr (Delaware), an enlightened peer, 
was appointed governor of Virginia, for life, and soon afterward Newport sailed 
for America [June 12, 1609], with nine ships, and more than five hundred 
emigrants.' Sir Thomas Gates, the governor's deputy, embarked with New- 
port, accompanied by Sir George Somers. Gates, Newport, and Somers, 
were commissioned to administer the government until the arrival of Delaware. 
When near the coast, a hurricane dispersed the fleet, and the vessel bearing the 
commissioners was wrecked on one of the Bermuda Islands. Seven vessels of 
the squadron reached the James River in safety. The colony would have been 
the gainer had these never arrived, for a greater portion of the new immigrants 
were more profligate, if possible, than the first. They were dissolute scions of 
wealthy families, and many of them came to avoid punishment for crimes at 
home. They regarded Virginia as a paradise for libertines, and believed the 
colony to be without a head until the arrival of the governor or his deputy. 
Smith, on the contrary, boldly asserted his authority as president, and main- 
tained it until an accident in autumn compelled him to go to England for sur- 
gical aid,* when he delegated his authority to George Percy, brother of the 
duke of Northumberland. 

When the idle and profligate settlers were released from the control of 

' Page 64. " Page 63. 

' Domestic animals were now first taken to Virginia They consisted of six mares, one horse, 
six hundred swine, a few sheep and goats, and five liundred domestic fowls. Two years later one 
hundred cows and some other cittlo were brought over. 

< While passing down the James River, in a boat, from the Falls, Smith's bag of powder ignited, 
and the explosion almost killed him. llis wounds wore so severe as to require the most skillful 
■urgery. 



10I9.J VIRCxINIA. 69 

Smith, they gave themselves up to every irregularity of life. Their ample 
stock of provisions was rapidly consumed. The Indians had great respect for 
Smith, and were friendly while he remained, but after his departure, they 
openly showed their contempt for the English, withheld supplies of provisions, 
and conceived a plan for the total extermination of the white intruders. Fam- 
ine ensued, and the winter and spring of 1610 were long remembered as " the 
starvinof time." Those who went to the cabins of the Indians, for food, were 
treacherously murdered ; and finally a plan was matured by the natives for 
striking a blow of utter extermination. Again Pocahontas performed the part 
of a guardian angel.' On a dark and stormy night she hastened to Jamestown, 
revealed the plot, and was back to her couch before the dawn. Thus, she saved 
the colonists by placing them on their guard. Yet death hovered over them. 
The horrors of destitution inci-eased, and the settlement which numbered five 
hundred persons when Smith left, was reduced to sixty within six months after 
his departure. The commissioners' finally arrived. They constructed a rude 
vessel upon the barren island where they wei-e wrecked, and in it reached 
Virginia, in June, 1610. Instead of being greeted by a flourishing people, 
they were met by a mere remnant, almost famished. There appeared no way 
to obtain food, and Gates determined to sail immediately for Newfoundland,' 
and distribute the immigrants among the English fishing vessels there. James- 
town was utterly abandoned, and toward Hampton Roads' the dejected settlers 
sailed in four pinnaces. Early the next morning white sails greeted their 
vision. Lord Delaware had arrived with provisions and immigrants ; and that 
very night, Jamestown, abandoned to pagans in the jnorning, was made vocal 
with hymns of thanksgiving to the true God, by the returned settlers. 

Governor Delaware was a virtuous and prudent man, and under his admin- 
istration the colony began to prosper. Failing health compelled him to return 
to England the following spring [March, 1611J ; and he left the government 
in the hands of Percy, Smith's successor, who managed with prudence until the 
arrival of Sir Tiiomas Dale, with supplies.^ Dale was an experienced soldier, 
and, assuming the government, he ruled by martial law. Early in September 
following, Sir Thomas Gates arrived with six well-furnished ships, and three 
hundred immigrants. With this arrival came hope for the colony. A large 
portion of the new settlers were sober, industrious men, and their arrival gave 
great joy to the four hundred colonists at Jamestown. Gates assumed the 
functions of governor, and Dale went up the river to plant new settlements at 
the mouth of the Appomattox and near the Falls.^ And now a wise change in 
the domestic policy of the colony was made. Hitherto the land had been 
worked in common, and the product of labor was deposited in public storehouses, 
for the good of the community. The industrious created food for the indolent, 
and an incentive to effort was wanting. That incentive was necessary ; and it 
was found in the plan of making an assignment of a few acres of land to each 

• ' Page 66. ' Page 68. ' Page 47. ' Note 3, page 297. 

' Delaware afterward sailed for Virginia, to resume the reins of government, bvit died on the 
Toyage. ' Near the present City Point, and Richmond. 



70 SETTLKMEXTS. [1G07 

man, to be cultivated tor Iiis own jiiivate lienefit. This regulation gave a pow- 
erful impulse to industry'. Larger assigunieiits were made, and soon the com- 
munity system was abandoned, and industry on j)rivate account created an 
ample supply of food for all.' 

A third charter was obtained by the London Company, on the 22d 
of March, 1612, by which the control of the king was annulled. The 
Suj)renie Council was abolished, and the whole company, sitting as a demo- 
cratic assembly, elected the officers, and ordained the laws, for the colony. 
Yet no political privilege was granted to the settlers. Their very exist- 
ence as a body politic, was completely ignored. They had no voice in the 
choice of rulers and the enactment of laws. Yet they were contented ; and at 
the beginning of 1613 there were a thousand Englishmen in Virginia. At 
alwut this time an event occurred, which proved of permanent benefit to the 
settlement. Powhatan had continued to manifest hostile feelinjrs ever since the 
departure of Smith. For the purpose of extorting advantageous terms of peace 
from the Indian king. Captain Argall (a sort of buccaneer),- bribed an Indian 
chief, with a copper kettle, to betray the trusting Pocahontas into his hands. 
She was induced to go on board his vessel, where she was detainotl as a prisoner 
for several months, until Powhatan ransomed her. In the mean while, a mutual 
attachment had grown up between the maiden and John Rolfe, a young En- 
glishman of good family. He had instructed her in letters and religion; and, 
with the consent of Powhatan, she received the rite of Christian baptism, and 
became the .wife of Rolfe, in April, 1613. This union brought peace, and 
Powhatan was ever afterward the friend of the English. 

Prosperity now smiled upon the settlement, yet the elements of a perma- 
nent State were wanting. There were no families in Virginia, and all the 
settlers indulged in anticipations of returning to England, which they regarded 
sis home. Gates went thither in March, 1G14, leaving the administration of 
government with Sir Thomas Dale, who ruled with wisdom and energy for 
about two years, and then departed, after appointing George Yeardlcy deputy- 
governor. During Yeardley's administration, the culture of the tobacco plant' 
was promoted, and so rapidly did it gain in favor, that it soon became, not only 
the principal article of export, but the currency of the colony. And now 
[1617J jVrgall, the buccaneer, was appointed deputy-governor. He was a des- 
pot in feelings and practice, and soon disgusted the people. He was succeeded 
by Yeardley, who was appointed governor in 1619; and then dawned the natal 
morning of Virginia as a Republican State. Yeardley abolished martial law, 

' A similar result was seen in the operations of the Plymouth colony. See page 116. 

' Note 7, page 58. 

' Tliis pl.int. ypt very extensively cultivated in Yirpinia and the adjoininpr Stales, was first 
discovered by i>ir FrjUicis Drake, near Tabaco, m Yucatan: hence its name. Drake and Raleigh 
first introduced it into England. King James conceived a great hatred of it, and wrote a treatise 
Bffaiust Its use. He forbade its cultivation in England, but could not prevent its iniportjition from 
Virginia. It became a very profitable article of commerce, and the streets of .lameslown were 
])lanted with it. Other agricultural productions were neglected, and while cargoes of tobacco were 
■preparing for England, the necessaries of life were wanting. The money value of tobacco was about 
«isty-sbc cents a pound. 



1619.1 



NEW YORK. 71 



released the planters from feudal service to the colony," and established repre- 
sentative government.' The settlement was divided into eleven boroughs, and 
two representatives, called burgesses, were chosen by the people for each. 
These, with the governor and council, constituted the colonial government. 
The burgesses were allowed to debate all matters pertaining to the good of the 
colony ; but their enactments were not legal until sanctioned by the company 
in Eno-land. The most important event of that year occurred on the 28th of 
June. On that day, the first representative assembly ever convened in Amer- 
ica, met at Jamestown. Then and there, the foundations of the Virginia 
commonwealth were laid. The people now began to regard Virginia as their 
home, and "fell to building houses and planting corn." Within two years 
afterward, one hundred and fifty reputable young women were sent over to 
become wives to the planters,' the tribe of gold-seekers and "gentlemen" was 
extinct, for " it was not the will of God that the new State should be formed 
of such material ; that such men should be the fiithers of a progeny born on the 
American soil, who were one day to assert American liberty by their eloquence, 
and defend it by their valor." * 



C H A P T E R I I. 

NE'W YORK [1G09 — 1G23]. 

In a preceding chapter,^ we have considered the discovery and exploration 
of the river, bearing his name, by Henry Hudson, then in the service of the 
Dutch East India Company. On his return to England [Nov. 1609], he for- 
warded to his employers in Amsterdam," a brilliant account of his discoveries in 
America. Jealous of the maritime enterprise and growing power of the Dutch, 
the British king would not allow Hudson to go to Holland, fearing he might be 
employed in making further discoveries, or in planting settlements in America. 
This narrow and selfish policy of James was of no avail, for the ocean pathway 
to new and fertile regions, once opened, could easily be traversed by inferior 
navigators. This fact was soon demonstrated. In 1610, some wealthy mer- 
chants of Amstei-dam, directors of the Dutch East India Company,' sent a ship 
from the Texel, laden with merchandise, to traffic with the Indians upon the 
Mauritius," as the present Hudson River was then called. Hudson's ship (the 
Ha/f-lMoon^) was also sent hither the same year on a Uke errand ; and for three 

' Page 63. 

- Yeardley found the people possessed with an intense desire for that freedom which th» 
English constitution gave to every subject of the realm, and it was impossible to reconcile that feel- 
ing with the exercise of the arbitrary power which had hitherto prevailed He, therefore, formed 
a plan for a popular assembly as similar to the English parliament as circumstances would allow. 

3 Page 105. '" Bancroft. ^ Page 59. « Page 59. 

' Note 5, page 59. s go named, in honor of Prince Maurice, of Nassau. ' Page 59. 



72 SKTTLKMENTS. [160ft 

years afterward, private enterprise dispatched many vessels from Holland, t« 
traflBc for furs and peltries. Among other commanders came the bold Adriau 
Block, tlic first navigator of the dangerous strait in the East River, called 
llell-Gate. Blocks ves.sel was accidentally burned in the autumn of 1C13, 
when he and his companions erected some rude huts for shelter, near the site 
of the Bowling Green, at the foot of Broadway, New York. These huts formed 
the germ of our great commercial metropolis. During the ensuing winter 
they constructed a vessel from the fine timber which grew upon Manhattan 
Island, and early in the spring they sailed up Long Island Sound on a voyage 
of discovery which extended to Nahant. Block first discovered the Connecticut 
and Thames Rivers, and penetrated Narraganset Bay to the site of Provi- 
dence. 

Intent upon gain, Dutch trading vessels now frequently ascended the Mau- 
ritius, and a brisk trade in furs and peltries was opened with the Indian tribes, 
almost two hundred miles from the ocean. The traders built a fort and store- 
house upon a little island just below Albany, in 1614, which they called Fort 
Nassau ; and nine years later, Fort Orange was erected near the river, a little 
south of the foot of the present State-street, in Albany, on the site of Albany. 
There is a doubt about a fort being erected on the southern extremity of Man- 
hattan Island, at this time, aa some chroniclers have asserted. It is probable 
the trading-house erected there was palisaded, as a precautionary measure, for 
they could not well determine the disposition of the Indians. 

On the 11th of October, 1614, a special chai-ter was granted to a company 
of Amsterdam merchants, giving them the monopoly of trade in the New 
World, from the latitude of Cape May to that of Nova Scotia, for three years. 
The territory was named New Netherland, in the charter, which title it held 
until it became an English province in 1664.' Notwithstanding it was included 
in the grant of James to the Plymouth company," no territorial jurisdiction 
being claimed, and no English settlements having been made northward of 
Richmond, in Virginia, the Dutch were not disturbed in their traffic. The 
popular story, that Argall entered the Bay of New York on his return from 
Acadie in 1613, and made the Dutch traders promptly surrender the place to 
the English crown, seems unsusceptible of ju'oof ' 

Success attended the Dutch from the beginning. The trade in furs and 
peltries became very lucrative, and the company made an unsuccessful applica- 
tion for a renewal of their charter. More extensive operations were in contem- 
plation; and on the 3d of June, 1621, the States General of Holland' 
incorporated the Diitch West India Company, and invested it with almost 
regal jiowers, for planting settlements in Americii from Cape Horn to New- 
foundland; and in Africa, between the Cape of G(x>d Hope and the Tropic of 
Cancer, The special object of its enterprise was New Netherland, and espe- 
cially the region of the Mauritius.' The company was not completely organized 

' Page 144. ' P«Pe 63. 

3 See Brodlicacrs " History of tlio Slate of New York," Appendix E, where the matter is dis- 
cussed at some length. * Note 7, page 59. ' Page 71. 



1620.] 



MASSACHUSETTS. 



7a 



until the spring of 1623, when it commenced operations with vigor. Its first 
efforts were to plant a permanent colony, and tiius establish a plausible pretext 
for territorial jurisdiction, for now the English had built rude cabins on thfr 
shores of Massachusetts Bay.' In April, 1623, thirty families, chiefly Wal- 
loons (French Protestants who had fled to Holland), arrived at Manhattan, 
under the charge of Cornelius Jacobsen May, who was sent to reside in New 
Netherland, as first director, or governor. Eight of the fam- 
ilies went up the Mauritius or Hudson River, and settled at 
Albany ; the remainder chose their place of abode across the 
channel of the E;ist River, and settled upon lands now cov- 
ered by the eastern portions of Brooklyn, and the Navy 
Yard." Then were planted the fruitful seeds of a Dutch 
colony — then were laid the foundations of the future com- 
monwealth of New York.' The territory was erected into 
a province and the armorial distinction of a count was 
granted.* 




SEAL OF NEW NETH- 
ERLAND. 



CHAPTER III. 



MASSACHUSETTS [1606—1320]. 



Soon after obtaining their charter, in 1606, the Plymouth Company* 
dispatched an agent in a small vessel, with two captive Indians, to examine 
North Virginia. This vessel was captured by a Spanish cruiser. Another ves- 
sel, fitted out at the sole expense of Sir John Popham, and commanded by 
Martin Pring, was sent, and reached America. Pring confii-med the accounts 
of Gosnold and others," concerning the beauty and fertility of the New England 
region. The following year [1607], George Popham' came, with one hundred 
immigrants, and landing at the mouth of the Sagadahoc or Kennebec [August 
21], they erected there a small stockade, a storehouse, and a few huts. All 
but forty-five returned to England in the vessels ; those remained, and named 
their settlement St. George. A terrible winter ensued. Fire consumed their 
store-house and some of their provisions, and the keen frosts and deep snows 



' Page 78. 

' The first white child bom in New Netherland was Sarah Rapelje, daughter of one of the 
Walloon settlers. Her birth occurred on the 7th of June, 1623. She has a number of descendants 
on Long Island. 3 Page 144. 

* Several hundred years ago, there were large districts of country in England, and on the con- 
tinent, governed by Earls, who were subject to the crown, however. These districts were called 
counties, and the name is still retained, even in the United States, and indicates certain judicial and 
other jurisdiction. New Netherland was constituted a county of Holland, having all the individual 
privileges .appertaining to .in earldom, or separate government. The armorial distinction of an earl, 
or count, was a kind of cap, called coronet, seen over the shield in the above engraved repre- 
sentation of the seal of New Netherland. The figure of a beaver, on the shield, is emblematic of 
the Hudson River regions (where that animal (lien abounded), and of one of the grand objects of 
settlement there, the trade in fiirs. ' Page 63. " Page 5S. ' Note 2, page 63. 



74 SETTLEMENTS. [160& 

locked the waters and the forests against tlie fisherman and hunter. Famine 
menaced them, but relief came before any were made victims. Of all the com- 
pany, only Popluim, their president, died. Lacking courage to brave the perils 
of tlic wilderness, the settlement was abandoned, and the immigrants went back 
to Eni'land |1C08J at the very time when the Frenchmen, who were to build 
Quebec,' were upon the ocean. Tiaffie with the Indian tribes was continued, 
but settlements were not again attemjjted for several years.' 

Only the coast of the extensive country was seen by the several navigators 
who visited it. The vast interior, now called New Enol.^nd, was an unknown 
land, until Captain John Smith, with the mind of a philosopher and the courage 
of a hero, came, in 1614, and explored, not only the shores but the rivers 
which penetrated the wilderness. Only himself and four London merchants 
had au interest in the expedition, which proved highly successful, not only in 
discoveries, but in trade. AVith only eight men. Smith examinetl the region 
between Cape Cod and the Penoljscot, constructed a map of the country, and 
after an absence of less than seven mouths, he returned to England, and laid a 
report before Prince Charles (afterward the unfortunate king who lost his iiead), 
the heir apparent to the throne. The prince, delighted with the whole account, 
confirmed the title which Smith had given to the territory delineated on the 
map, and it was named New England. Crime, as usual, diunned the luster 
of the discovery. Hunt, commander of one of the vessels of the expedition, 
kidnapped twenty-seven of the Indians, with Sc^uanto,' their chief, as soon as 
Smith had departed, took them to Spain and sold some of them into slavery.* 
And now, at various points from Florida to Newfoundland, men-stealers of dif- 
ferent nations, had planted the seeds of hatred and distrust,^ whose fruits, in 
after years were wars, and complicated troubles. 

At the close of 1614, the Plymouth company employed Smith to make 
further explorations in America and to plant a colony. He sailed in the spring 
of 1615, but was driven back by a tempest. He sailed again on the 4th of 
July following. His crew became mutinous, and finally his vessel was cap- 
tured by a French pirate, and they were all taken to France. Smith escaped 
to England, in an open boat, and arousing the sluggish energies of the Ply- 
mouth company and others, they planned vast schemes of colonization, and he 
was made admiral for life. Eager for gains, some of the members, joining 
•with others, applied for a new charter. It was withheld for a long time. 
Finally, the king granted a charter [November 3, 1620] to forty of the wealth- 
iest and most powerful men in the realm, who assumed the corporate title of The 
Council op Plymouth, and supei-seded the original Plymouth Comp.any.' 
The vast domain of more than a million of square miles, lying between the fortieth 
and forty-eighth degree of north latitude, and westward to the South Sea,' 



' Pn|?e 49. 

' Tlio celebrated Lord Bacon, and otliers, fitted ovit an expedition to Newfoundland in 1610, 
but it was unsuccessful. Page 11 4. 

' M'hen some benevolent friars beard of Hunt's intentions, tliey took all of the Indians not yet 
sold, to instruct them as missionaries. Among them was Squanto. 

' See pages 42 and 49. • Page 63. ' Page 42., 



1620.] MASSACHUSETTS. 75 

■was conveyed to them, as absolute owners of the soil. It was the finest portion 
of the Continent, and now embr;ices the most flourishing States and Territories 
of our confederacy. This vast monopoly was unpropitious, in all its elements, 
to the founding of an empire. It was not the will of God that mere speculators 
and mercenary adventurers like these should people this broad land. Tlie same 
year when that great commercial monopoly was formed [1620], a company of 
devout men and women in Holland, who had been driven from England by a 
persecuting government, came to the wilderness of the New World, not to seek 
^old and return, but to erect a tabernacle, where they might worship the Great 
God in honest simplicity and freedom, and to plant in the -wilderness the found- 
ation of a commonwealth, based upon truth and justice. Who we?-o they? 
Let History answer. 

Because the pope of Rome would not sanction an important measure 
<lesired by a greater part of the peojile, King Ilemy the P]ighth of England 
defied tlie authority of the head of the Church, ami, by the Art of Supreiuaci/,'' 
Parliament also cast off the papal yoke. Yet religious freedom for the jteojile 
■was not a consequence, for the kmg -was virtually pope of Great Britain. 
Heresy was a high crime ; and expressions of freedom of thought and opinion 
were not tolerated. The doctrines and rituals of tlie Romish church were 
enforced, while the aulhorify of the pope was denied. The people discovered 
that in exchanging spiritual masters, they had gained nothing, except that the 
thunders of excommunication' had lost their effect upon the public mind, and 
thus one step toward emancipation was gained. Henry's son, EdA''ard, est-ib- 
lisiied a more liberal Protestantism in England [1547], and 
soon the followers of Luther and Calvin' drew the tangible 
line of doctrinal difference which existed between them. The 
former retained or allowed many of the ceremonials of the 
church of Rome ; the latter were more austere, and demanded 
extreme simplicity in worship, and groat purity of life. For 
this they were called Purit.\ns, in derision ; a name which 
soon became honorable. AVhen Parliament established a 
liturgy for the church, the Puritans refused conformity, for 
they acknowledged no authority but the Bible in matters of 
religion. They became a distinct and influential party in 
the State [1550], and were specially commended by the con- 
tinental reformers. 




A PURITAN. 



' The people, whose proclivities were tojvard Protestantism, depreciited the influence of the 
queen (Catharine of Arragjon), wlio was a zealous Roman Catholic, and desired her divorce from 
tlie monarch. The king was very willing, for he wished to marry the beautiful Auue Boleyn. 
Pope Julius the Third refused to sanction a divorce, when the king, on whom had been conferred 
the title of " Defender of the Faith,'' quarreled with the pontiff, and professed Protestantism. 

' An Act of Parliament, adopted in 1534, which declared the king of England the superior head 
of the Church in that realm, and made Protestantism the established religion of England. 

" The Pope of Rome assumes the right to excommunicate, or expel li-om Christian communion, ' 
whomsoever he pleases. In former times, even kings were not exempt. An excommunicated 
person lost social caste ; and for centuries this was an iron rod in the hand of ecclesiastics to keep 
the people in submission to spiritual authority. Happily for mankind, this species of despotism has 
lost its power, and commands the obedience of only the ignorant and enslaved. 

* See note 14, page 62. Calvin was the leading French Reformer. 



76 SETTLEMENTS. [1606. 

Romanism was re-established in England in 15r)3, by Mary, the daughter 
and successor of Henry the Eighth, who was a bigoted pei-secutor of Protestants 
of every name. Lutiieraiis and Calvinists were ecjually in peril. The fires of 
persecution were lighted, and the first Protestant niartyrs were consumed at the 
Btakc.' Her reign was short, and she is known in history as the bloody Mary. 
She w'as succeeded by her half-sister, Elizabeth, in 1558, who was a professed 
Protestant, and the flames were e.xtinguisiicd. Elizabeth was no Puritan. 
She endeavoretl to reconcile the magnificent rituals of the Romish Church with 
tho simple reipiisitions of the gospel. There was no affinity, and trouble 
ensued. Tiie Puritans, struggling for jwwer, asserted, in all its grandeur, the 
doctrine of private judgment in religious matters, and of iintrammeled religious 
liberty. From tins liigli position, it w^as but a step to the broad rock of civil 
freedom. Tiie Puritan pulpits 'lecanie the tribunes of the connuon people, and 
tlie preachers often promulgated the doctrine, that the sovereiyn was amenable 
to public opinion irhi-ii fairly expressed. Tins was the very essence of demo- 
cratic doctrine, ar.d evinced a boldness hitherto unparalleled. Tlie jealousy 
and the fears of tlie queen were aroused ; and after several years of effort, the 
Thirty-nine Articles of belief, which constitute the rule of faith in the Church 
of England, were confirmed [1571] by an Act of Parliament. 

And now bigotry in power began its wicked work. In 1583, a court of 
high connuission was established, for the detection and punishment of Non- 
conformists,' with powers almost as absolute as the Roman Inquisition. Per- 
secution begjin its work in earnest, and continued active for twenty years. The 
Puritans looked to the accession of James of Scotland, which took place in 
»1604,' with hope, but were dis;ippointed. He was the most contenq)til)Ie mon-. 
arch that ever disgraced the chair of supreme government in England. A 
brilliant English writer* says, "He was cunning, covetous, wasteful, idle, 
drunken, greedy, dirty, cowardly, a great swearer, and the most conceited man 
on earth." The pure in heart could e.\pect no consideration from such a man. 
When he was fairly seated on the English throne, he said of the Puritans, " I 
will make them conform or I will harrie them out of the land." Tlicre were 
then more than thirty thousand of them in England. During the first year of 
James's reign, three hundred of their ministei-s were silenewl, imprisoned, or 
exiletl. Tiie long struggle of the established church with the Roman Catiiolics 
on one hand, and the Puritans on the other, was now decided. It had been a 
strui'-'le of three ouarters of a cent>n-v, not so nmeh for toleration as for 
suprenuicy ; and the Church of England was tho final victor. During these 
trials, England lost some of her best men. Among the devout ones who fled 



' John Rogers, a pious minister, and John ITooper, Bi.shop of Gloucester, were the first who 

suffered. 

' Tliis WHS the title of nil those Protestants in England who refused to conform to the doctrines 
and ceremonials of the Kstatilisilied Cluiri'h. This uanio was lirst ^ivcn in 1572. Ninety years 
afterward IIGG'.'], 2,000 ministers of the Kstalili.slied t'luirch, unwilling to siiliscribe to the Thirty- 
nine Articles, seceded, and were called Pissentcrs | a name yet applied to all British Protestants 
who arc not attiu'hed to tho Church of EngUiud. 

» See uole 1, page 03. * Charles Dickens. 



J620.] MASSACHUSETTS. 77 

from persecution, was the Reverend John Robinson, pastor of a flocli gathered 
in the northern counties. Informed that there was "freedom of religion for all 
men in Holland," he fled thither, with his people, in 1608, and established a 
church at Leyden. They were soon joined by others from their native country. 
Their purity of life and lofty independence commanded the admiration of the 
Dutch ; and their loyalty to the country from which they had been driven, was 
respected as a noble virtue. There they learned many of those sound political 
maxims which lie at the foundation of our own government ; for there those 
principles of civil liberty, which lay almost dormant in theory, in England, 
were found in daily practice. 

At Leyden, the English exiles were charmed by the narratives of the Dutch 
vovagers to America. They felt that they had now no home, no abiding place 
— that they were only Pilgrims — and they resolved to go to the New World, 
far away from persecutions, where they might establish a colony, with religious 
freedom for its basis. A deputation went to England in 1617,' and through the 
influence of powerful friends," obtained the consent of the Plymouth Company 
to settle in North Virginia,' and also a promise from the king that he would 
wink at their heresy, and let them alone in their new home. They asked no 
more. Some London merchants formed a partnership with them, and furnished 
capital for the expedition.' Captain John Smith, 
the founder of Virginia and explorer of New En- 
gland, offered his services, but on account of his 
aristocratic notions, they were declined. Two 
ships {Speedwell and May-Flon-er') were pur- 
chased and furnished,^ and in the summer of 1620, 
a portion of the Pilgrims in Holland — "the 
youngest and strongest" — embarked from Delft- 
Haven for England." Robinson and the larger _ 
portion of his flock remained at Leyden till a more mat-flower 
convenient season,' and elder Brewster accompanied 

the voyagers as their spiritual guide. The two ships left Southampton, 
in England, on the 5th of August, 1620. The courage of the capfciin and 
company of the Speedwell failed, and the vessels put back to port. The sails 
of the May-Flower were again spread, in the harbor of Plymouth, on the 6th 



' John Carver and Robert Cushman. 

' Sir Edward Sandys [pasre 105] was one of their chief advocates in England. ' Page G.'5. 

* The services of each emigrant wore valued as a capital of ten pounds, and belonged to the 
company. All profits were to be reserved tUl the end of seven years, when all the lands, houses, 
and every production of their joint industry, were to he valued, and the amount divided among the 
shareholders, according to their respective interests. This wa,s a community of interest, similar, in 
character, to those which have been proposed and attempted in our day, under the respective titles 
of Communism, Fourierism, and Socialism. It failed to accomplish its intended purpose, and was 
abandoned. 

' The Speedwell was a vessel of 60 tons; the May-Flower of ISO tons. 

' See engraving on page 104. Tliis is a copy of a picture of Tlie EmharkaUon of the Pilgrims, 
in the Rotunda of the National Capitol, painted by Professor Robert W. "Weir, of the Military 
Academy, at West Point, New A'ork. 

' Mr. Robinson was never permitted to see America. Notes 3, and 5, page IIG. 




78 SETTLEMENTS. [1006. 

of September, and forty-one men, most of them with families' (one hundred and 
one in all) — the winnowed remnant of the Pilgrims who left Delft-IIaven — 
crossed the stormy Atlantic. These were they who came to the New World to 
enjoy liberty of conscience and freedom of action, and to lay, broad and deep, a 
portion of the foundations of our happy Republic. After a boisterous passage 
of sixty-three days, thee May-Flower anchored within Cape Cod.' Before 
proceeding to the shore, the Pilgrims agreed upon a form of government, and 
committed it to writing.' To ih-Ai first constitittion of (jovcrnmenl ever sub- 
scribed by a whole people, the forty-one men afii.xed their names, and then 
elected John Carver to be their governor.* In the cabin of the May-Flower 
the first republican government in America was solemnly inaugurated. That 
vessel thus became truly the cradle of liberty in America, rocked on the free 
waves of the ocean. 

The May-Flower was tossed about on the ocean for two long months, and 
the approach to land was a joyful event for the settlers. E.xploring parties 
were sent out,' and after many hardships, they selected a place for landing. It 
was on the '22d day of December, 1G20, that the Pilgrim Fathers first set 
foot upon a bare rock on the bleak coast of Massachusetts Bay, while all 
around, the earth was covered with deep snow.' They called the landing-place 



' The following are their names: John Carver, William Bradford, Edward Winslow, William 
BrewsliT. Isaac Allcrton, Captain Miles Standish, John Alden, Samuel Fuller, Christopher Martin, 
William Mvilhns, William Wliite, Richard Warren, John Rowland, Stephen Hopkins, Edward Tilly, 
John Tilly, Peter Brown, Richard Britteridge, George Soule, Richard Clark, Richard Gardiner, 
Francis Cook, Tliomas Rogers, Thomas Tinker, John Ridgdale, Edward Fuller, John Turner, Fran- 
cis Eaton, James Chilton, John Crackston, John BiUington, Moses Fletcher, John Goodman, Degory 
Priest, Thomas Williams, Gilbert, Winslow, Edward Margeson, John Allerton, Thomas Ktiglish, Ed- 
ward Dotey, Edward Leister. Ilowland was Carver's ser\-aut; Soule was Winslow's servant; and 
Dotey and Leister were servants of Hopkins. 

" The foolish statement has often been made, that the Pilgrisis intended to land at Manhattan 
Island (New York), but the commander of the May-Fknuer, having been bribed b^- the Dutch to do 
so, landed them fvirther east beyond the Dutcli possessions. The story is a fable, ('oppin, the 
pilot, had been on the coast of New England belbre, and, in navigating the May-Flower, he only 
followed his old track. 

° The following is a copy of the instrument: " In tlie name of God, Amen. We, whose names 
arc underwritten, tlie loyal subjects of our dread sovereign lord, king James, by the grace of God, 
of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, king, defenderof the faith, etc., having undertaken, for the glory 
of God and the advancement of the Christian faith, and honor ol our king and country, a voyage to 
plant the first colony in the northern parts of Virginia, do, liy these presents, solemnly and mutually, 
in the presence of God and of one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil 
body politic, for our better ordering and presen-ation, and furtherance of the ends aforesaid ; and by 
virtue hereof, to enact, constitute, and frame just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, 
and offices from time to time, as shall bo thought most meet and convenient lor the general good 
of the colony; unto which wo promise all due submission and obedience. In witness whereof wo 
have hereto subscribed our names, at Cape Cod, the 11th of November, in the year of the reign of 
' our sovereign Lord, ICing .Tames of England, France, and Ireland, the Eightceulb, and of Scotland 
the Fifty-fourth. Anix) Domini, 1620." 

* Jolin Carver was bom in England, went with Robinson to Holland, and on the 3d of April, 
1G21, wliile governor of the Plymouth colony, ho died. 

' Their leader w.i.s Miles Standish, a brave soldier, who had served in the Netherlands. He 
was very active in the colony as military commander-in-chief, in both fighting and treating with the 
Indians, and is called "The Hero of New England." He was a magistrate many years, and died 
at Duxbury, Ma,ssachusetts, in 1656. 

" While the explorers were searching for a landing-place, the wife of William Wliite, a bride but 
a short time before leaving Holland, gave birth to a son, " the first Englishman bom in New En- 
gland." They named him Peregrine, and the cradle in which he was rocked is yet preserved. Ho 
died in Marahfield in 1704. 




MEEf EH© ®iF ©©■^snEimMom (Cim^yifin ArniD mi^se... 



1 



1680.] NEW HAMPSHIRE. 79- 

New Plymouth, and there a flourishing village is now spread out.' Dreary, 
indeed, was the prospect before them. Exposure and priva- 
tions had prostrated one lialf of the men before the first blow 
of the a.\e ha<l been struck to erect a habitiition. Faith and 
hope nerved the arms of the healthy, and they began to build. 
One by one perished. The governor and his wife died on 
the 3d of April, 1621 ; and on the first of that month, forty- 
six of the one hundred immigrants were in their graves. Nine- 

„ , . . .1 /~i ,•.,•» , .• aOV. C.\RVEB'S 

teen of these were signers to tlie Constitution. At one time chair.^ 

only seven men were capable of assisting the sick. Fortun- 
ately, the neighboring tribes, weakened by a pestilence,' did not molest them. 
Spring and summer came. Game became plenty in the forest, and tliey cauglit 
many fishes from the waters. They sowed and reaped, and soon friends from 
England joined them.' The settlement, begun with so much sori-ow and sufler- 
ing, became permanent, and then and there the foundations of the common- 
wealth of Massachusetts were laid. 




C HATTER IV. 

•NE"W HAMPSHIRE. [1622-1680.] 

The enterprising Sir Fernando Gorges, who, for many years, had been 
engaged in traffic with the Indians on the New England coast, projected a set- 
tlement further eastward than Plymouth, and foi- that purpose became associ- 
ated with John Mason, a merchant, afterward a naval commander, and always 
"a man of action." Mason was secretary, to the Plymouth Council, for New 
England,' and was well acquainted with all matters pertaining to settlements in 
the New World. Gorges and Mason obtained a grant of land in 1622, extend- 
ing from the Merrimae to the Kennebec, and inland to the St. Lawrence. 
They named the territory Laconia. Mason had obtained a grant the previous 
year, extending from Salem to the mouth of the Merrimae, which he had named 
Mariana. The same year, a colony of fishermen, under David Thompson, 
seated themselves at Little Harbor, on the Piscataqua River, just below Poi-ts- 
mouth. Another party, under two brothers named Hilton, London fishmong- 
ers, commenced a settlement, in 1623, a few miles above, at Dover; but these 
were only fishing stations, and did not flourish. 

'" Plymouth Rook " is famoan. It waa broken into two pieceg. Onepartrtmtinad Initiorif^- 
inal position at Hedge's Wbarf, Plymouth ; the other was takeu to the centre of the town and 
Hurroiuidetl by an iron railing. In 1880, tbie portion, which had been dragged into Plymouth by 
2U yoke oi oxen, in 1774, au<l ovtr wbicb ibe Whigs [note 4, page 226] ereoted a liberty pole, 
was rftiinied to its original position. 

' This was the throne upon which sat ihe first Chri.itian monarch of New England. Governor 
Carvel' was at the bead ut a new Slate, and. as chief magistrate, held the same relative position a* 
king James of England, whose seal was richly ornamented and covered with a oauopr of silk and 
gold. » Page 114. "Page 115. '• Page 74. 



gQ SETTLEMENTS. Lit>'*4- 

In the year 1629, the Rev. Mr. Wheelwright (a brother-in-law of the cele- 
hr;it('(l Anne Hutchinson, who was banished from the Massachusetts colony on 
a cliarjj;!' of sedition, in 1637) purchiised from the Indians the wilderness be- 
tween tlie Merriniac and the Piscatrnjua, and founded Exeter. The same year 
Mason obtained from Gorges exclusive ownership of that same portion of La- 
C(iNi.\. lie named the domain New IIampsuire, and in 1031 built a house 
upon the site of Portsmouth, the name which he gave to the spot.' Other set- 
tlements upon the Piscataqua, and along the present coast of Maine, as far as 
Portland, were attempted. At the latter ])liu;e a company hiul a grant of land 
forty miles square, and formed an agricultural settlement in 1G31, called 
LiGONiA.' Peraaquid Point was another settlement, which remained an inde- 
penilent community for almost forty years. Trading houses were established 
as far east as Machias, but they were broken up by the French, and the west- 
ern limits of Acadie were fixed at Pemaquid Point, about half way from 
the Penobscot to the Kennebec. The several feeble and scattered settlements 
in New Hampshire formed a coalition ivith the flourishing Massachusetts colony 
in 1641, and remained dependencies ot that province until 1680, when they 
were separated by order of the king, and New Hampshire became a royal prov- 
ince. Its first government consisted of a governor and council appointed by 
*.be king, and a house of representatives elected by the people. Then was 
founded the commonwealth of New Hampshire. 



CHAPTER V. 

MARYLAND. [1634] 

A LARGK portion of the American colonies were the fruitful growth of the 
seeds of civil liberty, wafted hither by the fierce gales of oppression in some 

■ Mason liiid boon governor of P<irtsmoutli, in Hampshire County, England, and those names 
wcro ftivon in monior5' of his former residenco. 

' Tlio pooplo of tlioso eastern settlements, which former! the bnsis of the pre.sent commonwealth 
of Maini;, dill not hko the government attempted to bo established by the proprietor, and, taking 
political power into their own hands, placed themselves nnder the jnrisdicticm of Massachusetts In 
1()5'2. The territory Wius erected Into a county, and called Yorkshire. In 1021, king .lames, as 
sovereign of Scotland, placed the Scottish seal to a charter granting to Sir William -Mexandcr, after- 
ward [lfi:i:i] earl of Stirling, the whole territory eastward of the State of Maine, undir the title of 
Nimi SrotiK, or New Scotland. The French had already occu))led places along the coast, and called 
the country Aatdie. The Scotch proprietor never attempted settlements, either in this territory or in 
Canada wiiich Charles the First had granted to him, ami the whole country had passed into the hands 
of the French, by treaty. The carl died in 1G40. and all coiniection of his family with Nova Scolia 
ceased. Ills title was held afterward by four successors, the last of whom died in 17119. In 1769, 
William Alexander (General Lord Stirlliig during our War for Independence) made an unsuccessful 
claim to the title. The next claimant was Alex.inder Humphrey, who eommcnced operations in 
the Scottish courts in 1S1,'>, and by forgeries and Iraiids was partially successful. The whole was 
exposed in ls:t:i. Humphrey was in this coinilrv in 1S,')2, pressing his claims to the monopoly of 
the Kastcm Fisheries, by virtue of the grants of kmgs James and Charles more than two hundred 
years ago^ 



1634.] MARYLAND. 81 

form. Maryland, occupying a space between North and South Virginia,' was 
first settled by persecuted Roman Catholics from England and Ireland While 
king James worried the Puritans on one hand, for non-conformity," the Roman 
Catholics, at the other end of the religious scale, were subjected to even more 
severe penalties. As the Puritans increased in numbers and influence, their 
cry against the Roman Catholics grew louder and fiercer ; and, while defend- 
ing themselves from persecution with one hand, they were inflicting as severe a 
lash upon the Romanists with the other. Thus subjected to twofold opposition, 
tlie condition of the Roman Catholics became deplorable, and, in common with 
other sufferers for opinion's sake, their eyes were turned toward free America. 
Among the most influential professors of Catholicism was George Calvert, an 
active member of the London Company,^ and Secretary of State at the time 
when the Pilgrims^ -were preparing to emigrate to America. He was so much 
more loyal in action to his sovereign than to his faith, that he did not lose the 
king's favor, although frankly professing to be a Roman Catholic ; and for his 
services he was created an Irish peer in 1625, with the title of Lord Baltimore. 
He also obtained from James, a grant [1022] to jtlant a Roman Catholic colony 
on a portion of Newfoundland. lie called the territory AvALON, but his scheme 
was not successful. The barren soil, and French aggressors from Aca<lie, were 
too much for the industry and courage of his colonists, and the settlement was 
abandoned. 

Foiled in his projects in the east, Lonl Baltimore went to Virginia in 1628, 
with a view of establishing a colony of his brethren there. But he found the 
Virginians as intolerant as the crown or the Puritans, and he turned his back 
upon their narrow prejudices, and went to examine the beautiful, unoccupied 
region beyond the Potomac. He was pleased with the country, and applied for 
a charter to establish a colony there. The London Company was now dis- 
solved,' and the soil had become the property of the monarch. King Charles 
the First, then on the throne, readily granted a charter, but before it w:is com- 
pleted, Lord Baltimore died. This event occurred on the 25th of April, 1632, 
and on the 20th of June following, the patent was issued to Cecil, his son and 
heir. In honor of the queen, Henrietta Maria,"^ the 
l)rovincc was called Maryland. The territory de- 
fined in the charter extended along each side of 
Chesapeake Bay, from the 30th to the 40th degree 
of north latitude, its western line being the waters of 
the Potomac. 

It is believed that the Maryland charter was 
drawn by the first Lord Baltimore's own hand. It 
was the most liberal one yet granted by an ffiiglish 
monarch, both in respect of the proprietor and the 
settlers. The government of the province was inde- ^^^^' second lord baltimors 




Page 63. ' Note 2, page 16. ' Page 63. • Page 17. • Page 107 

She waa a Roman Catholic, and sister of Louis the Thirteenth of France. 

6 



82 SETTLEMENTS. [IGS?. 

pendent of the crown, and equality in religious rights and civil freedom was 
secured to cverj Christian sect. Unitiirians, or those who denied the doctrine 
of the Trinity, as well as all unbelievers in Divine revelation, were not covered 
by this mantle of toleration. The king had no power to levy the smallest tax 
upon the colonists, and all laws were invalid until sanctioned by a majority of 
the freemen, or their deputies. Under such a wise and liberal charter the 
colony, when planted, flourished remaika'dy, for those persecuted by the 
Puritans in New England, and the Churchmen in Virginia, there sought 
refuge, and found peace. 

Emigration to Maryland commenced in 1633. The first company, mostly 
Protestants, sailed lor America on the 2d of December of that year, under 
Leonard Calvert, brother of the proprietor, ami ai)pointed govei'nor of 
the province. They arrived in March, 1634, and after sailing up the Potomac, 
as far as Mount Vernon, they descended the stream, almost to its mouth. 
They landed upon an estuary of the. Chesapeake, purchased an Indian village, 
and laid the foundation of a town [April, 1G34], which they named St. Mary.' 
The honesty of Calvert, in paying for the land, secured the good will of the 
Indians ; and, unlike the first settlers of most of the other colonies, they experi- 
enced no sufierings from want, or the hostilities of the Aboriginals. 

Popular government was first organized in Maryland on the 8th of March, 
1635, when the first legislative assembly was convened at St. Mary. Every 
freeman being allowed to vote, it was a purely democratic legislature. As the 
number of colonists increased, this method of making laws was found to be in- 
convenient, and in 1639, a representative government was established, the 
people being allowed to send as many delegates as they pleased. The first rep- 
resentative assembly made a declaration of rights, defined the powers of the 
proprietor, and took measures to secure to the colonists all the civil liberties 
enjoyed by the people of Old England. Then was founded the commonwealth 
of Maryland. 



CHAPTER VI. 

CONNECTICUT. [1G32— 1G39.] 

Adrian Block,' the Dutch navigator, discovered and explored the Con- 
necticut River, as far as the site of Hartford, in 1614, and named it Versche, 

' Trading posts were established a little earlier than this, within the Maryland province. In 
1G31, William Claybome olitained a license frnm the king to tniffic with tl>e Indians; and when 
Calvert and his company c;mie, lie liad two settlements, one on Kent Island, nearly opposite An- 
napolis, and aaotlier at the present Havre de Grace, at tlio moutli of the Susqn<>liannah. He refused 
to acknowledge the autliority of Baltimore, ami troiil.lo ensued. He collected his people on the 
eastern shore of Maryland in 163.'), with a detennination to defend his claims l>y force of arms; and 
in May quite a severe skirmish ensued between his forces and those of the colonists. Clayhonie's 
men were taken prisoners, and he lied to Virgmia. Ho was declared guilty of treason, and sent to 
England for tri:d. His estates were forfeited ; but, being acquitted of tlie charge, he retunied to 
Maryland and incited a rebellion. See page 151. ' Pago 72. 




Hooker's Emtcr stion- to roxxKCTrcuT. 



iti39.] CONNECTICUT. 8o 

or Fresh Water River.' Soon afterward Dutch traders were upon its banks, 
and micrht have carried on a peaceful and profitable traffic with the Indians, had 
honor and honesty marked their course. But the avaricious agent of the Dutch, 
imprisoned an Indian chief on board his vessel, and would not release him until 
one hundred and forty fathoms of wampum' had been paid. The exasperated 
Indians menaced the traders, and near the site of Hartford, at a place yet known 
as Dutch Point, the latter commenced the erection of a fort. The Indians were 
finally conciliated, and, at their request, the fort was abandoned for awhile. 

A friendly intercourse was opened between the Dutch of New Netherland 
and the Puritans in 1627.' With the guise of friendship, but really for the 
purpose of strengthening the claims of the Dutch to the Connecticut valley, by 
having an English settlement there under the jurisdiction of New Netherland, 
Governor Minuit' advised the Puritans to leave the barren land of Massachusetts 
Bay, and settle in the fertile region of the Fresh Water River. In 1631, a 
Mohegan chief, then at war with the powerful Pequods,' desirous of having a 
strong barrier between himself and his foes, urged the English to come and 
settle in the Connecticut valley. The Puritans clearly perceived the selfish 
policy of both parties, and hesitated to leave. The following year [1632], 
however, Governor Winslow, of the Plymouth colony," visited that fertile region, 
and, delighted with its appearance, resolved to promote emigration thither. 
In the mean while, the Council of Plymouth' had granted the soil of Connecticut 
[1630] to the Earl of Warwicke, who, in 1631, transferred his interest to Lord 
Say-and-Seal, Lord Brooke, John Hampden, and others. The eastern bound- 
ary of the territory was " Narraganset River," and the western (like all other 
charters at that time) was the South Sea, or Pacific Ocean.' The Dutch 
became appris d of these movements of the English ; and perceiving no advan- 
tage (but detriment) to themselves, they purchased of the Indians the land at 
Hartford and vicinity, completed their fort, and placed two cannons upon it, in 
1633, with the intention of preventing the English ascending the river. 

Although the Plymouth people were aware 3f the preparations made by 
the Dutch, to defend their claim, they did not hesitate, and in October, 1633, 
Captain William Holmes and a chosen company arrived in the Connecticut 
River, in a sloop. Holmes bore a commission from Governor Winslow to make 
a settlement, and brought with him the frame of a house. When he approached 
the Dutch fort, the commander menaced him with destruction if he attempted 
to pass it. Holmes was not intimidated, and sailing by unhurt, he landed at 
the site of Windsor, and there erected his house. Seventy men were sent by 
the Dutch the following year, to drive him from the country. They were kept 
at bay, and finally a parley resulted in peaceful rdations.' Holmes's colony 
flourished, and in the autumn of 1635, a party of sixty men, women, and chil- 
dren, from the Puritan settlements, commenced a journey through the wilder- 

' Connecticut is the English orthoprraphy of the Indian worrl Quon-eh-ta-cut, which signifies "tlio 
long river." ^ Probably about four hundred dollars. See note 2, page 13. 

' Page 75. * Page 139. =■ Page 21. « Page 79. 

■ Page 7-1. ' Page 42. " See note 2, page 142. 




8(5 SKTTLKMEXTS. [1G32. 

ness [Oct. 25] to join him. Witli tlieir cuttle,' they miule their slow and dreary 
wav a hundred miles through dark forests and dismal swamps ; and when they 
arrived upon the banks of the Connecticut [Nov. 25J, the ground was covered 
with deep snow, and the river was frozen. It was a winter of great trial for 
them. Many cattle perished.' A vessel liearing food for the colony was lost 
on the coast, and the settlers were compelled to subsist upon acorns, and scanty 
supj)lies of Indian corn from the natives. Many of them made their way to the 
fort, then just erected at Saybrook, near the mouth of the river, and returned 
to Boston by water. Spring opened, and the necessities of 
those who remained were supplied. They erected a small 
house for worship on the site of Hartford, and in Ajiril, 
1636, the first court, or organized government was held 
there. At about the time when this company departed, a 
son of Governor Winthrop,' of Massachusetts, Hugh Peters, 
and Henry Vane, arrived at Boston from England, as com- 
nnsT MEiiTixG-uoLSE. missioncrs for the proprietors of Connecticut, with instruc- 
tions to build a fort at the mouth of the river of that name, 
and to plant a colony there. The fort was speedily built, and the settlement 
was named Saybrook, in honor of the two peers named in the charter.* 

Another migration of Puritans to the Connecticut valley, more important, 
and with better results, now took place. In June, 1636, Rev. Thomas Hooker, 
the "li'dit of the western churches,"" with otlrcr ministers, their flimilies, and 
flocks, in all about one hundred, left the vicinity of Boston for the new land 
of promise. It was a toilsome journey through the swamps and forests. They 
sulisisted upon berries and the milk of their cows which they took with them, 
and on tiie 4th of July, they stood upon the beautiful banks of tl ; Connecticut. 
On the 9th, Mr. Hooker preached and administered the communion in the little 
meetinc-house at Hartfoi-d, and there a great portion of the company settled. 
Some chose AVethersfield for a residence ; and others, from Ro.xbury, went up 
the river twenty miles, and settled at Springfield. There were now five dis- 
tinct English settlements upon the Connecticut River, yet they were scattered 
and weak. 

Clouds soon appeared in the morning sky, and the settlers in the Connecti- 
cut valley perceived the gathering of a fearful storm. The powerful Pequod 
Indians" became jetilous of the white people, because they appeared to be the 
friends of their enemies, the Mohegans on the west, and of tlieir more powerfiil 
foes, the Narragansetts, on the east. They first commenced petty annoyances ; 
then kidnapped children, murdered men in the forests, and attacked families on 



' This was tlio first introduction of cattle into Connecticut. 

' The loss in cattle was estimated at about one thoussind dollars. 

• Page 117. ' P.ngc85. 

' Thomas Hooker wa.s a native of Leicestershire, Engl.ind, where ho was bom in 1586. Ho 
was silenced, because of liis non-conformity, in IG'iO, wlien he left" tlio luinistrv, and founded a 
prammar school at Canibridjre. He was compelled to flee to Holland, from whence he came to 
America with Mr. Cotton, in 1033. He was a man of great benevolence, and was eminently use- 
ful. He died in July, 1G47, at the age of sixty-one j-cars. • Page 'il. 



1639.] CONNECTICUT. 87 

the outskirts of the settlement at Saybrook. Their allies of Block Island' cap- 
tured a Massachusetts trading vessel, killed the captain" [July, 1636], and 
plundered her. The Puritans in the east were alarmed and indignant, and an 
inefBcient expedition from Boston and vicinity penetrated the Pequod country. 
It did more harm than good, for it resulted only in increasing the hatred and 
hostility of the savages. The Pequods became bolder, and finally sought an 
alliance with their enemies, the Narragansetts, in an effort to exterminate the 
white people. At this critical moment a deliverer appeared when least expected. 
Roger Williams, who for his tolerant opinions had been banished from 
Massachusetts,^ was now a friendly resident in the country of the Narragan- 
setts, and heard of the proposed alliance. Forgetting the many injuries he had 
received, he warned the doomed people of the Bay colony, of impending danger. 
At the risk of his own life, he descended Narraganset Bay in an open canoe, 
on a stormy day, and visited Miantonomoh, the renowned sachem, at his 
seat near Newport, while the Pequod embassadors were there in council. The 
latter menaced Williams with death ; yet that good man remained there three 
days, and effectually prevented the alliance.'' And more — he induced the Nar- 
ragansetts to renew hostilities with the Pequods. By this generous service the 
infant settlements were saved from destruction. 

Although foiled in their attempt at alliance, the Pequods were not dis- 
heartened. During the ensuing winter they continued their murderous depre- 
dations. In the spring, the authorities of the English settlements on tlie 
Connecticut declared war against the Pequods [May, 1637], and the Massachu- 
setts and Plymouth colonies agreed to aid them. Soon, Captain Mason, who 
Was in command of the fort at Saybrook," and Captain John Underbill, a brave 
and restless man, sailed in some pinnaces, with about eighty white men and 
seventy Mohegan Indians under Uncas,* for Narraganset Bay. There Mian- 
tonomoh, with two hundred warriors, joined them, and they marched for the 
Pequod country. Their ranks were swollen by the brave Niantics and others, 
until five hundred " bowmen and spearmen" were in the train of Captains 
Mason and Underbill. 

The chief sachem of the Pequods, was Sassacus, a fierce warrior, and the 
terror of the New England tribes.' He could summon almost two thousand 
warriors to the field ; and feeling confident in his strength, he was not properly 
vigilant. His chief fort and village on the Mystic River, eight miles north- 
•east of New London, was surprised at dawn the 5th of June, 1637, and 
before sun-rise, more than six hundred men, women, and children, perished by 
fire and sword. Only seven escaped to spread the dreadful intelligence abroad, 
and arouse the surviving warriors. The Narragansetts turned homeward, and 
the English, aware of great peril, pressed forward to Groton on the Tiiames, ) 



' This island, which lies nearly south from the eastern border of Connecticut, was visited by 
Adrian Block, the Dutch navigator, and was called by his name. At the time in question, it was 
tluckly populated with fierce Indians. 

■' John Oldham, the first overland explorer of the Connecticut River. ' Page 89. 

* Page 91. ' Page 85. ' Page 21. ' Page 22. 



88 SETTLEMENTS. [1632; 

and there embarked for Saybrook. They had lost only two killed, and less 
than twenty wounded. 

The brave Sassacus had hardly recovered from this shock, when almost r. 
hundred armed settlers, from Miissachusetts, under Captain Stoughton. arrived 
at Saybrook. The terrified Pequods made no resistance, but lied in dismay 
toward the wilderness westward, hotly pui'sued by the English. Teri-ibie was 
the destruction in the path of the pursuers. Thioughout the beautiful country 
on Long Island Sound, from Saybrook to New Haven, wigwams and cornfields 
were destroyed, and helpless women and children were slain. With Sassacus 
at their head, the Indians flew like deer before the hounds, and finally took 
shelter in Sasco swamp, near Fairfield, where, after a severe battle, they all 
surrendered, e.\cept Sassiicus and a few followers. These fled to the Mohawks,' 
where the sachem was treacherously murdered, and his people were sold into 
slavery, or incorporated with other tribes. The blow was one of extermination, 
relentless and cruel. " There did not remain a sannup or squaw, a warrior or 
child of the Pequod name. A nation had disappeared in a day." The New 
England tribes^ were filled with awe, and for forty years the colonists were 
unmolested by them. 

With the return of peace, the spirit of adventure revived. In the summer 
of 1637, John Davenport, an eminent non-conformist' minister of London, witli 
Theophilus Eaton and Edward Hopkins, rich merchants who represented a 
■wealthy company, arrived at Boston. They were cordially received, and 
urgently solicited to settle in that colony. The Hutchinson controversy* was 
then at its height ; and perceiving the religious agitations of the people, they 
resolved to found a settlement in the wilderness. The sagacious Puritans, 
■while pursuing the Pequods, had discovered the beauty and fertility of the 
country along the Sound from the Connecticut to Fairfield, and Davenport and 
his companions heard their report with joy. Eaton and a few others explored 
the coast in autumn, and erecting a hut' near the Quinipiac Creek (the site of 
New Haven), they passed the winter there, and selected it for a settlement. 
In the spring [April 13, lGo8] Davenport and others followed, and under a 
wide-spreading oak," the good minister preached his first sermon. They pur- 
chased the lands at Quinipiac of the Indians, and, taking tlie Bible for their 
guide, they formed an independent government, or " planUition covenant,"' upon 
strictly religious principles. Prosperity blessed them, and they laid the found- 
ations of a city, and called it NiiW IIavex. The following year, tlio settlers 
at Windsor, Hartford, and W'ethersficld, met in convention at Hartford [Jan- 
uary 24, 1G39J, and adopted a written constitution, which contained very liberal 
provisions. It ordained that the governor and legislature should be elected 
annually, hy tlie people, and they were required to take an oath of allegiance 
to the commonwealth, and not to the king. The General Assembly, alone, 



' Pago 2.'i. " Pape 2'2. ' Xoto 2, page 16. ' Page 120. 

• On the corner of Church aud George-streets, New Haven. 

• At the mtereeetion of George and College-streets, New Haven. 



1G36.] RHODE ISLAND. 89 

could make or repeal laws ; and in every matter the voice of the people was 
heard. This was termed the Connecticut Colony ; and, notwithstanding it 
and the New Haven colony were not united until 16(35, now was laid the found- 
ation of the commonwealth of Connecticut, which was governed by the 
Hartford Constitution for more than a century and a half. 



^ ■ » ■ » 



CHAPTER YII. 

RHODE ISLAND. [16 3 0—1643.] 

The seed of the Rhode Island commonwealth was planted by brave hands, 
made strong by persecution. The first settler in Rhode Island was William 
Blackstone, a non-conformist minister,' who was also the first resident upon the 
peninsula of Shawmut, where Boston now stands." Not liking the " lords 
brethren" in Massachusetts any more than the "lords bishops" of England, 
from whose frowns he had fled, he withdrew to the wilderness, and dwelt high 
up on the Seekonk or Pawtucket River, which portion of the stream still bears 
his name. There he planted, and called the place Rehoboth.' Although he 
was the first settler, Blackstone was not the founder of Rhode Island. He 
always held allegiance to Massachusetts, and did not aspire to a higher dignity 
than that of an exile for conscience' sake. 

Roger Williams, an ardent young minister at Salem,'' became the instru- 
ment of establishing the foundations of a new commonwealth in the wilderness. 
When he was banished from Mass. chusetts, toward the close of 1635,' he 
crossed the borders of civilization, and found liberty and toleration among the 
heathen. After his sentence,' his bigoted persecutors began to dread the influ- 
ence of his enlightened principles, if ho should plant a settlement beyond the 
limits of existing colonies, and they resolved to detain him. Informed of 
their scheme, he withdrew from Salem in the dead of winter [Jan., 1636], and 
through deep snows he traversed the forests alone, for fourteen weeks, sheltered 
only by the rude wigwam of the Indian, until he found the hospitable cabin' of 

■ Note 2, page 76. " Page 118. 

' Room. The name was significant of his aim — he wanted room outside of the narrow confines 
of what lie deemed Puritan intolerance. 

* Roger Williams was born iu Wales, in 1599, and was educated at Oxford. Persecution drove 
him to America in 1631, when he wa.s chosen assistant minister at Salem. His extreme toleration 
did not find there a genial atmosphere, and he went to Plymouth. There, too, he was reirarded 
with suspicion. He returned to Salem in 1634, formed a separate congregation, and in 1635, the 
general court of Massachusetts passed sentence of banishment against him. He labored zealously 
in founding the colony of Rhode Island, and had no difficulty -svith any people who came there, 
except the Quakers. He died at Providence, iu AprU, 1683, at the age of eighty-four years. 

' Pago 119. 
Williams was allowed sis weeks after the pronunciation of his sentence to prepare for his 
departure. 

' Massasoit had become acquainted with the manner of building cabins adopted by the settlers 
at fishing-stations on the coast, and had constructed one for himself. They were much more com- 
fortable than wigwams. See page 1 3. 



90 



SETTLEMENTS. 



[1636: 



Massasoit, the chief sachem of the AVampanoags,' at Mount Hope. There he 
was entertained until the buds appeared, when, being joined by five friends from 
Boston, he seated himself upon tlio Seekonk, sonic distance below Blackstone's 
plantation. He found himself within the tcrritoiy of the Plymouth Coinjiany.' 
Governor Winslow' advised him to cross into the Narragansett country, where 
he Could not be molested. With his companions he embarked in a light canoe, 
paddled around to the head of Narraganset Bay, and u])on a green slope, near 
a spring/ they prayed, and chose the spot for a settlement. WiUiams obtained 




a grant of land from Canonicus, chief sachem of the Narragansetts, and in com- 
memoration of " God's merciful providence to him in his distress," he called the 
place Providence. 

The freedom enjoyed there was soon spoken of at Boston, and persecuted 
men fled thither for refuge. Persons of every creed were allowed full liberty 
of conscience, and lived together happily. The same liberty w;is allowed in 
politics as in religion; and a pure democracy was established there. Each 
settler was required to subscribe to an agreement, that he would submit to such 
rules, " not affecting the conscience," as a majority of tlie inhabitants should 
adopt for the public good. Williams reserved no political power to himself, and 
the leader and follower had equal dignity and privileges. The government was 



' Pago 22. ' Page 63. ' Page 86. 

* ThU spring is now [1881 ] beneath some tine sycamores on tlie west side of Benefit street, in 
Providence. 



•1643.] RHODE ISLAND. 91 

entirely in tlie hands of the people. Canonicus, the powerful Narragansett 
chief, became much attached to Williams, and his influence among them, as we 
have seen,' was very great. He saved his persecutors from destruction, yet 
they had not the Christian manliness to remove the sentence of banishment, and 
receive him to their bosoms as a brother. He could not compress his enlarged 
views into the narrow compass of their creed ; and so, while they rejoiced in 
their dehverance, they anathematized their deliverer as a heretic and an outcast. 
But he enjoyed the favor of God. His settlement was entirely unmolested 
during the Pequod war,'' and it prospered wonderfully. 

Roger Williams opened his arms wide to the persecuted. Early in 1638, 
while Mrs. Hutchinson was yet in prison in Boston,' her husband, with Wil- 
liam Coddington, Dr. John Clarke, and sixteen others, of concurrent religious 
views,* accepted the invitation of Williams to settle in his vicinity. Mianto- 
nomoh gave them the beautiful island of Aquiday^ for forty fiithoms of white 
wampum." They called it Isle of Ehodes, because of its fancied resemblance to 
the island of that name in the Levant, and upon its northern verge they planted 
a settlement, and named it Portsmouth. A covenant, similar to the one used 
by Williams,' was signed by the settlers ; and, in imitation of the Jewish form 
of government under the judges, Coddington was chosen judge, or chief ruler, 
with three assistants. Others soon came from Boston ; and in 1639, Newport, 
toward the lower extremity of the island, was founded. Liberty of conscience 
was absolute ; love was the social and political bond, and upon the seal which 
they adopted was the motto, Amor v'mcit omnia — " Love is all-powerful." 
Although the Rhode Island and the Providence plantations were separate in 
government, they were united in interest and aim. Unwilling to acknowledge 
allegiance to either Massachusetts or Plymouth,^ they sought an independent 
charter. For that purpose Roger Williams went to England in 1643. The 
whole parent country was then convulsed with civil war.' After much delay, 
he obtained from Parliament (wliicli was then contending fiercely with the 
king) a free charter of incorporation, dated March 24, 1644, and all the settle^ 
ments were united under the general title of Rhode Island and Providence 
Plantations. Then was founded the commonwealth of Rhode Island. 



' Page 87. " Pago 87. ' Page 120. ■* Noto 2, page 120. 

' This was the Indian name of Rhode Island. It is a Narragansett word, signifying Peaceable 
Isle. It is sometimes spelled Aquitneclc, and Aquitnet. 

° Note 2, page 13. They also gave the Indians ten coats and twentj- hoes, on condition that 
they should leave the island before the next winter. 

' Page 90. The following is a copy of the government compact : " 'R'e, whose names are 
underwritten, do swear solemnly, in the presence of Jehovah, to incorporate ourselves into a body- 
politic, and, as He shall help ns, will submit our persons, lives, and estates, unto our Lord Jesus 
Christ, the King of kings, and Lord of Hosts, and to all those most perfect and absolute laws of His, 
given us in His lioly Word of truth, to be guided and judged thereby." 

* This unwillingness caused the other New England colonies to refuse the application of Rhode 
Island to become one of the Confederacy, in 1643. See page 121. 

' Note 3, page 108. 



92 SETTLKMK^ITS. [1631. 

C II A P T E R Y I I I . 

DELATVARE, NEW JERSEY, AND PENNSYLVANIA. [1G31— 1G82.] 

It is difficult to draw the line of demarcation between the first permanent 
scttlciiionts in the provinces of Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, for 
they Iwre such intimate relations to each other that they may be appropriately 
considered as parts of one episode in the history of American colonization. We 
shall, therefore, consider these settlements, in close connection, iu one chapter, 
commcnciii;^ with 

D E L A W A R V. . 

It was claimed by the Dutch, that the territory of New Netherland' ex- 
tended soitlnvard to Cape Ilenlopen. In June, 16'29, Samuel Godyn and 
others purchased of the natives the territory between the Cape and the mouth 
of the Delaware River. The following year, two ships, fitted out by Captain 
De Trios and others, and placed under the command of Peter lleyes, sailed 
from the Tc.xol [Dec. 12, 11)30] for America. One vessel was captured; the 
other arrived in April, 1631 ; and near the present town of Lcwiston, in 
Delaware, thirty immigrants, with implements and cattle, seated themselves. 
Ileyes returned to Holland, and reported to Captain De Vries.' That mariner 
visited America early the following year [1632J, but the little colony left by 
Heyes was not to bo found. Difficulties with the Indians had provoked savage 
vengeance, and they had exterminated the white people. 

Information respecting the fine country along the Delaware had spread 
northward, and soon a competitor for a place on the South River, as it was 
called, appeared. Usselincx, an original projector of the Dutch West India 
Company,' becoming dissatisfied with his associates, visited Sweden, and laid 
before the enlightened monarch, Gustavus Adolphus, well-arranged plans for a 
Swedish colony in the New World. The king was delighteil. for his attention 
had already been turned toward America ; and his benevolent heart was full of 
desires to plant a free colony there, which should become an asylum for all 
persecuted Christians. While his scheme was ripening, the danger which 
menaced Protestantism in Germany, called him to the field, to contend for the 
principles of the Reformation.' lie ni:irchcd from his kingdom with a strong 
army to oppose the Imperial hosts marshaled under the l)anner of the Pope on 
the fields of Germany. Yet the care and tumults of the camp and field did not 
make him forget his benevolent designs ; and only a few days before his death, 



' Pago '72. 

* De Vrics was an eminent naviirator, and one of Godyn's friends. To secure his valuable 
semces, tlie pnroliasers made liim a partner in their enterprise, witli patroon fpape 1S9] privileges, 
nnd the first oxjiodition was arrangeil bv liini. lie aflorwarii eanie to Ann rioa, and was one of 
the most active men iu the Dutch colonies. On his return to Holland, lie pnblislied an account of 
his voyagr?s. ' Page 72. ' Note 14, page 62. 



1682.] NEAV JERSEY. 93 

at the battle of Lutzen [Nov. 6, 1632], Gustavus recommended the enterprise 
as " the jewel of his kingdom." 

The successor of Gustavus was his daughter Christina, then only six years 
of acre. The government was administered by a regency,' at the head of which 
was Axel, count of Oxenstierna. He was the earliest and most ardent sup- 
porter of the proposed great enterprise of Gustavus ; and in 1634 he issued a 
charter for the Swedish West India Company. Peter jMinuit,^ who had been 
recalled from the governorship of New Netherland, and was also dissatisfied 
with the Dutch West India Company, went to Stockholm, and offered his serv- 
ices to the new corporation. They were accepted, and towai'd the close of 1637 
he sailed from Grottenburg with fifty emigrants, to plant a colony on the west 
side of the Delaware. He landed on the site of New Castle, in April, 1638, 
and purchased from the Indians^ the territory between Cape Henlopen and the 
Falls of the Delaware, at Trenton. They built a church and fort on the site 
of Wilmington, called the place Christina, and gave the name of New Sweden 
to the territory. The jealousy of the Dutch was aroused by this "intrusion," 
and they hurled protests and menaces against the Swedes.' The latter contin- 
ued to increase by immigration ; new settlements were planted ; and upon Tin- 
icum Island, a little below Philadelphia, they laid the foundations of a capital 
for a Swedish province.' The Dutch West India Company'^ finally resolved to 
expel or subdue the Swedes. The latter made hostile demonstrations, and 
defied the power of the Dutch. The challenge was acted upon ; and toward 
the close of the summer of 1655, governor Stuyvesant, with a squadron of seven 
vessels, entered Delaware Bay.' In September every Swedish fort and settle- 
ment was brought under his rule, and the capital on Tinicum Island was 
destroyed. The Swedes obtained honorable terms of capitulation ; and for 
twenty-five yeai's they prospered under the rule of the Dutch and English pro- 
prietors of New Netherland. 

NEW JERSEY. 

All the territory of Nova C-esarea, as New Jersey was called by the 
English, was included in the New Netherland charter, « and transient trading 
settlements were made [1622 J, first at Bergen, by a few Danes, and then on 
the Delaware. Early in 1623, the Dutch built a log fort near the mouth of 
Timber Creek, a few miles below Camden, and called it Nassau.^ In June, 

' A regent is one who exercises the power of liing or emperor, during the absence, incapacity, 
or chUdhood of the latter. For many years, George the Tliird of England was incapable of ruling 
on account of his insanity, and his son who was to be his successor at his death, was called tlie 
Prince Regent, because Parliament had given him power to act as king, in the place of his father. 
In the case of Christina, three persons were appointed regents, or rulers. 

^ Page 139. = The Delawares. See page 20. * Page 143. 

This was done about forty years before William Penn became proprietor of Pennsylvania. 

' Page 72. ' Page 143. ' Page 72. 

It was built under the direction of Captain Jacobus May, who had observed attempts made 
by a French sea-captain to set up the arms of France there. The fort was built of logs, and was 
little else than a rude block-house, witli palissades. [See note 1, page 127.] A little garrison, left to 
protect it, was soon scattered and the fort was abandoned. 



94 SETTLKMENTS. [IGSt. 

1623, four couples, who had been married on the voyage from Amsterdam, 
were sent to plant a colony on the Delaware. They seated themselves upon 
the site of Gloucester, a little below Fort Nassau, and this was the commence- 
ment of settlements in West Jersey. 

Seven years later [1030] Michael Pauw bought from the Indians the lands 
fxtending from Hoboken to the Rai-itan, and also the whole of Staten Island, 
and named the territory Pavonia.^ In this purchase, Bergen was included. 
Other settlements were attempted, but none- were permanent. In 1631. Cap- 
tain Ileyes, after establishing the Swedish colony at Lewiston,' crossed the 
Delaware, and purchased Cape ^lay' from the Indians ; and from that point to 
Burlington, traders' huts were often seen. The English became possessors of 
New Netherland in 1664, and the Duke of York, to whom the province had 
been given,' conveyed to Lord Berkeley and Sir George Carteret [June 24. 
1664], all the territory between the North and South (Hudson and Delaware) 
Rivers, and northward to the line of forty-one degrees and forty minutes, under 
the title of Nova Cfpsarea or New' Jersey. Soon afterward several families 
from Long Island settled at Elizabethtown,^ and there planted the first fruitful 
seed of the New Jersey colony, for the one at Gloucester withered and died. 
The following year, Philip Carteret, who had been appointed governor of the 
new province, arrived with a charter, fair and liberal in all its provisions. It 
provideti for a government to be composed of a representative assemblyi^' chosen 
by the people, and a governor and council. The legislative powers resided in 
the assembly ; the executive powers were intrusted to the governor and his 
council. Then [1665] was laid the foundation of the commonwealth of New 
Jersey. 

pennsylvania. 

A new religious sect, called Quakers,' arose in England at about the com- 
mencement of the civil wai-s [1642 — 1651] which resulted in the death of 
Charles the First. Their preachers were the boldest, and yet the meekest of 
all non-conformists.' Purer than all other sects, they were hated and perse- 
cuted by all. Those who came to America for " conscience' sake' were perse- 
cutdl by the Puritans of New England,' the Churchmen of Virginia and 
Maryland, and in a degree by the Dutch of New Amsterdam : and only in 
Rhode Island did they enjoy freedom, and even there they did not always dwell 
in peace. In 1673, George Fox, the founder of the Quaker sect, visited all his 
brethren in America. He found them a despised people everywhere, and his 



' TTntil the period of our "War for Independence, the point of land in Pawnia, on whicli Jersey 
City, o))posite New Y'ork, now stands, was called Paulus' Hook. Here was the scene of a bold 
exploit l>v Americans, under Major Henry l*e. in mo. See page 29S. 

" Pape 92. * Named in honor of Captain Jacobus Mey, or May. * Page 159. 

' Pape 159. * Note 3, page 159. 

' This name was given by Justice Burnet, of Derby, in 1650, who was admonished by George 
Fox, when he was cited before the magistrate, to tremble and guaJce tU the Word of the Lord, at the 
Bame time Fox quaked, as if stirred by migb^ emotions. See page 122. 

' Note 2, page 76. * Page 76 



1682.] 



PENNSYLVANIA. 



95 



heart yearned for an asylum for his brethren. Ainong the most influential of 
his converts was William Peun,' son of the renowned admiral of that name. 
Through him the sect gained access to the ears of the nobility, and soon the 
Quakers possessed the western half of New Jersey, by purchase from Lord 
Berkeley.' The first company of immigrants landed in the autumn of 1675, 
and named the place of debarkation Sa/eni.^ They established a democratic 
form of government ; and, in November, 1681. the first legislative assembly of 
Quakers ever convened, met at Salem. 




While these events were progressing, Penn, who had been chief peace-maker 
when disputes arose among the proprietors and the people, took measures to 
plant a new colony beyond the Delaware. He applied to Charles the Second 
for a chai'ter. The king remembered the services of Admiral Penn,^ and gave 
his son a grant [March 14, 1681] of " three degrees of latitude by five degrees 

' William Penn was born in London, in October, 1644, .ind was educated at Oxford. He was 
remarkable, in liis youtli, for brilliant talents; and while a student, having heard the preaching of 
Quakers, he was drawn to them, and suffered expulsion from his fotlier's roof in consequence. He 
went abroad, obtained courtly manners, studied law after his return, and was again driven from 
home for associating with Quakers. He then became a preacher among them, and remained in 
that connection until his death. After a life of great activity and considerable suffering, he died in 
England, in 1718, at the age of seventy-fom- years. ' Page 119. 

* Now the capital of Salem county. New Jersey. 

* Ho was a very efficient naval commander, and by his skill contributed to the defeat of the- 
Dutch in 1664. The king gave him the title oi Baron for his servicea Note 15, page 62. 



96 SETTLEMENTS. [1631. 

of longitude west of the Dckware," ami named the province Pennsylvania, in 
iionor of tiio proprietor. It ineliided tlie principal settlements of the Swedes. 
To tiiese people, and others within the domain, Perm sent a proclamation, filled 
wjtli tile loftiest sentiments of republicanism. William INIarkham, who bore the 
proclamation, was appointed dej)uty-governor of the province, and with him 
sailed |May, 1681] (juite a large company of immigrants, who were members 
or employees of the Corn pan ij of Free Traders,^ who had purchased lands of 
the proprietor. In May, the following year, Penn published a frame of gov- 
ernment, and sent it to the settlers for their approval. It wiis not a constitu- 
tion, but a code of wholesome regulations for the people of the colony.'' He 
soon afterward obtained by grant and purchase [Aug. 1682] the domain of the 
present State of Delaware, which the Duke of York claimed, notwithstanding it 
was clearly not his own. It comprised three counties, Newcastle, Kent, and 
Sussex, called The Territories. 

Penn had been anxious, for some time, to visit his colony, and toward the 
close of August, 1G82, he sailed in the Welco7ne for America, with about one 
hundred emigrants. The voyage was long and tedious ; and when he arrived 
at Newcastle, in Delaware [Nov. 6], he found almost a thousand new comers 
there, some of whom had sailed before, and some after his departure from En- 
gland. He was joyfully received by the old settlers, who then numbered almost 
three thousand. The Swedes said, "It is the best day we have ever seen;" 
and they all gathered like children around a father. A few days afterward, he 
proceeded to Shackama.xon (now Kensington suburbs of Philadelphia), where, 
under a wide-spreading elm, as tradition declares, he entered into an honorable 
treaty with tlie Indians, for tlicir lands, and established with them an cverhist- 
ing covenant of peace and friendship. " We meet," said Penn, " on the broad 
jiathway of good faith and good will ; no advantage shall be taken on cither 
eide ; but all shall be openness and love." And so it was. 

"Tlioii'lt find," s.iid tlie Quaker, " in me and in mine, 
But friends and brotliers to tliee and tliine, 
Who abuse no power and admit no line 

'Twixt tlio red man and the white. 

And bright was tlio spot where the Quaker came, 

To leave liis liat, liis drab, and his name, 
Tliat will sweetly sound from the trump of Fame, 
Till its fin.il bla.<t shall die." 

On the day after his arrival, Penn received from the agents of the Duke of 
York,' in the presence of the people, a formal surrender of Tlie Territories ; 

' Lands in the now province wore offered for about ten cents an acre. Quite a number of pur- 
chasers united, and called themselves The Company nf /■Vee Trndt-rs, with whom Teiin entered into 
an agreement concerning the occupation of the soil, laying out of a city, &c. 

' It ordained a General Assembly or court, to consist of a governor, a council of seventy, chosen 
by the freemen of the colony, and a house of delegates, to consist of not less than two hundred 
tnembers. nor more than live hundred. These were also to be chosen by the people. The proprietor, 
or his deputy (the governor), was to preside, and to have a three-lold voice in the council ; that is, on 
all questions, lie was to have tliree votes for every one of the councillors. ' Page 144. 



3682.] 



THE CAROLINAS. 



and after resting a few days, he proceeded to visit 
his brethren in New Jersey, and tiie authorities 
at New York. On his return, he met the General 
Assembly of the province at Chester,' when he 
declared the union of The Territories with Pennsyl- 
vania. He made a more judicious organization of the 
local government, and then were permanently laid the 
foundations of the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. 



97 




THE ASSEMBLY HOUSE. 



CHAPTER IX. 



THE CAROLINA.?. [1622 — 1680.] 

Unsuccessful eiforts at settlement on the coast of Carolina, were mado 
during a portion of the sixteenth century. These we have already considered." 
As early as 1609, some dissatisfied people from Jamestown settled on the 
Nansemond; and in 1622, Porey, then Secretary of Virginia, with a few 
friends, penetrated the country beyond the Roanoke. In 1630, Cliarlcs tho 
First granted to Sir Robert Heath, his attorney-general, a domain south of 
Virginia, si.x degrees of latitude in width, extending from Albemarle Sound to 
the St. John's River, in Florida, and, as usual, westward to the Pacific Ocean. 
No settlements were made, and the charter was forfeited. At that time. Dis- 
senters or Nonconformists" suffered many disabilities in Virginia, and looked to 
the wilderness for freedom. In 1653, Roger Green and a few Presbyterians 
left that colony and settled upon the Chowan River, near the present village of 
Edenton. Other dissenters followed, and the colony flourished. Governor 
Berkeley, of Virginia," wisely organized them into a separate political commu- 
nity [1663], and William Drummond,'' a Scotch Presbyterian minister, was 
appointed their governor. They received the name of Albemarle Cmmty 
Colony^ in honor of the Duke of Albemarle, who, that year, became a proprietor 
of the territory. Two years previously [1661], some New England' adventur- 
ers settled in the vicinity of Wilmington, on the Cape Fear River, but many 
of them soon abandoned the country because of its poverty. 

Charles the Second was fiimous for his distribution of the lands in the New 
World, among his friends and favorites, regardless of any other claims, Abo- 



The picture 13 a correct representation of the Iiuilfline: at Chester, in Pennsylvania, wherein 
the Assembly met. It was yet srandint; in 1860. Not lar from the spot, on the shore of the Dela- 
ware, at the mouth of Chester Creek, was also a solitary pine-tree, which marked the place where 
Penn landed. 

° Pages 55 to 57 inclusive. » Note 2, page 76. * Page 78. 

' Drummond was afterward executed on account of his participation in Bacon's revolutionary 
isX^ See note 5, page 112. • paga 108 



98 SETTLKMliNTS. 11622. 

riginal or European. In 1GG3, he grunted the wliole territory named in Sir 
Robert Heath's charter, to eigiit of his principal friends,' and called it Caro- 
lina." As the Chowan settlement was not within the limits of the charter, the 
boundary was extended northward to the present line between Virginia and 
Nortii Carolina, and also soutiiward, so as to include the whole of Florida, 
e.\cept its peninsula. The Bahama Islands were granted to the same proprie- 
tors in 1667.^ Two years earlier [1GG5J, a company of Barbadoes planters 
settled upon the lands first occupied by the New England people, near llie 
present Wilmington, and founded a permanent settlement there. The few 
settlers yet remaining were treated kindly, and soon an independent colony, with 
Sir Joini Yeanians' as governor, was established. It was called the Clctieitdoii 
Coviitij Colony, in honor of one of the proprietors. Yeamans managed 
prudently, but the poverty of the soil prevented a rapid increase in the popula- 
tion. The settlers applied themselves to the manufacture of boards, sliingles, 
and staves, which they shipped to the West Indies ; and that business is yet the 
staple trade of that region of pine forests and sandy levels. Although the 
settlement did not flourish, it continued to e.xist; and then was founded the 
commonwealth of North Carolina. 

The special attention of the proprietors was soon turned toward the more 
southerly and fertile portion of their domain, and in January, 1670, they sent 
three ships with emigrants, under tiie direction of William Sayle" and Josepli 
West, to plant a colony below Cape Fear. They entered Port Royal, landed 
on Beaufort Island at the spot where the Huguenots built Fort Caiolina in 
1564,° and there Sayle died early in 1671. The immigrants soon afterward 
abandoned Beaufort, and sailing into the Ashley River,' seated themselves on 
its western bank, at a place a few miles above Charleston, now known as Old 
Town. There they planted the first seeds of a South Carolina colony. West 
exercised authority as chief magistrate, until the arrival of Sir John Yeamans, 
in December, 1671, 'vvlio was appointed governor. lie came with fifty families, 
and a large number of slaves.* Representative government was instituted ia 
1672'^ under the title of the Carteret Conntij Colony. It was so called in 
honor of one of the projjrietors."" Ten years afterward they abandoned the spot ; 



' Lord Clarendon, his prime mini.<!ter; Gener.il Monk, just created Duke of Albemarle; Lord 
Ashley Cooper, afterward Earl of Shaftesbury ; Sir George Carteret, a proprietor of New Jersey ; 
Sir William Berkeley, Governor of Virginia; Lord Berkeley, Lord Craven, and Sir .John Colleton. 

'•' It will be perceived [note 1, page .55] that tlio name of Carolina, given to territory south of 
Virginia, was bestowed in iionor of two kings named Charles, one of France, tlie other of Kngland. 

° Samuel Stepliena succeeded Drunimond as. governor. In 1GG7; and in 1GG8, the first popular 
Assembly in North Carolina convened at Edenton. 

' Yeanians was an impoverished English baronet, who had become a planter in Barbadoes, to- 
mend his fortune, lie was successful, and became wealtliy. 

' Sayje liad jircviously explored tlie Carolina coast. Twenty years before, he had attempted to 
plant an "Eleulharia," or place dedicated to the genius of Liberty [see EleuJheria, Anthon's Cla.ss- 
ical Dictionary], in the isles near the coast of Florida. 

• Page 60. ' Page 166. 

' This w.as the commencement of negro slavery in South Carolina. Yeamans brought almost 
two hundred of tliem from Barbadoes. From the commencement, South Carolina has been a 
planting State. • Note 5, page 165. 

'" He was also one of the proprietors of New Jersey. See page 119. 



1680.J GEORGIA. 99 

and upon Oyster Point, at the junction of Ashley and Cooper Rivers,' nearer 
the sea, they founded the present city of Charleston." Immigrants came from 
various parts of Europe ; and many Dutch families, dissatisfied with the English 
rule at New York,^ went to South Carolina, where lands were freely given 
them ; and soon, along the Santee and the Edisto, the wilderness began to 
blossom under the hand of culture. The people would have nothing to do with 
a government scheme prepared by Shaftesbury and Locke, ^ but preferred simple 
organic laws of their own making;. Then were laid the foundations of the com- 
monwealth of South Carolina, although the history of the two States, under 
the same proprietors, is inseparable, until the period of their dismemberment, 
in 1729.= 



^ ■ » ♦ « ■ » 



CHAPTER X. 

GEORGIA. [1T33.] 

Georgia was the latest settled of the thirteen orig-inal English colonies in 
America. When the proprietors of the Carolinas surrendered their charter" to 
the crown in 1729, the whole country southward of the Savannah River, to 
the vicinity of St. Augustine, was a wilderness peopled by native tribes,' and 
claimed by the Spaniards as part of their territory of Florida.' The English 
disputed this claim, and South Carolina townships were ordered to be marked 
out as far south as the Alatamaha. The dispute grew warm and warlike, and 
the Indians, instigated by the Spaniards, depredated upon the frontier English 
settlements." But, while the clouds of hostility were gathering in the firma- 
ment, and grew darker every hour, it was lighted up by a bright beam of be- 
nevolence, which proved the harl^inger of a glorious day. It came from England, 
where, at that time, poverty was often considered a crime, and at least four 
thousand unfortunate debtors were yearly consigned to loathsome prisons. The 
honest and true, the noble and the educated, as well as the ignorant and the 
vile, groaned within prison walls. Their wailings at length reached the ears 
of benevolent men. Foremost among these was James Edward Oglethorpe,'" a 
brave soldier and stanch loyalist, whose voice had been heard often in Parlia- 
ment against imprisonment for debt. 

A committee of inquiry into the subject of such imprisonments, was ap- 

' These were so called in honor of Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury. Tlie Indian name of 
the former was Ke-a-wa.h, and of the latter E-ti-wan. 

' Charleston was laid out in 1680 by John Culpepper, who had been surveyor-general for 
North Carolina. See page 166. ' Page 164. ■■ Page 164. ^ Page 17i. 

» Page 111. ' Page 29. " Page 42. » Page 170. 

'° See portrait, page 104. General Oglethorpe was born in Surrey, England, on the 21st of De- 
cember, ] 098. He was a soldier by profession. In 1 745, lie was made a brigadier-general, and 
fought against Charles Edward, the Pretender, who was a grandson of James the Second, and 
claimed rightful heirship to the throne of England. Oglethorpe refused the supreme command of 
the British army destined for America in 1775. He died, June 30, 1785, aged eighty-seven years. 



100 SETTLEMENTS. (1733. 

puintoil liy Parliament, and General Oglethorpe was made chairman of it. His 
report, embodying a noble scheme of benevolence, attracted attention and 
admiration. He proposed to open the prison doors to all virtuous men within, 
who wouUl accept the conditions, and with these and other suflerers from |iov- 
erty and oppression, to go to the wilderness of America, and there establish a 
colony of freemen, and open an asylum for persecuted Protestants' of all lands. 
The plan met warm responses in Parliament, and received the hearty ajjproval 
of George the Second, then [1730] on the English throne. A royal charter for 
twenty-ono years was granted [June 0, 1732J to a corporaticm " in trust for 
the j)oor,'' to establish a colony within the disputed territory south of the Sa- 
vannah, to be Ciilled Georgia, in honor of the king.' Individuals subscribed 
large sums to defray the e.Kpenses of emigrants liitiier : and within two years 
after the issuing of the patent. Parliament had appropriated one hundred and 
eighty thousand dollars for the same purpose.^ 

The sagacious and bravo Oglethorpe was a practical philanthropist. He 
offered to accompany the first settlers to the ■wilderness, and to act as governor 
of the new province. With one hundred and twenty emigrants he left England 
[Nov., 1732], and after a passage of fifty-seven days, touched at Charleston 
[Jan., 1733], where he was received with great joy by the inhabitants, as one 
who was about to plant a barrier between them and the hostile Indians and 
Spaniards.'' Proceeding to Port Royal, Oglethorpe landed a large portion of 
his followers there, and with a few others, he coasted to the Savannah River. 
Sailing up that stream as far as Yamacraw Bluff, he landed, and chose the spot 
whereon to lay the foundation of the capital of a future State.' 

On the 12th of February, 1733, the remainder of the immigrants arrived 
from Port Royal. The winter air was genial, and with cheerful hearts and 
willing hands they constructed a rude fortification, and commenced the erection 
of a town, which they called Savamiah, the Indian name of the river." For 
almost a year the governor dwelt under a tent, and there he often held friendly 
intercourse with the chiefs of neighboring tribes. At length, when he had 
mounted cannons upon the fort, and safety was thus secured, Oglethorpe met 



' Note 1 1, pngo G2. 

' Tlio domain ftiaiiled by the charter extomlcd alonsr the const fi-om the Savannah to the Aln- 
taniaha, iiikI westward to the Pacific Ocean. Tlie trustees appointed Iw the crown, pcsses-sed all 
legislative and executive power; and. therefore, while one side of the seal of the new province 
expressed tlie benevoKut character of the schenio, by the device of a group of toiling silkworms, 
and the motto, Kun sibi, seil aliis ; the other side, bearing, between two urns the genius of 
"Georgia Augusta," with a cap of Uhertij on her head, a spear, and a horn of plenty, was a false 
emblem. There was no political liberty lor the i)eople. 

' Brilliant visions of va.^t vintages, immense productions of silk for British looms, and all the 
wealth of a lerlile tropical region, were presented lor the contemplation of the commercial acumen 
of the busines.'! men of Kngland. These considerations, as well as tho promptings of pure benev- 
olence, made donations liberal and numerous. * Page U9. 

' Some historians believe that Sir Walter Raleigh, while on his way to South America, in 1595, 
went up the Savamiah River, and held a conference witli the Indjjms on this very spot. This, 
probably, is an error, for nothing appears in the writings of Raleigh or his cotemporaries to warrant 
the inference that be ever saw the North .Vinerican continent. 

" The streets were laid out with great regularity; public squares were reserved; and the hotisos 
were all built on one model — twenty-four by sixteen feet, on tho ground. 




Oglethorpe's first Interview witu tue Indian"?, 



n33.] GEORGIA. 103 

fifty chiefs in council [May, 1733], with To-mo-chi-chi,^ the principal sachem 
of the lower Creelc confederacy.^ at their head, tq treat for the purchase of 
lands. Satisfactory arrangements were made, and the English obtained sover- 
eignty over the whole domain [June 1, 1733J along the Atlantic from the Sa- 
vannah to the St. John's, and westward to the Flint and the head waters of the 
Chattahoochee. The provisions of the charter formed the constitution of gov- 
ernment for the people ; and there, upon Yamacraw Bluff, where the flourishing 
city of Savannah now stands, was laid the foundation of the commonwealth of 
Georgia, in the summer of 1733. Immigration flowed thither in a strong and 
continuous stream, for all were free in religious matters ; yet for many years 
the colony did not flourish.' 

Wonderful, indeed, were the events connected with the permanent settle- 
ments in the New World. Never in the history of the race was greater hero- 
ism displayed than the seaboard of the domain of the United States exhibited 
during the period of settlements, and the development of colonies. Hardihood, 
faith, courage, indomitable perseverance, and untiring energy, were requisite 
to accomplish all that was done in so short a time, and under such unfavorable 
circumstances. While many of the early immigrants were mere adventurers, 
and sleep in deserved oblivion, because they were recreant to the great duty 
wliich they had self-imposed, there are thousands whose names ought to be per- 
petuated in brass and marble, because of their faithful performance of the 
mighty task assigned them. They came here as sowers of the prolific seed of 
human liberty ; and during the colonizing period, many of them carefully nur- 
tured the tender plant, while it was bursting into vigorous life. We, who are 
the reapers, ought to reverence the sowers and the cultivators with grateful 
hearts. 

' To-mo-chi-chi was then an aged man, and at his first interview with Oglethorpe, he presented 
him with a bufl'alo skin, ornamented witli tiie picture of an eagle. " Here," said tlie cliief, " is a little 
present: I give you a bufl'alo's skin, adorned on the inside with the head and featliers of an eagle, 
wliich I desire you to accept, because the eagle is an emblem of speed, and the buffalo of .strength. 
The English are swift as the bird, and strong as the beast, since, like the former, they Hew over 
vast seas to the uttermost parts of the earth ; and like the latter, they are so strong that nothing 
can withstand them. The feathers of an eagle are soft, and signify love ; tlie buflalo's skin is 
warm, and signifies protection ; — therefore I hope the EngUsh will protect and love our little liun- 
iUes." Alas I the wishes of the venerable To-mo-chi-chi were never realized, for the white people 
JBore often plundered and destroyed, than loved aud protected the Indians. 

To-mo-chi-chi died on the 5th of October, 17,39, at his own town, four miles from Savannah, 
aged about ninety-seven years. Ho loved General Oglethorpe, and expressed a desire that his 
■body might be laid among the English at Savannah. It was buried there with public honors. — Se» 
the Genileman's Magaziite, 1740, page 129. 

" Page 30. = Pages 171 aud 173. 




JAiLES EDWAlil) OGLETUOKPE. 



I E S. 



CHAPTER 

IIavixo briefly traced the interesting- 
events which rcsuheil in tiie founding of sev- 
eral colonies by settlements we will now con- 
Bider the more important acts of establishing permanent commonwealths, all of 
which still exist and flourish. The colonial history of the United States is 
comprised within the period commencing when the several settlements along the 
Atlantic coasts became organized into jiolitical communities, and ending when 
representatives of these colonies met in general congress in 1774.' and confeder- 
ated for mutual welfare. There was an earlier union of interests and eflbrts. 
It was when the several English colonies aided the mother country in a long 
war against the combined hostilities of the French and Indians. As the local 
histories of the several colonics after the commencement of that war have but 
little interest for the general reader, we shall trace the progress of each colony 
only to that period, and devote a chapter to the narrative of the French and 
Indian war.' 



' Page 228. 



' Pnirc 179. 



X619.J VIRGINIA. 105 

As we have already observed, a settlement acquires the character of a 
colony only when it has become permanent, and the people, acknowledging 
allegiance to a parent State, are governed by organic laws.' According to 
these conditions, the earliest of the thirteen colonies represented in the Con- 
gress of 1774, was 

VIRGINIA. [1G19.] 

That was an auspicious day for the six hundred settlers in Virginia when 
the gold-seekers disappeared," and the enliglitened George Yeavdley became 
governor, and established a representative assembly [June 28, 1619] — the first 
in all America.^ And yet a prime element of happiness and prosperity was 
wanting. There icere few white women in the colony. The wise Sandys, tiie 
friend of the Pilgrim Fathers,* was then treasurer of the London Company,' 
and one of the most influential and zealous promoters of emigration. During 
the same year w^lien the Puritans sailed for America [1620], he sent more than 
twelve hundred emigrants to Virginia, among whom were ninety young women, 
" pure and uncorrupt," who were disposed of for the cost of their passage, as 
wives for the' planters."^ The following year sixty more were sent. The fam- 
ily relation was soon established ; the gentle influence of woman gave refine- 
ment to social life on the banks of the Powhatan ;' new and powerful incentives 
to industry and thrift were created ; and the mated planters no longer cherisiied 
the prevailing idea of returning to England.^ Vessel after vessel, laden with 
immigrants, continued to arrive in the James River, and new settlements were 
planted, even so remote as at the Falls,' and on the distant banks of the Poto- 
mac. The germ of an empire was rapidly expanding with the active elements 
of national organization. Verbal instructions would no longer serve the pur- 
poses of government, and in July, 1621, the Company granted the colonists 
a written Constitution,"' which ratified most of the acts of Yeardley." Pro- 
vision was made for the appointment of a governor and council by the Company, 
and a popular Assembly, to consist of two burgesses or representatives from 
each borough, chosen by the people. This body, and the council, composed 
the General Assembly, which was to meet once a year, and pass laws for the 

' Pacre 61. » Page 71. ' Page 71. ■• Page 77. ' Page 64. 

' Tobacco had already become a circulating medium, or curreucy, in Virginia. The price of a 
wife varied from 120 to 150 pounds of this product, equivalent, in money value, to about $90 and 
$112 each. Tlie second " cargo" were sold at a stUl higher price. By the king's special order, one 
hundred dissolute vagabonds, called "jail-birds'' by the colonists, were sent over the same year, and 
sold as bond-servants for a specified time. In August, the same year, a Dutch trading vessel en- 
tered the James River with negro slaves. Twenty of them were sold into perpetual slavery to th» 
planters. This was the commencement of negro slavery in the English colonies [note -1. page 177]. 
The slave population of the United States in 1860, according to the census, was about 4.000,000. 

' Page 64. 

* Most of the immigrants hitherto were possessed of the spirit of mere adventurers. They camo 
;o America to repair shattered fortunes, or to gain wealth, with the ultimate object of returning to 
England to enjoy it. The creation of families made the planters more attached to the soil of Vir- 
ginia. 

' Near the site of the city of Richmond. The falls, or rapids, extend about six miles. 

'" Tlie people of the J/'i)/-/fo«'(;r formed a leriiten CotixUiution for themselves [patre 78]. That 
of Virginia was modeled nrtpr the Constitution of England. " Page 70. 



106 THE COLONIES. [1619. 

general good.' Sucli laws were not valid until approved by tlio Company, 
neither were any orders of the Company binding upon tlie colonists until 
ratified by the General Asseml)ly. Trial by jury wiis established, and courts 
of law conformable to those of England were organized. Ever afterward claim- 
ing these prh-ikyes as }-i(//its, the A'irginians look back to the summer of 1621 
as the era of their civil freedom. 

The excellent Sir Francis Wyatt, wlio had been appointed governor under 
the Co/i.s/i/i//ii)ii, and brought the instrument with him, was delighted with the 
aspect of affains in A^irginia. But a dark cloud soon arose in the summer sky. 
The neigiiboring Indian tribes' gathered in solemn council. Powhatan, the 
friend of the English after the marriage of his daugiiter,' was dead, and an 
enemy of the white people ruled the dusky nation.' They had watched the 
increasing strength of the English, with alarm. The white people Avere now 
four tiiousand in number, and rapidly increa.sing. Tlie Indians read their des- 
tiny — annihilation — upon the face of every new comer ; and, prompted by the 
first great law of his nature, self-preservation, the red man resolved to strike a 
blow for life. A conspiracy was accordingly formed, in the spring of 1622. to 
e.xterminate the white people. At mid-day, on the 1st of April, the hatchet 
fell upon all of the more remote settlements ; and within an hour, three hun- 
dred and fifty men, wouien, and children, were slain.' Jamestown'' and neigh- 
boring plantations were saved by the timely warning of a converted Indian.' 
The people were on their guard and escaped. Those far away in the forests 
^lefended themselves bravely, and when they had beaten back the foe. they fled 
to Jamestown. AVithin a few days, eighty plantations were reduced to eight. 

The people, tims concentrated at Jamestown by a terrible necessity, pre- 
pared for vengeance. A vindictive war ensued, and a terrible blow of retalia- 
tion was given. The Indians upon the James and York Rivers were slaughtered 
by scores, or were driven far back into tiie wilderness. Yet a blight was upon 
the colony. Sickness and famine followed close upon the massacre. Within 
three months, the colony of four thousand souls was reduced to twenty-five 
liundred ; and at the beginning of 1624, of the nine thousand persons who had 
been sent to A'irginia from England, only eigiiteen liundred remained. 

These disheartening events, and the selfish action of the king, discouraged 
the London Company.' The holders of the stock had now become very numer- 
ous, and their meetings, composed of men of all respectable classes, assumed a 



' This was the beginning of tlio Virginia ITouse of Biirgeases, of which we shall often speak in 
future chapters ' Tlie Powliatans. See page 20. ' Page 70. 

' Powliatan died in 1G18, and was succeeded in office by liis younger brother, 0|iecliancim- 
ough [see page 6G], This cliief hated the English. He was the one wlio made Captain Smith a 
prisoner. 

° Opechancanough wa,«i wily and exceedingly treaclierous. Only a few days before the mas- 
sacre, lie declared th.at ".sooner the skies would fall tlian liis frlendsliip witli the English would be 
dissolved." Even on tlie day of the massacre, the Indians entered the houses of the planters with 
usual tokens of friendship. ° Page 64. 

' This was Chanco. who was informed of the bloody dosiirn the evening previous. He desired 
to save a white friend in Jamestown, and gave him tlie inforniation. It was too late to send word 
to the more remote scttk'inents. Among those who fell on this occasion, were si.\ members of the 
council, and several of the wealthiest inhabitants. ' Page 64. 



3C8S.] VIRGINIA. 107 

political character, in ■which two distinct parties were represented, namely, the 
advocates of liberty, and the supporters of the royal prerogatives. The king 
■was offended by the freedom of debates at these meetings, and regarded them 
as inimical to royalty, and dangerous to the stability of his throne.' He deter- 
mined to regain what he had lost by granting the liberal third charter^ to the 
company. He endeavored first to control the elections. Failing in this, he 
sought a pretense for dissolving the Company. A commission was appointed 
in May, 1623, to inquire into their affairs. It was composed of the king's 
pliant instruments, who, having reported in favor of a dissolution of the Com- 
pany, an equally pliant judiciary accomplished his designs in October following, 
and a quo warranto^ was issued. The Company made but little opposition, for 
the settlement of Virginia had been an unprofitable speculation from the be- 
ginning ; and in July, 1624, the patents were cancelled.* Virginia became a 
royal province again, ^ but no material change ■was made in the domestic affairs 
of the colonists. 

King James, ■with his usual egotism, boasted of the beneficent results to the 
colonists which ■would flow from this usui'pation, by which they ■were placed 
under his special care. He appointed Yeardley," with twelve councillors, to 
administer the government, but wisely refrained from interfering with the 
House of Burgesses.' The king lived but a few months longer, and at his 
death, which occurred on the 6th of April, 1625, he was succeeded by his son, 
Charles the First. That monarch was as selfish as he w^as weak. He sought 
to promote the welfare of the Virginia planters, because he also sought to reap 
the profits of a monopoly, by becoming himself their sole fiictor in the manage- 
ment of their exports. He also allowed them political privileges, not because he 
wished to benefit his subjects, but because he had learned to respect the power 
of those far-off colonists ; and he sought their sanction for his commercial 
agency.' 

Governor Yeardley died in November, 1627, and was succeeded, two years 
later [1629], by Sir John Harvey, a haughty and unpopular royalist. He was 
a member of the commission appointed by James ; and the colonists so despised 
him, that they refused the coveted monopoly to the king. After many and 
violent disputes about land titles, the Virginians deposed him [1635 J and 
appointed commissioners to proceed to England, with an impeachment. Harvey 
accompanied the commission. The king refused to hear complaints against the 

' These meetings were quite frequent ; and so important wpre the members, in political affaii'S, 
that they could influence the elections of members of Parliament. In 1623. the accomiilislied 
Nicholas Ferrar, an active opponent of tlie court party, was elected to Parliament, by the inrtuence 
of the London Company. This fact, doubtless, caused the king to dissolve the Company that vear. 

" Page 10. 

' A writ of quo warranto is issued to compel a person or corporation to appear before the king, 
and show by what authority certain pri^Tle^es are held. 

' The Company had expended almost $700,000 in estabUshing the colony, and this great sum 
was almost a dead loss to the stockholders. ^ Page 63. 

' Page 70. '' Note 1, page 106. 

' In June, 1628, the king, in a letter to the governor and council, asked them to convene an 
assembly to consider his proposal to contract for the whole crop of tobacco. He thus tacitly 
acknowledged the legality of the repubUcan assembly of Virginia, hitherto not sanctioned^ but only 
permitted. 



108 THE COLONIES. [1C19. 

accused, ami ho was sent l)ack clothed with full ]inwt>ra to administer tlie gov- 
ernment, indeiiendeiit of the people. Ih; ruled iihuost four years longer, and was 
succeeded, in November, 1G39, by Sir Francis Wyatt, who administered gov- 
ernment well for about two years, when he wa.s succeeded [1G41] by SirWdliam 
Berkeley,' an able and elegant courtier. For ten years Berkeley ruled with 
vigor, and the colony prospered wonderfully." But, as in later years, commo- 
tions in Europe now disturbed the American settlements. The democratic 
revolution in England," which brought Charles the First to the block, and 
placed Oliver Cromwell in power, now [1642] began, and religious sects in 
England and vVnieriea assumed political importance. Puritans' liad liitherto 
been toleiated in \'irgiuia, but now the Throne and the Church were united in 
interest, and the ^'irginians being loyal to both, it was decreed that no minister 
should ))rcach except in conformity to the constitution of the Church of En- 
gland." Many non-conformists" were banished from tlic colony. This was a 
dark cloud upon the otherwise clear skies of Virginia, but a darker cloud was 
fathering. The Indians were again incited to hostilities by the restless and 
vengeful Opechancanough,' and a terrible storm bur.st upon the English, in 
April, 1G44. For two years a bloody border warfare was carried on. The 
kin" of tlie Powhatans' was finally made captive, and died while in jirison at 
Jamestown, and his people were thorouglily subdued. The power of the con- 
federation was completely broken, and after coding large tracts of lanil to the 
English, the chiefs acknowledged allegiance to the authorities of Virginia, and 
so the political life of tlio Powhatans passed away forever." 

During the civil war in England I1G41 — 1G49|, the Virginians remained 
loyal ; and wlien republican govcrnuiont was proclaimed, they boldly recognized 
the son of the late king, although in exile, as their sovereign.'" The republican 
pai-liament was highly incensed, and took immediate measures to coerce Vir- 
ginia into submission to its authority. For that purjiose Sir (loorge Ayscue 
was sent with a powerful fleet, bearing connnissioners of })arliament, as repre- 
sentatives of the sovereignty of the commonwealth, and anchored in Hampton 
Roads in March, 1651. 



' Willinm Dorkplov was bom near Loncton; was eduoatod at Oxford; became, by travel aud 
cduejvlion, a polisliod gentleman; was governor of Virginia almost 40 yiars, and died in .Inly, 1G77. 

» In 1G48, tlie number of colonists was 20,000. "The cottages were lilled wiUi children, as tho 
ports were with ships and immigrants." 

' For a long time the exactions of the kiin; fostered a bitter feeling toward him. in the hearts 
oftlie iieoplo. In 1G41 thev took up arms again.st their sovereign. One of the eliief leaders of tho 
popular parly was Oliver Cromwell. The war continued until HMO, when the royalisis were sub- 
dued, and tlie king was beheaded. Parliament a.-wumed all the lunetions of government, and ruled 
until lO,"!:!, when Cromwell, the insurgent leader, dissolved that body, and was proclaimed supreme 
ruler, with tho title of I'rokctor of tho Commonwealth of England. Cromwell was ii son of a 
wciilihy brewer of Uunliiigdon, England, wliero ho was born in 1699. Ho died in September, 
1668 * Pago 76. ' Page 7.^ 

' Note 2, pago 7G. ' Note B, page lOG. ' Pago 20. 

° They relinquished all claim to tho beautiful country between tho York and James Rivera, 
from the Falls of the latter, at Kii-luuond, to the sea, Ibrever. It wa.s a legacy of a dying nation 
to their e(aiiiuerors. Alter tliat, their utter destruction was swill and Ihonaigli. 

'" Afterward the prolligiito Charles the Si>eond. His mother was .sister to the French king, and 
to that <ourt she lied, with her children. It was a sad day lor the moral character of England 
when Charles wa.s enthroned. He wa.s less bigoted, but more licentious than any of the Stuarta 
who governod Circat Uritiiiu lor more than eighty years. 



168S.] VIRGINIA. 109 

The Virginians iiiid rosolved to submit rather tlian figlit, yet they made a 
show of resistance. Tliey doelared their willingness to conipronii.se with the 
invaders, to which tho commissioners, surprised and intimidated by the bold 
attitude of the colonists, readily consented. Instead of opening their cannons 
upon the Virginians, they courteously proposed to them submission to tho 
authority of parliament upon terms quite satisfactory to the colonists. Liberal 
political concessions to the people were secured, and they were allowed nearly 
all those civil rights which the Declaration of Independence,' a century and a 
quarter later, charged George tho Third with violating. 

Virginia was, virtually, an independent State, until Charles the Second 
was restored to the throne of his father [May 20, IGGOJ, for CromwoU made no 
appointments e.\cept that of governor. In the same year [1652] when the par- 
liamentary commissioners came, tho people had elected Richard Bennet to fill 
Berkeley's place. lie was succeeded by Edward Digges, and in 1G5G, Crom- 
well appointed Samuel Mathews governor. On the death of tho Protector 
[1G58], the "\Mrginians were not disjiosed to acknowledge tho authority of his 
son Richard,' and they elected Mathews their chief magistrate, as a token of 
their independence. Universal suffrage prevailed ; all freemen, without excep- 
tion, were allowed to vote ; and white servants, when their terms of bondage 
ended, had the same privilege, and might become burgesses. 

But a serious change came to the Virginians, after the restoration of Charles 
the Second. When intelligence of that event reaclwd Virginia, Berkeley, 
whom the people had elected governor in 16G0, repudiated the popular sover- 
eignty, and proclaimed the exiled monarch " King of England, Scotland, Ire- 
land, and Virr/inia.^' This happened before he was proclaimed in England.' 
Tho Virginia republicans were oflended, but being in the minority, could do 
nothing. A new Assembly was elected and convened, and high hopes of favor 
from tho monarch were entertained by the court party. But these were speed- 
ily blasted, and in place of great privileges, came commercial restrictions to 
cripple the industry of the colony. The navigation act of 1G51 was re-enacted 
in 16G0, and its provisions were rigorously enforced. -i The people murmured, 



' See Supplement, 

' Cromwell appointed liis son Richard to succod liini in office. Lacking the vigor and ambition 
of his tatlicr, ho gladly resigned the tronble.s{mie legaey into tlie h.inda of tho people, and, a littlo 
more tlian a yi'ar afterward, Charles tho Koeond was enthroned. 

' When inlbrmed that Parliament was about to send a fleet to bring them to submission, tlio 
Virginians sent a message to Charles, then in Flanders, inviting him to eomo over and bo king of 
A'irginia. lie had resolved to come, when matters took a turn in Kugland favorable to his restora- 
tion. In gratitudo to tho colonists, lio caused tho arms of Virginia to bo quartered with those of 
England, Seotlanil, and Ireland, as an independent member of the empire. From this circumstance 
Virginia received tho name of The Old Dominion. Coins, with these quarterings, were made as 
late as 1773. 

* Tho first Na%'igation Act, by tho Republican Parliament, prohibited foreign vessels trading to 
tlio English colonies. This was partly to punish tho sugar-producing islands of tho West Indies, 
because tho people were chiefly loyalists. Tho act of IGGO provided that no goods should bo 
carried to or from any English colonics, but in vessels built within tho English dominions, whoso 
masters and at least three fourths of tlio crows were Englishmen; .and that sugar, tobacco, and 
other colonial commodities should bo imported into no part of Europe, except Fngland and her 
dominions. Tho triulo between the colonies, now straggling for prosperous life, was also taxed for 
tho benefit of EngUuid. 



110 THE COLONIES. (1619. 

but in vain. The pvofli<?ite inonarcli, who seems never to have had a clear 
perception of riglit anil wrong, but was governed by caprice and passion, gave 
away, to his special favorites, large tracts of the finest portions of the A'irginia 
soil, some of it already well cultivated.' 

Week after week, and month after month, the Royalist party continued to show 
more and more of the foul hand of despotism. The pliant Assembly abritlged 
the liberties of the people. Although elected for only two years, the membei-s 
assumed to themselves the right of holding oflice indefinitely, and the repre- 
sentative system was thus virtually abolished. The doctrines and rituals of 
the Church of England having been made the religion of tiie State, intolerance 
began to grow. Baptists and Quakers'^ were compelled to pay heavy fines. 
The salaries of the royal officers being paid from duties upon exported tobacco, 
these officials were made independent of the people.' Oppressive and unecjual 
taxes were levied, and the idle aristocracy formed a distinct and ruling class. 
The "common people" — the men of toil and substantial worth — formed a 
republican Jiarty, and rebellious murmurs were heard on every side. They 
desired a sufficient reason for strengthening their power, and it soon appeared. 
The menaces of the Susquehaniiah Indians,' a fierce tribe of Lower Pennsylva- 
nia, gave the people a plausible pretense for arming during the summer of 
1675. The Indians had been driven from their hunting-grounds at the head 
of the Chesapeake Bay by the Senecas,' and coming down the Potomac, they 
made war ujion the Maryland settlements." They finally committed murders 
upon A'^irgiiiia soil, and retaliation' caused the breaking out of a fierce border 
war. Tile inhabitants, exasperated and alarmed, called loudly upon Governor 
Berkeley to take immediate and energetic measures for the defense of the col- 
ony. His slow and indecisive movements were very unsatisfactory, and loud 
murmui-s were heard on every side. At lenrjth Nathaniel Bacon." an energetic 
and highly esteemed republican, acting in behalf of his party, demanded per- 
mission for the people to arm and protect themselves.' Berkeley's sagacity 
perceived the danger of allowing discontented men to have arms, and he refused. 
The Indians came nearer and nearer, until laborers on Bacon's plantation, near 
Richmond, were murdered. That leader then ^-ielded to the popular will, and 
placed himself at the head of four or five hundred men, to drive back the 
enemy. Berkeley, jealous of Bacon's popularity, proclaimed him a traitor 

' In 1673, the king pave to Lord Culpepper and the Earl of Arlington, two of his profligate 
favorites, "all the dominion of land and water called Virginia," for the term of thirty years. 

' Note 7, page 94. 

' One of the cliargos made against the King of England in the Declaration of Independence, 
more than a lumdred years later, was that ho had '■ made judges dependent on his will alone for 
the tenure of their offices and the amount and payment of their siUaries." ' Page 17. 

' Page a.f. • Page 82. 

' Jolni Wa-shington, an ancestor of the commander-in-chief of the American armies a century 
later, commanded some troops .against an Indian fort on the Potomac. Some chiefs, who were 
sent to his camp to treat for peace, were trcaelierously slain, and this excited tlio fierce resentment 
of the Snsqueliannahs. 

" Ho w.as born in England, was educated a lawyer, and in Virginia was a member of tiie covin- 
cil. He was about thirty years of age at that time. 

" King Pliilip's wiir was then raging in Massachusetts, and the white people, everywhere, wer» 
alarmed. See page 124. 



1G88.J VIRGINIA. Ill 

[May, 1676J, nnd sent troops to arrest him. Some of his more timid followers 
returned, but sterner patriots adhered to his fortunes. The people generally 
sympathized with him, and in the lower counties they arose in open rebellion. 
Berkeley was obliged to recall his troops to suppress the insurrection, and in 
the mean while Bacon drove the Indians' back toward the Rappahannock. He 
was soon after elected a burgess," but on approaching Jamestown, to take his 
seat in the Assembly, he was arrested. For fear of the people, who made hos- 
tile demonstrations, the governor soon pardoned him and all his followers, and 
hypocritically professed a personal regard for the bold republican leader. 

Popular opinion had now manifestly become a power in Virginia ; and the 
pressure of that opinion compelled Berkeley to yield at all points. The long 
aristocratic Assembly was dissolved ; many abuses were corrected, and all the 
privileges formerly enjoyed by the people were restored.' Fearing treachery 
in the capital. Bacon withdrew to the Middle Plantation,' where he was joined 
by three or four hundred armed men from the upper counties, and was pro- 
claimed commander-in-chief of the Virginia troops. The governor regarded the 
movement as rebellious, and refused to sign Bacon's commission. The patriot 
marched to Jamestown, and demanded it without delay. The frightened governor 
speedily complied [July 4, 1676], and, concealing his anger, he also, on compul- 
sion, signed a letter to the king, highly commending the acts and motives of the 
" traitor." This was exactly one hundred years, to a day, before the English 
colonies in America declared themselves free and independent, the logic of 
•which the King of Great Britain was compelled, reluct;intly, to acknowledge, a 
few years later. The Virginia Assembly was as pliant before the successful 
leader as the governor, and gave him the commission of a general of a thousand 
men. On receiving it. Bacon marched against the Pamunkey Indians.' When 
he had gone, Berkeley, faithless to his professions, crossed the York River, and 
at Gloucester summoned a convention of royalists. All the proceedings of the 
Repuljlican Assembly were reversed, and, contrary to the advice of his friends, 
the governor again proclaimed Bacon a traitor, on the 29th of July. The 
indignation of the patriot leader was fiercely kindled, and, marching back to 
Jamestown, he lighted up a civil war. The property of royalists was confis' 
cated, their wives were seized as hostages, and their plantations were desolated. 
Berkeley fled to the eastern shore of the Chesapeake. Bacon proclaimed his 
abdication, and, dismissing the republican troops, called an Assembly in his 
own name, and was about to cast off all allegiance to the EngUsh Crown, when 



' Page 40. 

' The chief leaders of the republican party at the capital, were 'William Drummond, who ha4 
been governor of North Carolina [page 97], and Colonel Ricliard Lawrence. 

' This event was the planting of one of the most vigorous and fruitful germs of American 
nationality. It was the first bending of power to the boldly-expressed will of the people. 

* 'Williamsburg, four miles fi'om Jamestown, and midway between the York and J.ames Rivers, 
was then called the Middle Plantation. After the accession of 'U'iUiam and Mary [see page 113], 
a towTi was laid out in tlie form of the ciphers 'WM., and was named 'Williamsljurg. Governor 
Nicholson made it tlio capital of tlie province in 1 fi98. 

' This was a small tribe on the Pamunkey River, one of ihe chief tributaries of the York 
Uiver. 




n2 THE COLONIES. I Hil!t. 

intelligence was reccivetlof the iirriviil of imperial troops to quell the rebellion.' 
(jreiit was the joy of the governor, when inlbrmed of the arrival of the lioped- 
for succor, for his danger was imminent. With some royalists and English 
sailors under Major Robert Beverley, he now [Sept. 7| returned to Jamestown. 
Bacon collected hastily his troops, and drove the governor and his friends down 
the James River. Informed that a large body of royalists and imperial troops 
were approaching, the republicans, unable to maintain their position at James- 
town, ai)plied the torch |Sept. 3UJ just as the night shadows came over the 
village." When the sun arose on the following morning, 
the first town built by Englishmen in America,^ was a 
heap of smoking ruins. Nothing remained standing 
but a few chimneys, and that old church tower, which 
now attracts the eye and heart of the voyager upon the 
bosom of the James River. This work accomplished. 
Bacon pressed forward with liis little army toward the 
York, determined to drive the royalists from Virginia. 
ciiLiicii rowEit. I^ut he was smitten by a deadlier foe tium sunned men. 

The malaria of the marshes at Jamestown had poisoned 
his veins, and he died [Oct. 11, 1070] of malignant fever, on the north bank 
of the York. There was no man to receive the mantle of his ability and influ- 
ence, and his departure was a death-blow to the cause he had espoused. His 
Iriends and followers made but feeble resistance, and before the first of Novem- 
ber, Berkeley returned to the Middle Plantation* in triumph. 

The dangers and vexations to which the governor had been exposed during 
these commotions, rendered the haughty temper of the baron irascible, and he 
signalized his restoration to power by acts of wanton cruelty. Twenty-two of 
the ins\n-gent leaders had been hanged,^ when the more merciful Assembly im- 
plored him to shed no more blood. But he continued fines, imprisonments, and 
confiscations, and ruled with an iron hand and a stony .heart until recalled by 
tlic king in April, 1077, who had become disgusted with his cruel conduct.' 
Thei-e wiis no printing press in Virginia to record current history,' and for a 

' This wn.i' an oiTor. Tlio floot sent with troops to qtipU the insiirroction, did not arrive until 
April the following year, when all was over. Colonel JoO'reys, the successor of Berkeley, came 
with the lleet. 

' Hesides the church and court-house, Jamestown contjiined sixteen or eighteen bouses, built 
of brick, and quite commodious, and a large number of huinlilo log cabins. 

' The church, of which the brick tower alone remains, wns built about 1(120. It was probably 
the third church erected in .huncstown. The ruin is now [18S;!] a few rods from the encroaching 
bank of the river, and i.s about thirty feet in height. The engraving is a coriX'Ct representation of 
its present iippearance. In the grave-yard adjoining are fragments of several tnonumuuts. 

* Note -1. piige 111. 

• The first man executed was Colonel Hansford. ITe has been justly termed the first martyr in 
the cause of liberty in America. Drunimond and Lawrence were also cxccutecL They were con- 
sidered ringleaders and tlie prime instigators of the rebellion. 

° Charles sjiid, "Tlu' old fool has Uikeu more lives in that naked country than I have taken for 
the murder of my father" 

' lierkeliv was an ei\eniy to popular enlightenment, lie said to commissioners sent from En- 
gland in Km I. "Thank (hid then< are no fn-e .schools nor printing press: and I hope we shall not 
have these liundred years; for learning has brought disobedience, and heresy, and sects into the 
world, and printing has divulged these, and libels against the best government" Despots are 
always afraid of the printing press, for it is the most destructive foe of tyranny. 



16S8.] VIRGINIA. 113 

hundi-ed years the narratives of the royalists gave hue to tlie whole affair. 
Bacon was always regarded as a traitor, and the effort to establish a free gov- 
ernment is known in history as Bacon's Rebellion. Such, also, would have 
been the verdict of history, had Washington and his compatriots been unsuc- 
cessful. Too often success is accounted a virtue, hntfai/iirc, a crime. 

Long years elapsed before the effects of these civil commotions were effiiced. 
The people were borne down by the petty tyranny of royal rulers, yet the prin- 
ciples of Republicanism grew apace. The popular Assembly became winnowed 
of its aristocratic elements ; and, notwithstanding royal troops were quar- 
tered in Virginia,' to overawe the people, the burgesses were always firm in the 
maintenance of popular rights." In reply to Governor Jeffreys, when he ap- 
pealed to the authority of the Great Seal of England, in defense of his arbitrary 
act in seizing the books and papers of the Assembly, the burgesses said, " that 
such a brea'jh of privilege could not be commanded under the Great Seal, be- 
cause they could not find that any king of England had ever done so in former 
times." The king commanded the governor to " signify his majesty's indigna- 
tion at language so seditious;" but the burgesses were as indifferent to royal 
frowns as they were to the governor's menaces. 

A libertine from the purlieus of the licentious court now came to rule the 
libertv-loving "N^irginians. It was Lonl Culpepper, wlio, under the grant of 
1G73,' had been appointed governor for life in 1G77. He arriveil in 1680. His 
profligacy and i-apacity disgusted the people. Discontents ripened into insur- 
rections, and the blood of patriots again flowed.* At length the king himself 
became incensed against Culpepper, revoked his grant' in 1684, and deprived 
him of oflSce. Effingham, his successor, was equally rapacious, and the people 
were on the eve of a general rebellion, when king Charles died, and his brother 
James"^ was proclaimed [Feb. 1685] his successor, with the title of James the 
Second. The people hoped for benefit by the change of rulers, but their bur- 
dens were increased. Again the wave of rebellion was rising high, when the 
revolution of 1688 placed William of Orange and his wife Mary upon the 
throne.' Then a real change for the better took place. The detested and 
detestable Stuarts were forever driven from the seat of power in Great Britain. 
That event, wrought out by the people, infused a conservative principle into 
the workings of the English constitution. The popular will, expressed by Par- 

' These troops were under the command of a wise veteran, Sir Henry Cliicheley, wlio managed 
with prudence. They proved a source of much discontent, because their subsistence was drawn 
from the planters For the same cause, disturbances occurred in New York ninety yeare atlcrward. 
See page 218. ' Page 71. ' Note 1, page 110. 

* By the king's order, Culpepper caused several of the insurgents, who were men of influence, 
to bo hanged, and a "reign of terror," misc;illed tranquillUy, foUowed. 

' ArUngton [note 1, page 110] had .already disposed of his interest in the grant to Culpepper. 

' James, Duke of York, to whom Charles gave the New Netherlands in 1664. See page 144. 

' James the Second, by his bigotry (ho Wiis a Roman Catholic), tyranny, and oppression, ren- 
dered himsell' hateful to his subjects. William, Prince of Orange, Stadtholdcr of Holland, who had 
married Mary, a Protestant daughter of J.imcs, .and liis eldest child, w.as invited by the incensed 
people to come to the English throne, lie came \rith Dutch troops, and landed at Torbay on the 
5th of November, 1688. James was deserted by his soldiers, and ho and his family soujjht safety 
in flight. Wilham and Mary were prochiimod joint monarchs of England on the 13tli of February, 
1689. This act consummated that revolution which Voltaire st^Wd " the ora of English Uberty." 

8 



114 THE COLONIES. [162(7. 

liamcnt, became potential ; and the personal character, or caprices of the mon- 
arch, had comparatively little influence upon legislation. Tiie potency of the 
National Assembly was extended to simihir colonial organizations. Tile powers 
of governors were defined, and the rights of the people were understood. Bad 
men often exercised authority in tlie colonics, but it was in subordination to tlio 
English Constitution ; and, notwithstanding commercial restrictions bore heav- 
ily upon the enterprise of the colonies, the diffusion of just political ideas, and 
the growth of free institutions in America, were rapid and healthful. 

From the revolution of 1688, down to the commencement of the French and 
Indian war, the history of Virginia is the history of the steady, quiet prog- 
ress of an industrious people, and presents no prominent events of interest ta 
the general reader.' 



CHAPTER II. 

MASSACHUSETTS. [1G20.] 

"Welcome, Englishmen! welcome, Englishmen!" were the first words- 
which the Pilgrim Fathers' heard from the lips of a son of the American 
forest. It was the voice of Samoset, a Wampanoag chief, who had learned u 
few English words of fishermen at Penobscot. His brethren had hovered 
around the little community of sufferers at New Plymouth' for a hundred days, 
when he boldly approached [March 26, 1621], and gave the friendly saluta- 
tion. He told them to possess the land, for the occupants had nearly all been 
swept away by a pestilence. The Pilgrims thanked God for thus making their 
seat more secure, for they feared the hostility of the Aborigines. When Sam- 
oset again appeared, he was accompanied by Squanto,' a chief who had recently 
returned from captivity in Spain ; and they told the white people about Mas- 
sasoit, the grand sachem of the AVampanoags, then residuig at Mount Hope. 
An interview was planned. The old sachem came with barbaric pomp,^ and he 
and Governor Carver" smoked the calumet^ together. A prelimiiuiry treaty of 
friendship and alliance was formed [April 1, 1621 J, which remained unbroken 

' The population at that time was about 50.000, of whom one half were slaves. The tobacco 
trade had become very important, the exports to England and Ireland being about 30.000 hogs- 
heads that year. Almost a nundrcd vessels aiinualiy came from tliose countries to Virginia for 
tobacco. A powerful militia of almost 9,000 men was organized, and they no longer Icared their 
dusky neighbors. Tlio militia became expert in the use of fire-arms in the woods, and back to this 
period the Virginia riHemaii may look for the foundation of liis fame as a marksman. The province 
contained twenty-two counties, and forty-eight p.-irishes, with a church and a clergyman in each, 
and a great deal of glebe land. But there was no printing press nor book-store in the colony. A 
press w:us first established in Virginia in 172EL 

" Pago 77. ' Page 78. * Page 74. 

' Miussasoit approached, with a guard of sixty warriors, and took post upon a neighboring hill. 
There he sat in state, and received Edward AVinslow as embatssailor from the English. Leaving 
TrVinslow with his warriors as security for his own Siifety, the isiwhem went into New Plynioutli and 
treated with Governor Carver. Note 5, page 14. * Pago 78. ' Page 14. 



1-55.] MASSACHUSETTS. 115 

for fifty years.' Massasoit rejoiced at liis good fortune, for Canonicus, the head 
of the powerful Narragansetts," was his enemy, and he needed strength. 

Three days after the interview with the Wampanoag sachem [April 3], 
Governor Carver suddenly died. William Bradford,' the earliest historian of 
the colony, was appointed his successor. He was a wise and prudent man, and 
for thirty years he managed the public affairs of the colony with great sagacity. 
He was a man just fitted for such a station, and he fostered the colony with 
parental care. The settlers endured great trials during the first four years of 
their sojourn. They were barely saved from starvation in the autumn of 1621, 
by a scanty crop of Indian corn.'' In November of that year, thirty-five im- 
migrants (some of them their weak brethren of the Speedweliy joined them, and 
increased their destitution. The winter was severe, and produced great suffer- 
ing ; and the colonists were kept in continual fear by the menaces of Canonicus, 
the great chief of the Narragansetts, who regarded the English as intruders. 
Bradford acted wisely with the chief, and soon made him sue for peace." The 
power, but not the hati-ed, of the wily Indian was subdued, yet he was com- 
pelled to be a passive friend of the English. 

Sixty-three more immigrants arrived at Plymouth in July, 1622. They 
had been sent by Weston, a wealthy, dissatisfied member of the Plymouth Com- 
pany,' to plant a new colony. ]Many of them were idle and dissolute ;' and 
after living upon the slender means of the Plymouth people for several weeks, 
they went to Wissagusset (now Weymouth), to commence a settlement. Their 
improvidence produced a famine ; and they exasperated the Indians by begging 
and stealing supplies for their wants. A plot Avas devised by the savages for 
their destruction, but through the agency of Massasoit,' it was revealed [JIarch, 
1623] to the Plymouth people ; and Captain Jliles Standish, with eight men, 
hastened to Wissagusset in time to avert the blow. A chief and several war- 
riors were killed in a battle ;'" and so terrified were the surrounding tribes by 



' Page 124. ' Page 22. 

' TVilliam Bradford was born at Ansterfield, in the north of England, in 1588. He followed 
Robinson to Holland; came to America in the ilayflinver [see page 77]; and was annually elected 
governor of tlie colony from 1621 imtil his death in 1657. 

' While Captain Sliles Standisli and others were seeking a place to land [see page 78], they 
found some maize, or Indian corn, in one of the deserted huts of the savages. Afterward, Saraoset 
and others taught them how to cultivate the gram (then unknown in Europe), and this supply serv- 
ing for seed, providentially saved tliem from starvation. Tlie grain now first received tlie name of 
Indian corn. Early in September [1621], an exploring party, under Standish, coasted northward to 
Shawmut, the site of Boston, where they fovmd a few Indians. The place was delightful, and for a 
while, the Pdgrims thought of removing thither. * Page 77. 

° Canonicus dwelt upon Connanicut Island, opposite Newport. In token of his contempt and 
defiance of the Eughsh, he sent [Feb., 1622] a bundle of arrows, wr.apped in a rattlesnake's skin, 
to Governor Bradlbrd. The governor accepted the hostile challenge, and then returned the skin, 
filled with powder and shot. These substances were new to the savages. They regarded thcni 
with superstitious awe, as possessing some evil influence. They were sent from village to village, 
and excited general alarm. The pride of Canonicus was humbled, and he sued for peace. The 
example of Canonicus was? followed by several chiefs, who were equally alarmed. ' Page 63. 

° There was quite a number of indentured servants, and men of no character ; a population 
wholly unfit to found an independent State. 

° In gratitude for attentions and medicuie during a severe illness, Massasoit revealed the plot to 
Edward Winslow a few days before the tune appointed to strike the blow. 

'° Standish carried the chiefs head m triumph to Plymouth. It was borne upon a pole, and wa."? 
placed upon the pallssades [note 1, page 127] of the little fort which had just been erected. Tho 



IIG TIIK COLONIES. [1C20. 

the event, that several chiefs soon appeared at Plymoutli to crave the friondsliip 
of tlic Eng;lisli. Tlie settloniont at Wissafj;ussct was I)nikcn \ip, however, and 
most of the immigrants rcluriii'd to Kiiglaml. 

Social perils soon menaced the stability of the colony. 1'lic partnei-ship of 
mercliants and coloni8t.s' w;us an unprofitahlc ppeculatiou fur all. The commu- 
nity sy.stoin" operated unfavoral)ly upon the industry and thrift of tlie colony, 
and the merchants had few or no returns for their investments. Ill feelings 
were created by mutual criminations, and the caj)italists connnenced a series of 
annoyances to force the workers into a, dissolution of the league." The partner- 
ship continued, however, during the prescribed term of seven years, and then 
[1G27] the colonists purchased the interest of the London merchants for nine 
tiiousand dollars. Becoming sole proj)rietors of tlie soil, tliey divided the whole 
property equally, and to each man waa assigned twenty acres of land in fee. 
New incentives to industry followed, and the blessings of plenty, even upon 
that unfruitful soil, rewarded them all.-' At alxnit the same time, the govern- 
ment of the colony became slightly changed. The only ofiScers, at first, were 
a governor and an assistant. In 1624, five assistants were chosen ; and in 
1C;30, a deputy-governor and eigliti'iii assistants were diosen by the frecraeu. 
This broad democracy prevailed, both in Cluinli miuI State, for almost fifteen 
ye.ars, when a representative government was instituted [1039], and a pastor 
was chosen as spiritual guide.' 

James the First died in the spring of 1G25 ; and his son and successor, 
Charles the First, inherited his father's hatred of the Nonconformists.' ]\Iany 
of their ministers were silenced during the first years of liis reign, and the un- 
easiness of the great bcnly of Nonconformists daily increased. Already, White, 
a Puritan minister of Dorchester, in the west of England, had persuaded sev- 
eral iniluential men of that city to attempt the establishment of a new asylum 
for the oppressed, in America. They chose the rocky promontory of Capo 
Anne for tlie purpose [1G24], intending to connect the settlement with the fish- 
ing business , but the enterprise proved to be more expensive than profitable, 

good Robinson fiWRO 71], wlion ho heard of it, -wTotc, "Oh, how liappy .a thing it would havo been, 
that you liiul oouviTted sonio before you killed any." 

'■pntfe 77. • Note 1, page 70. 

' Tlie nieri'lianta refused Mr. Robinson a jin.ssngo to America; altemplod to force a minister 
upon tlio colonists wlio was friendly to tlio Est;iblished Churcli ; and oven sent vessels to interfere 
with the infant eommerco of tlio settlers. 

* The colonists unsueees-sfully tried the cultivation of toV>acco. They raised enough grain and 
vegetables for their own eoiisuniption, and relied upon tralTio in furs witli the Indians, for obtaining 
the means of paying lor cloths, iniplements, etc.. procured from Kn.i;land. In 1627, they matle the 
first step tow.inl tbo establishment of the cod lishery, since liecoine so important, by eoustructiug a 
salt work, and curing some lish. In liiil, Edward Vin.slow imported three cows and a bull, and 
soon those invaluable animals became numerous in the coloin-. 

• Tho colonists considered Robinson (who was yet in Leyden), as their pa.stor ; and religious 
exerci.ses, in tho way of prayer and exhortation, were conducted by Elder Brewster and others, 
On Sunday afternoons a question would be iiropounded, to which all had a right tt> speak. Even 
after tliey adopted the plan of having a pastor, the people were so democratic in religious matters, 
that a minister did not remain long at riymouth. The doctrine of " private judgment" was put in 
full practice; anil the religious meetings were often the mvna of intempirate debate and confusion. 
In 1G29, thirty-live persons, the remainder of Robinson's congregation at Leyden, joined the Pil- 
grims at I'lymouth, among whom was Ilobiuson'a fiuuily j but the good man never saw New En- 
gland himsel£ ' Notu 2, pago 76. 



1755.] 



MASSACHUSETTS. 



117 



and it was abandoned. A few years afterward, a company purchased a tract 
of land [March 29, 1628J defined as being " three miles north of any and every 
part of the Merrimac River," and "three miles south of 
any and every part of the Charles River," and westward to 
the Pacific Ocean.' In the summer of 1628, John Endi- 
cot, and a hundred emigrants came over, and at Naumkeag 
(now Salem) they laid the foundations of the Colony of 
Massachusetts Bay. The proprietors received a charter from 
the king the following year [March 14, 1629J, and they 
were incorporated by the name of " The Governor and Com- 
pany of the Massachusetts Bay in New England" 

The colony at Salem increased rapidly, and soon began to spread. In July, 
1629. " three godly ministers" (Skelton, Higginson, and Bright) came with 




FIRST COLONY SEAL. 




two hundred settlers, and a part of them laid the foundations of Charlestown, at 
Mishawam. A new stimulus was now given to emigration by salutary arrange- 



' This was purchased from the Council of Plymouth. The chief men of the company -were 
John Humphrey (brother-in-law to the earl ot'LincolTi), .lohn Kndicot, Sir Henry Roswell, Sir Joha 
Young, Thomas Southcote, Simon Whitcomb, John AViiitlirop, Thomas Dudley, Sir Richard Salton- 
stall, and others. Eminent men in New England afterward became interested in the enterprise. 

" The administration of affairs was intrusted to a governor, deputy, and eighteen assistants, who 
were to be elected annually by the stockholders of the corporation. A general assembly of the 
freemen of the colony was to be held at least four times a year, to legislate for the colony. The 
king claimed no jurisdiction, for he regarded the whole mutter as a trading operation, not as the 
founding of an empire. The instrument conferred on tlie colonists all the rights of English subjects, 
and afterward became the text for many powerful disco'irses against the usurpation of royalty. 



118 THE COLONIICS. [1G20. 

mcnts. On tlic 1st of September, tlie members of tlio company, at a meetiiii^ in 
Cumbridge, England, signed an agreement to transfer tlie charter and govern- 
ment to the colonists. It was a wise and benevolent conclusion, for men of for- 
tune and intelligence immediately prepared to emigrate when such a democracy 
should be established. John ^Vinthrop' and others, with about three hundred 
families, arrived at Salem in July [1630] following. Winthrop had been 
chosen governor before his departure, Avith Thomas Dudley for deputy, and a 
council of eighteen. The new immigrants located at," and named Dorchester, 
Roxbury, Watertown, and Cambridge ; and during the summer, the governor 
and some of the leading men, hearing of a spring of excellent water on the pen- 
insula of Shawmut, went there, erected a few cottages, and founded Boston, 
the future metropolis of New England." The peninsula was composed of three 
hills, and for a long time it was called Tri-Mountain.' 

As usual, the ravens of sickness and death followed these first settlers. 
Many of them, accustomed to ease and luxury in England, sufiered much, and 
before December, two hundred were in their graves.* Yet the survivors wei-c 
not disheartened, and during the winter of intense suffering which followed, 
they applied themselves diligently to the business of founding a State. In 
Jlay, 1G31, it was agreed at a general assemljly of the people, that all the 
officers of government should thereafter be chosen by the freemen" of the colony ; 
and in 1634, the pure democracy was changed to a representative government, 
the second in America." The colony flourished. Chiefs from the Indian tribes 
dined at Governor AVinthrop's table, and made covenants of peace and friend- 
ship • 7ith the English. Winthrop journeyed on foot to exchange courtesies with 
Bradford at Plymouth,' a friendly salutation came from the Dutch in New 
Netherland,^ and a ship from Virginia, laden with corn [May, 1632], sailed 
into Boston harbor. A bright future was dawning. 

The character of the Puritans' who founded the colony of Massachusetts 
Bay, presents a strange problem to the scrutiny of the moral philosoj)her. Vic- 
tims of intolerance, they were themselves equally intolerant when clothed with 
power.'" Their ideas of civil and religious freedom were narrow, and their prac- 



' He was bom in England in 155S, and wa.9one of the most active men in New England from 
1630 until Iiis deatli in 1649. His journal, giving an interesting account of the colony, has been 
jiublisliod. 

'' Till-' whole company under Winthrop intended to join the settlors .at Cliarlestown, but a pre- 
viiling sickness there, attributed to unwiiolc'-'onie water, caused them to locate elsewhere. The 
fine spring of water which gushed from one of the three hills of Shawmut, was regarded with great 
favor. ' From tliis is derived the word DremonL 

* Among these was Higginson, Isaac Johnston (a principal loader in the enterprise, and tho 
wealthiest of tho founders of Boston), and his wife the "Lady Arabella," a daughter of the earl of 
Lincoln. She died at Salem, and her husband did not long survive her. 

' None were considered freemen unless they were membei's of some church within tho 
colony. From the beginning, tho closest intimacy existed between the Church and State in Mn,">sa- 
chusetts, and that intimacy gave rise to a great many disorders. This provision was repealed in 
1065. 'Pago 71. ' PiigellS. ' Page 72. " Page 75. 

" Sir Richard Saltonstall, who did not remain long in America, severely rebuked the people of 
Massachusetts, in a letter to the two Boston ministers. Wilson and Cotton. " It doth a little grieva 
my spirit," ho said, "to hear what sad things are reported daily of your tyranny tmd persecutions 
in New Kngland, as that you fine, whip, and imprison men for their con.seiences." Thirty years 
later [1665], the king's commissioner at Picataqua, in a manuscript letter before me, addressed to 



1155.] MASSACHUSETTS. 119 

tical interpretation of the Golden Rule, was contraiy to the intentions of Him 
who uttered it. Yet they were honest and true men ; and out of their love of 
freedom, and jealousy of their inherent rights, grew their intolerance. They 
regarded Churchmen and Roman Catholics as their deadly enemies, to be kept 
at a distance.' A wise caution dictated this course. A consideration of the 
prevailing spirit of the age, when bigotry assumed the seat of justice, and super- 
stition was the counselor and guide of leading men, should cause us to 

" Be to their faults a little blind, 
And to their virtues, very kind." 

Roger Williams, himself a Puritan minister, and victim of persecution in 
England, was among those who first felt tlie power of Puritan intolerance. He 
was chosen minister at Salem, in 1634, and his more enlightened views, freely 
expressed, soon aroused the civil authorities against him. He denied the right 
of civil magistrates to control the consciences of the people, or to withhold their 
pi'Otection from any religious sect whatever. He denied the right of the king 
to require an oath of allegiance from the colonists ; and even contended that 
obedience to magisti-ates ought not to be enforced. He denounced the charter 
from the king as invalid, because he had given to the white people the lands of 
other owners, the Indians.' These doctrines, and others more theological,' he 
maintained with vehemence, and soon the colony became a scene of great com- 
motion on that account. He was remonstrated with by the elders, warned by 
the magistrates, and finally, refusing to cease what was deemed seditious 
preaching, he was banished [November, 1635] from the colony. In the dead 
•of winter he departed [January, 1636] for the wilderness, and became the 
founder of Rhode Island.* 

Political events in England caused men who loved quiet to turn their 
thoughts more and more toward the New World; and the year 1635 was 
remarkable for an immense immigration to New England. Dui-ing that year 
full three thousand new settlers came, among whom were men of wealth and 
influence. The most distinguished were Hugh Peters' (an eloquent preacher), 

the magistrates of Massachusetts, say, " It is possible that the charter which you so much idolize 
may be forfeited until you have cleared yourselves of those many injustices, oppressions, violences, 
and blood for which you are complained against." 

' Lyford, who was sent out to the Pilgrims, by the London partners, as their minister, was re- 
fused and expelled, because he was friendly to the Church of England. John and Samuel Browne, 
residents at Salem, and members of Endioot's council, were arrested by that ruler, and sent to En- 
gland as " fictious and evil-conditioned persons," because they insisted upon the use of the Liturgy, 
or printed forms of the English Church, in their worship. 

" See page 22. This was not strictly true, for, until King Philip's war [page 124], in 1675, not 
a foot of ground was occupied by the New England colonists, on any other score but that of fiiir 
purchase. 

' He maintained that an oath should not be tendered to an unconverted person, and that no 
Christian could lawfully pray with such an one, though it were a wife or chUd ! In the intem- 
perance of his zeal, Williams often esliibited intolerance himself, and at this day would be called a 
bigot. Yet his tolerant teachings in general had a most salutary efl'ect upon Puritan exclusiveness. 

' Page 89. 

' Peters afterward returned to England, was very active in public affairs during the civil war, 
and on the accession of Charles the Second, was found guilty of favoring the death of the king's 
father, and was executed in October, 1660. 



120 THE COLONIES. [102O. 

and Henry Vane, an enthusiastic young niaii ol' twonty-five. In 10:^6, Vane- 
was elected governor, an t'\ i^nt wiiich indirectly proved disasti'ous to the peace 
of t lie colony. The baiiislnncnl of Koger Williams had awakened bitter rdig- 
oils dissensions, and the uiimls of the people were prej)ared to listen to any 
new teacher. As at riyniouili, so in the Massachusetts Bay colony, religious 
Viiieslioiis were debated at the stated meetings.' Women were not allowed ti. 
engage ill these debates, and some deemeil tiiis an abridgment of their rights. 
Among tliese was Anne lluteliinsou, an able ami i'lo(|ueiit woman, who estab- 
lishe<l meetings at lier own house, for lier sex, and there she ]iromulgated 
peeuliar views, wliieli some of the magistrates and ministers pronounced seili 
tions and heretical.' Tliesc views were embraced by Governor Vane, several 
magistrates, and a majority of the leading men of Boston.' Winthrop am! 
otliers opposed them, and in the midst of great excitement, a synod was 
called, the doctrines of Mrs. Hutchinson were condemned, and slie and her 
family were first imprisoned in Boston, and then banished [August, 1637] 
from the colony.' Vane lost his pojuilarity, and failing to be elected the fol- 
lowing year, he returned to Kngland.' Some of ]Mrs. Hutcliinson's folIowers^ 
left the colony, and established settlements in Khodo Island." 

The great abatement of danger to be apprelicnded from the Indians, caused 
by the result of the IV(iuod war,' was favorable to the security of the colony, 
and it lloiirislied amazingly. Persecution also gave it sustenance. Tlie non- 
conformists in the mother country suflercd more and more, and hundreds fled to 
New England. The cliurch and the government became alarmed at the rapid 
growth of a colony, so opposed, in its feelings and laws, to the character of 
both. Eftbrts were put forth to stay the tide of emigration. As early as 1633, 
a proclamation for that purpose had been published, hut not enforceii : and a 
fleet of eight vessels, hearing some of the purest patriots of tlie realm. w;»s 
detained in the Thames [Feb. 1G34], by order of the privy council.' Believing 
that the colonists ''aimetl not at new discipline, but at sovereignty," a demand 
was made for a surrender of the patent to the king.' The people were silent, 

' Note 5, pnpo 116. 

' Slio t«U(;lit that, as tlio TToh- Spirit dwells in every believer, its revelation.'! are superior to lhe> 
tenoliiiiirs of men. It was the iloetriiie of " private jiulnnient" in its fiille.<t extent. Slie taught that 
every person hnd the right to judge of the soinuine.ss ol'ii minister's teaching, and this was eonsid- 
creil " reliellion against the elergy." She taught tlie doclrine of Ehrlion, and averred tliat the elect 
saints were sure of their salvation, however vicious their lives might lie. 

' Her brother, Kov. John Wheelwright, was an eloquent expounder of her vien-s. The tlieo- 
logieal question assumed a political phase, aud for a long time influenced Uie public aflairs of the 
colony. 

* Mrs. nutehinson and her family took refuge within the Dutch domain, near the pre.sent village 
of New Kochelle, in New York. There she and all her liimily, except a daughter, weix> murdered 
by the Indians. Note 2, |>ago 141. 

' Vane was a son of the Seeret«ry of St«te of Charles the First lie was n republican during 
the civil war [note 3, page 108], and Ibr this, Charles the Second had him beheaded in .Tune. IGtii 

* Page ill. ' Page S". 

" [Note 1, page tOO.] It was a-'-serted, and is believed, that Oliver Crtimwell and Joliullanip- 
den wen> among the pa.ssengi>rs. Theri^ is no ixisitivc evidence that such was the fact 

* The geiunil patent for New Kngland was suri-endered liy the Couneil of Plymouth, in June, 
1635, without consulting the colonists. The inllexible conr,ige of the latter prevented the evil that 
might have ensued In' this faithless act of a company which had made extensive grants; and they 
flriuly held the charter given to them by the king. 



1755.] MASSACHUSETTS. 121 

but firm. AV hen a rumor reached them [Sej)teml)er 18, 1634] tliat an arbitrary 
commission,' anil a general governor was appointed for all the English colonics 
in America, the Massachusetts people, poor as they were, raised three thousand 
dollars to build fortifications for resistance. Even a <y//o warranto [April, 
1638]" did not affect either tlieir resolution or their condition. Strong in their 
integrity, they continued to strengthen their new State by fostering education," 
the " cheap defense of nations," and by other wise appliances of vigorous efforts. 
The civil war' which speedily involved the church and the throne in disaster, 
withdrew the attention of the persecutors from the persecuted. The hope of 
better times at home checked immigration, and thereafter the colony received 
but small accessions to its population, from the mother country. 

The ties of interest and warmest sympathy united the struggling colonists 
of New England. Natives of the same country, the offspring of persecution — 
alike exposed to the weapons of hostile Indians and the depredations of the 
Dutch and French,' and alike menaced with punishment by the parent govern- 
ment — they were as one people. They were now [1643] more than twenty 
thousand in number, and fifty villages had been planted by them. The civil 
war in England" threatened a total subversion of the government, and the Puri- 
tans began to reflect on the esfciblishment of an inrlependent nation eastward of 
the Dutch dominions.' With this view, a union of the New England colonies was 
proposed in 1637, at the close of the Pequod war. It was favorably received 
by all, but the union was not consummated until 1643, when the colonies of Ply- 
mouth," Massachusetts," Connecticut and New Haven'" confederated for mutual 
welfare. Rhode Island asked for admittance into the Union [1643], but was 
refused," unless it would acknowledge the authority of Plymouth. Local juris- 
diction was jealously reserved by each colony, and the fatal doctrine of State 
Suprcjuacy was thus early developed. It was a confederacy of States like our 
early Union." The general affairs of the confederacy were managed by a 
board of connuissioners, t'onsisting of two church-members from each colony, 
who were to meet annually, or oftener if required. Their duly was to con- 
sider circumstances, and recommend measures i'or the general good. They 
had no executive power. Their propositions were consi<lered and acted u])on by 
the several colonies, each assuming an independent sovereignty. This confed- 



' The Arclibisliop of Cantorlnirv and nssociiitcs roceivoil full power to estalilisli govcrmnent.'! and 
laws over tlio Aiiiericau settlemeuts; to regulato religiou.s matters; iiiliict i>\iiii.sliineiits, and even 
to revoke eliartera. " Note :i, jiaijo 107. 

' Til IGliG, the General Court at Dostoii appropriated two thousind dollars fur the estalilisliinont 
of a collejfo. In 1G38, Rev. John Harvard becineathed more than three thousand tlollars to the 
institution whieh was then located at Caudiridge, and it received the name of " Harvard College," 
now ono of the first seminaries of learning in the United States. In U')17, a law was pasised, 
requiring every township, which contained filly houselioldtrs, to have a school-house, and emiiloy 
a teacher; and each town containing one tlionsand freeholders to have a grammar-school. 

* Note 3, page 108. 

' The Dutch of New Netherland [page 72], still claimed jurisdiction upon the Connecticut 
Eiver, and the French settlors in Acadie, eastward of New England, were becoming troublesome to 
the Puritans. 

' Note 3, p. 108. ' Page 72. ' Page 7.S. " Page 117. 

» Page 89. " Page 91. " I'iige 2(17. 



122 



TIIK COI-ONIES. 



[Iii20. 



eracy rcmninod unmolested more tlian forty years' [1643 — 1686], during which 
time the government of England was changed three times. 

The colony of Massachusetts Bay was always the leading one of New En- 
gland, and assumed to be a "perfect republic." After tlie Union, a legislative 
change took place. The representatives iiad hitherto held their sessions in the 
same room with the governor and council ; now they convened in a separate 
apartment ; and the distinct House of Representatives, or democratic branch 
of the legislature, still existing in our Federal and State Governments, was 
estublished in 1644. Unlike "N'irginia,^ the colonists of New England sympa- 
thized >vith the English republicans, in their efforts to abolish royalty. 
Ardently attached to the Parliament, they found in Cromwell.' when he 
assumed supreme authority, a sincere friend and protector of their liberties. 
No longer annoyed by the frowns and menaces of royahy, the energies of the 
people were rapidly developed, and profitable commerce was created between 

Massachusetts and the West Indies. This 
tnulc brought bullion, or uncoined gold and 
silver, into the colony ; and in 1652, the 
authorities exercised a prerogatire of in- 
dependent sovereignty, by establishing a 
mint, and coining silver money,* the fii-st 
within the territory of the United St^ites. 
During the same year, settlements in the 
present State of Elaine, imitating the act of 
those of New Hampshire,' eleven years earlier [1641J, came under the juris- 
diction of Massachusetts. 

And now an important clement of trouble and perplexity was introduced. 
There arrived in Boston, in July, 1656, two zealous religious women, named 
Mary Fisher and Ann Austin, who were called Quakers. This was a sect 
recently evolved from the heaving masses of English society," claiming to be 
more rigid Puritans than all who had preceiled them. Letters unfavorable to 
the sect had been received in tlie colony, and the two women were cast into 
prison, and confined for sevei-al weeks.' With eight others who. arrived during 




X*: 



KIKST MONKV COINKD IN TUK UNUlil) 
STATES. 



' 'Wlion .Tanips the Second oamo to the throne, tlio oliartcrs of all tho colonies woro taken away 
or suspended. When local povernmeuts woro re-estalili.shed alter tho Hevolution of 1(588, lliero no 
longer existed a necessity for tho Union, and llie coulederacy was dissolved. 

' Tape 108. » Note 3, pape 108. 

* In dotober, lt>51, tl)e general court or legislature of Massachusetts ordered silver c<iins of the 
values of throopenco, sixpence, and a shilhiig slorlinir, to he nKuic. Tho mint-inaslor was allowed 
fifteen pence out of every twenty shillings, lor his Irouhle. lie made a large fortune hy the busi- 
nes-s. JYoni the circunistanco that tho eHigy o( n pine-tree was stamped on one side, these coins, 
now very rare, are cillcd pine-tree money. Tho date (1(!,")2] was not altered for thirty years Mas- 
saehusi'tls was also tho fli-st to issue paper money in tho shape of treasurv notes. See page 132. 

* Pago 80. 

° The founder of the sect was Oeorst) Fox, who promulgated his peculiar tenets about 1650. 
He was a man of education and exalted purity of character, and soon, learned and inliucniial men 
became his eo-workers. They still maintain the highest character for morality and practical Chris- 
tianity. See note 7, page 94. 

' Their trunks wore searched, and the religious books fovnid in them were burned tiy the hang* 
man, on Boston Ooiiunon. Suspet'ted of being witihes [note 7, page 132], their pc"rsons were 
csamined in order to dLscover certain marks which would indicate tlieir connection with the Evil One. 



1755.] MASSACHUSETTS. 123 

the year, tliey were sent back to Englaml." Others came, and a special act 
against the Quakers was put in force [1657J, but to no purpose. Opposition 
increased their zeal, and, as usual with enthusiasts, precisely because they were 
not wanted, they came. They suffered stripes, imprisonments, and general 
contempt ; and finally, in 1G58, on the recommendation of the Federal Com- 
missioners," Massachusetts, by a majority of one vote, banished them, on pain 
of death. The excuse pleaded in extenuation of this barbarous law was, that 
the Quakers preached doctrines dangerous to good government.' But the death 
penalty did not deter the exiles from returning ; and many others came because 
they courted the martyr's reward. Some were hanged, others were publicly 
whipped, and the prisons were soon filled with the persecuted sect. The sever- 
ity of the law finally caused a strong expression of public sentiment against it. 
The Quakers were regarded as true martyrs, :md the pcoi)le demanded of the 
magistrates a cessation of the bloody and barbarous punishments. Tiic death 
penalty was abolished, in 1661 ; the fonaticism of the magistrates and the 
Quakers subsided, and a more Christian spirit of toleration prevailed. No 
longer sufferers for opinion's sake, the Quakers turned their attention to the 
Indian tribes, and nobly seconded the efforts of Mahew and Eliot in the propa- 
gation of the gospel among the pagans of the forest.'' 

On the restoration of monarchy in 1660, the judges who condemned Charles 
the First to the block, wei-e outlawed. Two of them (William Goffe and Edward 
Whalley) fled to America, and were the first to announce at Boston the acces- 
sion of Charles the Second. Orders were sent to the colonial autiiorities for 
their arrest, and officers wore dispatched from England for the same purpose. 
The colonists effectually concealed them, and for this act, and the general sym- 
pathy manifested by jSew England for the republican party, the king resolved 
to show them no favor. They had been exempt from commercial restrictions 
during Cromwell's administration ; now these were- revived, and the stringent 
provisions of a new Navigation Act' were rigorously enforced. Tlio people 
vainly petitioned for relief; and finally, commissioners were sent [August, 
1G64] "to hear and determine all complaints that might exist in New England, 
ami take such measures as they might deem expedient for settling the peace 
and security of the country on a solid foundation." ° This was an umviso 

' Mary Fisher went all the way from London to Adrianoplo, to carry n divine message to the 
Sulian. She wa.s regarded as insane ; and as the Moslems respect such people as special favorites 
if God, Mary Fisher was unharmed in tlie Sultan's dominions. ' Page 121. 

' The Quakers denied all human authority, and regarded the power of magistrates as delegated 
tyranny. Tliey preached purity of life, charity in its broade.st sense, and denied the riglit of any 
oian to control the opinions of another. Conscience, or " the liglit wiiliin," was considered a suf"- 
Seicct guide, and they deemed it their special mission to denounce " hireling ministers" and " per- 
secuting magistrates," in person. It was tliis ofl'ensive boldness which engendered the violent 
tiatred toward the sect in England and America. 

* John Eliot h.as been truly called tlie A]K)stlo to the Indians. He began his labors soon after 
his an-ival in America, and founded the first churcli .among the .s,avages, at Natic, in 16G0, at which 
time there were ten towns of converted Indians in Massac] msetts. Thirty-tivo years later, it was 
esnmated that there were not less than three thousand adult Christian Indians "in tlie Islands of 
Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket, alone. ' Note 4, page 109. 

' Tliese were Colonel Richard Nicolls, Sir Robert Carr, George CartwTight and Richard Maver- 
ick. They came with a royal fleet, commanded by Colonel Nioo'lls, which liad licen sent lo assert 
English authority over the possessions of tlie Dutch, in Now Netherland. See page 144. 



124 



MASSACHUSETTS. 



[1620 



movement on the part of the motlier country. The colonists regarded the 
measure with indignation, not only a.s a violation of their charters, but as an 
incipient stop toward ostablisliing a system of domination, destructive to their 
liberties. Massachusetts boldly protested against the exercise of the authority 
of the comuiissionei's within her limits, but at the same time asserted her loyalty 
to the sovereign. The commissioners experienced the opposition of the other 
New^ England colonies, except Rhode Island. Their acts were generally disre- 
garded, and after producing a great deal of irritation, they were recalled in 
1600. The people of Massachusetts, triumphant in their opposition to royal 
oppression, ever afterward took a front rank in the march toward complete 
freedom. The licentious king and his ministers wore too much in love with 
voluptuous ease, to trouble themselves with far-off colonies ; and while Old 
England was suffering from bad government, and the puissance of the throne 
was lessenmg in the estimation of the nations, the colonies flourished in purity, 
peace, and strength, until Mctacotiwl, the son of the good Mdssasuit,^ 
kindled a most disasti'ous Indian war, known in history as 



KING PHILIP'S WAR. 



Mdssdsoit kept his treaty with the Plymouth 
colony'^ faithfully while he lived. Mctacomet, or 
Philip,^ resumed the covenants of friendship, and 
kept them inviolate for a dozen years. But as 
spreading settlements were reducing his domains acre 
by acre, breaking up his hunting grounds, diminish- 
in"; his fisheries, and mcnacin<x his nation with scrvi- 
tude or annihilation, his patriotism was aroused, and 
he willingly listened to the hot young warriors of his 
tribe, who counseled a war of extermination against 
the English. At IMouut Hope' the seat of the chief 
sachems of the Wampanoags, in the solitudes of the 
primeval forests, he planned, with consummate skill, an alliance of all the New 
England tribes,^ against the European intruders. 

At this time, there were four hundred " praying Indians," as the converts 
to Christianity were called, firmly attached to the white people. One of them, 
named John Sassamon, who lunl been educated at Cambridge, and was a sort of 
eecretiiry to Philip, after becoming acquainted with the plans of the sachem, 




KINO rulLIP. 



' Page 114. • Pnpe 114. 

• Miuwiusoit Imd two sons, whom Governor Prieo nninoil Alexander and Philip, in compliment 
to tlioir bravery aa waniors. Alexander died soon aJler the deoeajie of his father; and Plulip 
became cliiersnchom of the '\Vampanoa(i:s. 

• Mount Hope is a conical hill, 300 feet in height, and situated on the west side of Mount Hop© 
Bay, about two miles from Bristol, Rhode Island. It was ciJled Pokanoket by the Indians. 

• Tlie tribes which became involved in this war numl>en>d, probably, about twentj'-five thousand 
Bouls. Those alonp the cotvst of Mas.saoluisetts Bay. who liad suffered terribly by a pestilence just 
before the Piuikims came [paire 77], had materially increased in numbers; imd other tribes, besides 
the New England Indians proper [page 22], becmue p;u1ies to the contiict 



1755.] MASSACHUSETTS. 125 

revealefl tliem to the authorities at Plyniouth. For this he vvas slain by hia 
countrymen, and three Wanipanoags were convicted of his murder, on slender 
testimony, and hanged. The ire of the tribe was fiercely kindled, and tlicy 
thirsted for vengeance. The cautious Philip was overruled by his fiery young 
men, and remembering the wrongs and humiliations he had personally received 
from the English,' he trampled upon solemn treaties, sent his women and chil- 
dren to the Narragansetts for protection, and kindled the flame of war. Mes- 
sengers were sent to other tribes, to arouse them to co-operavioii, and with all 
the power of Indian eloquence, Metacomet exhorted his followers to curse the 
white men, and swear eternal hostility to the pale faces. He said, in effect : 

" Away I away I I will not hear 

Of auglit but death or vengeance now; 
By tlic eternal skies I swear 

My knee shall never learn to bow I 
I will not hear a word of peace, 

Nor clasp in friendly grasp a hand 
Linked to that pale-browed stranger race, 

That works tho ruiu of our land. 

And till your last white foe sh.all kneel, 

And in his coward pangs expire, 
Sleep — but to dream of brand and steel ; 

Wake — but to deal in blood and tiro I" 

Although fierce and determined when once aroused, no doubt Philip com- 
menced hostilities contrary to the teachings of his better judgment, for he waa 
sagacious enough to foresee failure. " Frenzy prompted their rising. It was 
but the storm in which the ancient inliabitants of tho land were to vanish away. 
They rose without hope, and therefore they fought without mercy. To them, 
as a nation, there was no to-morrow." 

The bold Philip struck the first blow at Swanzey, thirty-five miles south- 
west from Plymouth. The people were just returning from their houses of 
worship, for it was a day of fasting and humiliation [July 4, 1675], in antici- 
pation of hostilities. Many were slain and captured, and others fled to the 
surrounding settlements, and aroused the people. The men of Plymouth, 
joined by those of Boston and vicinity, pressed toward Mount Hope. Philip 
was besieged in a swamp for many days, but escaped with most of his warriors, 
and became a fugitive with the Nipmucs,* an interior tribe of Massachusetts. 
These espoused his cause, and with full fifteen hundred warriors, he hastenei? 
toward the white settlements in the far-off valley of tho Connecticut. In th*" 
mean while the little army of white people penetrated the country of the Narra^ 
gansetts,^ and extorted a treaty of friendship from Canonchet,* chief sachem of 

' In 1671, Philip and his tribe being suspected of secretly plotting the destruction of the Ett 
glish, were deprived of their fire-arms. Ho never forgot tho mjury, and long meditated revenge. 

' Page 22. ' Page 22. 

' Son of Miautonomoh, whose residence waa upon a hill a little north of tho city of Newport, 
R. I. That hill still bears the name of Miantonomoh, abbreviated to " Tonomy Hill." Page 91. 



12G T'll'' COLONIES. [1C20. 

that powerful tribe. Hearing of tliis, Philij) was dismayed for a moment. But 
there Avas no hope for him, except in energetic action, and he and his followers 
aroused other tribes, to a war of extermination, by the secret and efficient 
methods of treachery, ambush, and surprise. Men in the fields, families in 
their beds at midnight, and congregations in houses of worship, were attacked, 
and massacred. The Indians hung like the scythe of death upon the borders 
of the English settlements, and for several months a gloomy apprehension of the 
extermination of the wlu)le European population in New England, prevailed." 

Dreadful were the scenes in tiio path of the Wamj)anoag chief. From 
Springfield northward to the present Vermont line, the valley of the Coimecti- 
cut was a theater of confusion, desolation, and death, wherever white settle- 
ments existed. Almost the whole of a party of twenty Englishmen" sent to 
treat with the Nipmucs, were treacherously slain by the savages in ambush 
[Aug. 12, 1G7')|, near Quahoag, now IJrookfield. That place was set on fire, 
when a shower of rain put out tiie flames, and the Indians were driven away by 
a relief jiarty of white people." The village w.as partially saved, but imme- 
diatelv abandoned. »>(>()u afterward a hot battle was fought near Deerfield* 
[Sept 5J, and a week later [Sept. 12] that settlement also was laid in ashes. 
On the Slime day (it was the Sabbath), Iladley, further down the river, was 
attacked while tiio people were worshiping In the midst of the alarm and con- 
fusion, a tall and venerable-looking man, with white, flowing hair and beard, 
suddenly ap])OMred, and brandishing a glittering sword, he placed himself at the 
head of the affrighted people, and led them to a charge w^hich dispersed and 
defeated the foe. He as suddenly disappeared, and the inhabitants believed 
that an angel from heaven had been sent to their rescue. It was Goffe, the 
fuy;itive Eiiirlisii iudire,^ who was then concealed in that settlement. 

The scourge, stayed for a moment at Iladley, swept mercilessly over other 
settlements. On the 2;)d of Septeniiier, the paths of Northfield were wet with 
the blood of many valiant young men under Captain Beers ; and on the 28th, 
" a company of young men, the very flower of Essex,'' under Captain Lathrop, 
were butchered liy almost a tliousand Inilians on the banks of a little stream 
near Deerfield, which still liears the name of Bloody Brook. Others, who 
came to their rescue, were engaged many hours in combat with the Indians 
until crowned with victory. Yet the Indians still prevailed. Philip, en- 
couraged by success, now resolved to attack Hatfield, the chief settlement of the 



' Tlio wliito iKiyml.'ition in Now Enitlnnd, nt tliis time, h.-us licen pstimntod at flfty-flvo thousand. 
Havorhill, on tlio MeiTinmc, was the frontior town in tlie direction of Miuno; and Nnrtlilield, ontho 
borders of Verniotit, wa.s tlio liij>ln'st settlement in tho Gonnectieut valley. Westtield, one hundred 
miles west of Poston, wa.s tho most remote settlement in that direction. 

' Captains \y heeler and llnlehinson wen> sent from Boston to endeavor to reclaim tho Nipmucs. 
Apprised of their eoniinp, tho Indiana lay in ambush, and tired upon them IVom tho deep thickets 
of a swamp. 

' Under Major 'Willard. The Indians sot fire to every house except a strong one into which 
the pMiple had secured themselves, and were besieged there two days. The Indians set fire to this 
lust refuge, when rain extinguished the Hames, 

* Between 180 white people and 700 Indians. [See, also, page 135.] ' Page 123. 



1755.] MASSACHUSETTS. 127 

■white people above Springfield. The Springfield Indians joined him,' and with 
almost a thousand warriors, he fell upon the settlement, on the 29th of Octo- 
ber, 1675. The English wore prepared for his reception, and he was rejiulsed 
with such loss, that, gathering his broken forces on the eastern bank of the 
Connecticut," he marched toward Rhode Island. The Narragansetts, in viola- 
tion of^the recent treaty,^ received him, became his allies, and went out upon 
the war path late in autumn. A terrible, retributive blow soon fell upon the 
savages, wdien fifteen huudre<i men of Massachusetts, Plymouth, and Connecti- 
cut, marched to punish Canonchet and his trilie, for their perfidy. The snows 
of early winter had fallen, and at least three thousand Indians had collected in 
their chief fort in an immense swamp,'' where they were supplied with provi- 
sions for the winter. It was a stormy day in December [Dec. 19], when the 
English stood before the feeble palissadcs of the savages. These oifered but 
little opposition to the besiegers ; and within a few hours, five hundred -wig- 
wams, with the winter provisions, were in flames. Hundreds of men, women, 
and children, perished in the fire. A thousand warriors were slain or wounded, 
and several hundreds were made prisoners. The English lost eighty killed, 
and one hundred and fifty wounded. Canoncdiet was made prisoner, and slain ; 
but Philip escaped, and with the remnant of the Narragansetts, he took refuge 
again with the Nipmucs. 

The fugitive Wampauoag was busy during the winter. He vainly solicited 
the Mohawks' to join him, but he was seconded by the tribes eastward of Mas- 
sachusetts,' who also had wrongs to redress. The work of desolation began 
early in the spring of 1G76, and within a few weeks the war extended over a 
space of almost three hundred miles. Weymouth, Groton, Medfield, Lancas- 
ter, and Marlborough, in Massachusetts, were laid in ashes; Warwick and 
Providence, in Rhode Island, were l)urned ; and everywhere, the isolated dwell- 
ings of settlers were laid waste. But internal feuds weakened the {wwcr of the 
savages ; and both the Nipmucs' and the Narragansetts^ charged their misfor- 
tunes to the ambition of Philip. The cords of alliance were severed. Some 
surrendered to avoid starvation ; other tribes wandered off an<l joined those in 
Canada;' while Captain Benjamin Church,'" the most famous of the partisan 




' They had been friendly until now. Tliey plotted the entire 
destruction of the Spriiiij;tiokl sottloment; but "tlie people defended 
themselves bravely witliin tlieir pali.«iided liouscs. Many of the 
strong houses of frontier settlements were thus fortified. Trunks 
of trees, eight or ten inches in diivmoter, were cut in uniform lengths, 
and stuck in tlio ground close together. The upper ends were 
sliarpened, and the whole were fastened together willi green withes 
or other contrivances. 

" Page 82. ' Page 125. p.\lisai)K1) iiuii.DiNns. 

* This swamp is a small distance south-west of the village of Kingston, in "Washington County, 
Rhode Island. The fort was on an island wliich contains about five acres of tillable land, in tho 
north-west part of tlie swamp. The Stonington and Providence railway passes along tlie northern 
verge of the swamp. » Pago 2:!. 

" Page 22. The tribes of Maine were then abovit four thousand strong. 

' Page 22. * Pago 22. " Page 22. 

" Benjamin Chnrcli w:is born at Plymoiitli, Massachusetts, in 1G39. He eontiniied luwtilities 
against' the eastern Indians until 1704. He fell from his horse, and died soon allorward, at Littlo 
Compton, Jan. 17, 1718, aged 77 years*. 



128 



THE COLONIES. 



[1020. 



officers of the English colonics, went out to hunt and to destroy the fugitives. 
During the year, between two and three thousand Indians were slain or had 
submitted. Philip was chased fiom one hiding-i)lace to another, but for a long 
time he would not yield, lie onco cleft the head of a warrior who proposed 
submission. But at length, the " hist of the Wampanoags" bowed to the press- 
ure of circumstances, lie returned to the land of his fathers' [August, 1G76], 
and soon his wife and son were made prisoners. This calamity crushed him, 
sad he said, " Now my heart breaks ; I am ready to die.'' A few days after- 




6 






t^.W 



ward, a faithless Indian sliot him, and Captain Church cut off the dead sachem'i 
head." His body was ([uartcrcd ; and his little son was sold to be a bond-slavo 
in Bermuda.' So perished the last of the princes of the Wampanoags, and 
thus ended, in the total destruction of the power of the New England Indians, 
the fiimous King Piulip's AVar.* 

The terrible menaces of the Indian war, and the hourly alarm which it 
occasioned, did not make the English settlers unmindful of their political posi- 



' Noto 4, page 121. 

' The rude swonl, mailo by a bln^ksniith of tho colony, with wliicli Captain Church cut off 
Philip's lioiul, is in tlio iin.isossion of tho Miis,><nolms('tts ITistoricsil Society. 

" Tlie di.'iposnl of tlio boy wils a subji'ct of sorioua deliboration. Somo of tho oldors proposed 
putting hin\ to doatli; otlicrs, professing more mercy, suggested selling him as a slave. The most 
profiUMe. measure njipearod tlio most mrn-ifiil, and tlio cliild was sold into bondage. The head of 
Philip was carried in triumph to I'lymouth, and placed upon a polo 

' Tlie rc.snlt of tliis war was va.slly l)enelieial to tho colonists, for the fear of savages, which 
prevented a rapid spread of .sottleniojits, was removed. Fi-om this period may be dated the real, 
unimpeded growth of Now England. 



1"55.] MASSACHUSETTS. 129 

tion, nor hopeless respecting the future. While the Massachusetts colony was 
yet weak in resources, from the effects of the war,' and the people were yet 
engaged in hostilities with the eastern tribes,'^ it made territorial accessions by 
purchase, and at the same time boldly asserted its chartered rights. For many 
years there had been a controversy between the heirs of Sir F. Gorges^ and 
John Mason, and the Massachusetts colony, concerning a portion of the present 
territory of Maine and New Hampshire, which, by acts of the inhabitants, had 
been placed [1641 and 1G52J under the jurisdiction of the authorities at Bos- 
ton.'' The judicial decision [1677] was in fiivor of the heirs, and Massachu- 
setts immediately purchased [May 1, 1677] their interest for six thousand dol- 
lars."* New Hampshire was detached three years afterward [1680], and made 
a royal province — the first in New England ; but Maine, which was incorpo- 
rated with Massachusetts in 1692, continued a part of that commonwealth until 
1820. 

Now rapidly budded that governmental tyranny which finally drove all the 
American colonies into open rebellion. The profligate king continued to draw 
the lines of absolute rule closer and closer in Eno-land, and he both feared and 
hated the growing republics in America, especially those in the East. They 
were ostensibly loyal portions of his realm, but were really independent sover- 
eignties, continually reacting upon the mother country, to the damage of the 
'• divine right" of kings. Charles had long cherished a desire to take their 
governments into his own hands, and he employed the occasion of the rejection 
of Edward Randolph (a custom-house ofiicer, who had been sent to Boston 
[1679] to collect the revenues, and otherwise to exercise authority'), to declare 
the Massachusetts charter void. He issued a quo warranto in 1683,' and pro- 
cured a decision in his favor in the High Court of Chancery, on the 28th of 
June, 1684, but he died on the 26th of February following, before his object 
was effected. 

Charles's successor, James the Second," continued the oppressive measures 
of his brother toward the New England colonies. The people petitioned and 
remonstrated, and were treated with contempt. Their hardships in conquering 
a wilderness, and their devotion to the English constitution, had no weight 
with the royal bigot.' He also declared the charter of Massachusetts forfeited, 
and appointed Joseph Dudley president of the country from Rhode Island to 
Nova Scotia. Sir Edmund Andros arrived at Boston soon afterward [Dec. 

' During the war, New England lost six hundred men ; a dozen towns were destroyed ; six 
hundred dwellings were burned ; every twentieth family was houseless; and every twentieth man, 
who had served as a soldier, had perished. The cost of the war equaled five Imndred thousand 
doUars — a very large sum at that time. 

" Page 22. = Page 79. * Page 80, and note 2, page 80. 

' The portion of Maine then purchased, was the tract between the Piscataqua and the Kenne. 
bee. That between the Kennebec and the Penobscot belonged to the Duke of York, and the terri., 
tory between the Penobscot and the St. Croix, was held by the French, pursuant to a treaty. 

Randolph appears to have been a greedy adventurer, and was, consequently, a faithful servant 
of his royal master in oppressing the colonists. He exaggerated the number and resources of tha 
people of New England, and thus excited the king's fears and cupidity. Preinous to Randolph's 
appointment, the colonies had dispatched agents to England, to settle impending difficulties ami- 
cably. They failed, and Randolph came in the same vessel in which they returned. 

' Note 3, page 107. » Page 113. ' Note 7, page 113. 

9 



130 THE COLONIES. [1620. 

30, 1686], clothed with autliority to govern all New England. lie came with 
a smiling face, and deceitful lii)8. lie appears to have been a tyrant by nature, 
and came to execute a despot's will, lie soon made bare the rod of oppression, 
and began to rule with a tyrant's rigor.' The people were about to practice 
the doctrine that "resistance to tyrants is obedience to God,^'' when intelli- 
gence reached Boston [April 14, 1689J, that James was driven from the 
throne [1G88] and was succeeded by William and Mary, of Orange." The 
iidiabitants of Eo.ston seized and imprisoned Andros and fifty of his jwlitical 
associates [April 28, 1G89], sent them to England under a just charge of mal- 
administration of public affairs, and re-established their constitutional govern- 
ment. Again republicanism was triumphant in Massachusetts. 

The effects of the revolution in England were also sorrowful to the Amer- 
ican colonies. That revolution became a cause of war between England and 
France. James (who was a Roman Catholic) fled to the court of Louis th& 
Fourteenth, king of France, and that monarch csj)oused tlie cause of the fugi- 
tive. Hostilities between the two nations commenced the same year, and the 
quarrel extended to their respective colonies in America. The conflict then 
commenced, and which was continued more than seven years, is known in his- 
tory as 

KING WILLIAM'S WAR. 

The colonists suffered terribly in that contest. The French Jesuits, < who 
had acquired great influence over the eastern tribes,' easily excited them to 
renew their fierce warfare with the English. They also made the savages their 
allies ; and all along the frontier settlements, the pathway of murder and des- 
olation was seen. Dover, a frontier town, was first attacked by a party of 
French and Indians, on the 7th of July, 1089, when the venerable Major 
'Waldron'"' and twenty others of the little garrison were killed. Twenty-nine 
of the inhabitants wei'e made captive, and sold as servants to the French in 
Canada. In August following, an Indian war party, instigated by Thury, a 
Jesuit, fell [August 12J upon an English stockade' at Pemaquid (built by 
Andros), and captured the garrison. A few months later, Frontenac sent a 

' Among other arbitrary acts, Andros laid restraints upon the freedom of the press, and mar- 
riage contracts; and, to use a modern term, he "levied black mail;" that is, extorted money, by 
menaces, whenever opportunity offered. He advanced the fees of all officers of the government to 
an exorbitant degree ; and finally threatened to malte the Church of England the established relig- 
ion in all Americ;!. 

" This was Cromwell's motto ; and Thomas Jefferson had it engraved upon his private seal. 

' Note 7, page 113. 

* This waa a Roman Catholic religious order, foumicd by Ignatius Loyola, a Spaniard, in 1639. 
They have ever been remarkable for tlieir great devotion to thuir cause, their sell-denial, and nuis- 
terly sagacity in the acquirement and maintenance of power. Tlieir missionaries preached Chris- 
tianity in every part of the haliitable globe. Tliey came with the first French adventurers to Amer- 
ica, and under their inlluence, whole tribes of Indians eastward of Mas.sachusetts and in Canada wore 
made nominal Cliri.><tiaiia. This was one of the tics wliich made the .lavages such faithful allies to 
the FriMirli in the contests between them and the Kuglisli, previous to 1763. ' Pago 2'2. 

' Waldron wius eighty years of age. He had piayed false with the New Hampshire Indians 
during King Philip's war, and they now sought revenge. They tortured him to death. 

' Note 2, page 183. 



1755.] MASSACHUSETTS. 131 

party of three hundred French and Indians from Montreal, to penetrate the 
country toward Albany. On a gloomy night in winter, when the snow was 
twenty inches in depth, they fell upon Schenectada [Feb. 18, 1690], a frontier 
town on the Mohawk, massacred many of the people, and burnt the village. 
Early in the spring, Salmon Falls [March 28 J, Casco [May 27J, and other 
eastern villages, were attacked by another party of the same mongrel foe, the 

natural ferocity of the Indians being quickened by the influence of tlu' 

Jesuits who accomi^anied them." 

All the colonies wei'e aroused, by these atrocities, to a sense of their danger 
in having such foes intent upon their destruction ; and the New England people 
resolved on speedy retaliation. In May, Massachusetts fitted out an expedi- 
tion, under Sir William Phipps, a native of Pemaquid, consisting of eight or 
nine vessels, with about eight hundred men. Phipps seized Port Royal,- in 
Acadie, and obtained sufficient plunder from the inhabitants to pay the expenses 
of the expedition. In June, Port Royal was again plundered by English pri- 
vateers from the West Indies. Encouraged by these successes, the colonies of 
New England and New York coalesced in efforts to conquer Canada.' It was 
arranged to send a land expedition from New York, by way of Lake Cham- 
plain, against Montreal,' and a naval expedition against Quebec.^ The com- 
mand of the former was intrusted to the son of Governor Winthrop of Connect- 
icut," and the expenses were borne jointly by that colony and New York.' Sir 
William Phipps commanded the latter, which Massachusetts alone fitted out. 
It consisted of thirty-four vessels, with two thousand men. Both were unsuc- 
cessful. Some of Winthrop's troops, with Indians of the Five Nations,® under 
Colonel Schuyler, j)ushed toward the St. Lawrence, and were repulsed [Aug., 
1690] by Frontenac, the governor of Canada. The remainder did not go be- 
yond Wood Creek (now Whitehall), at the head of Lake Champlain, and all 
returned to Albany.' Phipps reached Quebec about the middle of October, 
and landed the troops ; but the city was too strongly fortified" to promise a 
successful siege, and he returned to Boston before the winter set in." Massa- 

' In tliis warfare, instigated by the Jesuits, was found a ready defence for tlie intulc- 
ranee of the Protestant majority in Maryland [page 153], the disabilities of Roman Cath- 
olics in Virginia, New York, and New England, and their exclusion from the privileges 
of freemen in tolerant Rhode Island. The colonists believed that the most potent operations 
of the Jesuits were in secret, and came to regard every Roman Catholic as the natural 
enemy of Protestants, and as laboring to destroy every measure tending to human freedom. 

' Page 58. ' Page 204. ■■ Page 48. 

' Page 48. " Page 8(5. 

' Milborne, son-in-law of Jacob Leisler, the democratic governor of New York [page 148 ], un- 
dertook to provide subsistence for the army, which marched from Albany early in July. 

* Page 23. 

' Leisler was so much incensed at this failure, that he caused the arrest of Winthrop, at Albany 
There had ever been a jealous rivalry between tlie people of New York and Connecticut ; and tlie 
feud which continually prevailed among the mixed troops, was the chief cause of the miscarriage of 
tke enterprise. 

'° Phipps, having no chart to guide him, was nine weeks cautiously making his way around 
Acadie and >ip the St. Lawrence. In the mean wliile, a swift Indian runner, from Pemaquid, sped 
across the country, and informed the French, at Quebec, of the approach of Phipps, in time for 
them to well prepare for defense. 

" This repulse was considered so important by the French, that king Louis had a commemop- 
Mive rp,edal struck, with the legend — " Fr.\nce Victorious in the New World." 



132 TJIE COLON! KS. [1C20. 

ehusetts was oWigod to issue liills of credit, or paper money, to defray the 
expenses of this expedition.' 

Sir William Phipps was sent to England soon after his return, to solicit aid 
in further warfare upon the French and Indians, and also to assist in eftbrts to 
procure a restoration of the charter of Massachusetts, taken away hy King 
James.' Material assist^mco in prosecuting the war was refused ; and King 
William instead of restoring the old charter, granted a new one, and united 
muler it the cok)nies of I'lyniouth, M:issachusetts, Maine, and Nova Scotia," by 
the old name of Mfissac/iHsvtfs Bay Colony^ and made it a royal province. 
Phipps was ai)[)ointed governor by the king, and returned to Eoston with the 
charter, in Mav, IG'J-, But the new constitution was offensive to the people, 
for they were allowed scarcely any other political privileges than they already 
possessed, except the right to choose representatives. The king reserved the 
. right to apjwint the governor, his deputy, and the secretary of the colony, and 
of repealing the laws within three years after their passage. This abridgment 
of their liberties produced general dissatisfaction, and alienated tiie aftections of 
the people from the mother country. It was one of a series of fatal steps taken 
by the English government, which tended toward the final dismend)ermcnt of 
the empire in 1770.* Yet one good resulted from the change. The theocratic 
or religious element in the government, which fostered bigotry and intolerance, 
lost its power, for toleration was guarantied to all Christian sects, except Roman 
Catholics ; and the right of suffrage Wiis extended to others than members of 
Congregational churches. ° 

A very strange episode in the history of Miissachusetts now occurred. A 
belief in witchcraft" destroyed the peace of society in many communities, and 
shrouded the whole colony in a cloud of gloom. This belief had a strong hold 
upon the minds of the people of old England, and of their brethren in America. 
Excitement upon the sidiject suddeidy broke out at Danvers (then a part of 
Salem), in March, 10U2, and spread like an epidemic. A niece and daughter 
of the parish minister exhibited strange conduct ; and under the influence of 
their own supei-stitious belief, they accused an old Indian servant-woman in the 
family of bewitching them. Fasting and ju-ayer, to break the '• spell,"' were 
of no avail, for the malady increased. The alarm of the family spread to the 

' Note 4, pnpo 122. T1>o tot.il amount oftlio issuo was ?133,338. ' Pape 12!). 

' New Scotland, tUo name givon In the country wlikli the Frencli called Acadie. See nolo 2, 
page SO. * I'ap 251. ' » Note 5, page 118. 

" A belief in witchcraft, or the exercise of supernatural power, by men and women, ha.* been 
prevalent for age."!, runishuient of persons accused of it, was lii-st Siuictioned by the ChuR-h of Rome 
n little more than three Inuuiretl years ago. Certain tests were institutiHi, and thousands of innocent 
persona wcre> burned alive, drowned, or hanged, in Kurope. \Vitliin three montlis, in ISKI, five hun- 
dred persons were burned in Geneva, in Switzerland. In the diiK'cse of Como, one thousand were 
burned in one year. In 1520, an incredible number, from among all eliusses, suffered death in 
Fnmcc. And within filly or sixty years, during the sixteenth century, more than one hiuidred 
thou.saud persons perished in the llames in Germany alone. Henry the Kighth of Kngland made 
the practice of witchcraft a c.ipital ollensc; and a himdred years later, " witch-detectors" traversed 
the country, and breuglit many to the stake. Enlightened men enibniced the belief; and even Sir 
Matthew Hate, the most distinguished of Kngland's judgi'S. repeatedly tried and condenmcd persons 
accused of witchcraft. The Knglish laws against witchcrall were adopted in New Kngland ; and as 
sarly as 1(J4S, four persons had sutlercd doirth for the alleged offense, in tlio vicinity of Bostou. 



1755.] 



MASSACHUSETTS. 



133 



community ; and soon a belief prevailed throughout the colony, that evil spirits, 
having ministering servants among men, overshadowed the land. Old and ill- 
favored women were first accused of practising the art of witchcraft ; but at 
length neither age, sex, nor condition afforded protection from the accuser's 
tongue. Even the wife of Governor Pliipps did not escape suspicion. Magis- 
trates were condemned, many pious persons were imprisoned, and Mr. Bur- 
roughs, a worthy minister, was executed. Men of strong minds and scholarly 
attainments were thoroughly deluded. Among these was the eminent Cotton 
Mather, whose father before him had yielded to the superstition, and published 




Coiron TKcu^Atr. 



an account of all the su])po.sL'(l cases of witchcraft in New England. Cotton 
Mather, on account of his position as a leading divine, and his talents, prob- 
ably did more than any other man to promote the spread of that fearful delusion, 
which prevailed for more than six months. During that time, twenty persons 
suffered death, fifty-five were tortured or frightened into a confession of witch- 
craft, and when a special court, or legislature, was convened in October, 1 G92, 
one hundred and fifty accused persons were in prison. A reaction, almost as 
sudden as the beginning of the excitement, now took place in the public mind. 
The prison doors were opened to the accused, and soon many of the accusers 
shrunk abashed from the public gaze.' Standing in the light of the present 
century, we look back to " Salem witchcraft," as it is called, with amazement. 

' The belief in witchcraft did not cease with the strange excitement; and Cotton Mather and 
other popular men, wrote m its defense. Calef, a citizen of Boston, exposed Mather's credulity, 
which greatly irritated the minister. He first called his opponent "a w,!aver turned minister;" 
but as his tormentor's blows fell thick and fast, in a series of letters, Mather called him " a coal from 



1G4 '1"'I1'' COLONIES. [1C20. 

'• King "Williain's war" ' continueil until 1097, when a, treaty of peace, 
made at Ryswick, in the west of Holland, on the 20th of September of that 
year, teriiiiiiated hostilities." Up to that time, and later, the New England 
people sufl'orod greatly from their mongrel foe. Remote settlements in the 
direction of Canada and Nova Scotia continued to be harassed. Almost a hun- 
dred persons were killed or made captive [July 28, 1694J at Oyster River 
(now Durham), ten miles from Portsmouth, in New Hampshire. Two years 
later [July 25, 1696J, Baron St. Castine, and a large force of Frencii and 
Indians, captured the garrison at Pemiujuid, and exchanged the prisoners for 
French soldiers in the hands of the English.' In March, 1697, Haverhill, 
thirty miles from Boston, was attackal, and forty persons were killed or carried 
into captivity ;* and during the following sunuucr, more remote settlers were 
great suflerers. A res))ito now came. The treaty at Ryswick produced a lull 
in the storm of cruel warfare, which had so long hung upon the English fron- 
tiers, continually menacing the colonists witii wide-spread destruction." It Avas 
very brief, however, for pretexts for another war were not long wanting. 
James the Second died in September^ 1701, and Louis the Fourteenth, who 
had sheltered the exile," acknowledged his sou, Prince James (commonly 
known as the Pretender), to be the lawful heir to the Englisli throne. This 
oft'ended the English, because the crown had been settled upon Anne, second 
dauffhter of .Tames, who was a Protestant. Louis had also ofTendod the P^uijlish 
by placing his grandson, Pliilip of Anjou, upon the throne of Spain, and tlius 

hell," and prosccniod liim for sl.indor. The credulous clergyman was glad to withdraw the suit 
Cotton Matlior was born in Boston, in February, lG!i3, anit was educated at Harvard College. Ho 
was very e.\i)ert in the acquireinont of knowledge, and at the ago of nineteen year.'!, ho received 
the degree ol Ma.stcr of Arts, lie beeanio a go.spcl minister at twenty-two, and holding a ready 
pen, ho WToto nnieli. Few of his writings have survived liim. With all his learning, he was but a 
child in that which conslit\ites true manhood, and ho is now regarded more as a pedant 
than as a scholar. He died in February, 1728. For the bcuotit of young men, wo will 
here introduce an anecdote connected with him. It was tlius related by Dr. Franklin, to Samuel, a 
son of Cotton Mather: "The last time I saw your tiitlicr was in the begiimiug of 1724, when I 
visited him after my tirst trip to Pennsylvania. Ho received me in Ins librarj'; and on my taking 
leave, showed mo a shorter way out of the house through a narrow passage, wliich was crossed by 
a beam overhead. AVo were still talking as I withdrew, ho accompanying mo behind, and I turn- 
ing partly toward him, when he said lia.'stily, 'StoopI stoop I' I did not understand until I felt my 
head hit against the beam. He was a man that never missed an occasion of giving instniction, 
and upon this he said (o me, ' You are young, and have the world belbre you ; stoop as you go 
through, and you will escape many hard tlnunp.s.' This advice, thus beat into my head, has fre- 
quently been of use to me; and I often think of it when I see pride mortidcd, and misfortunes 
brought tipon people by carrying their heads too high." • Page 130. 

' This war cost England one hundred and lifty millions of dollars, in cash, besides a loan of one 
hundred millions more. This loan was the conuncncenicnt of the enormous national debt of En- 
gland, now [1881] amounting to about four thousand millions of dollars. 

' They idso took the English fort of St. John's, Newfoundland, and several other posts on that 
island. 

* Among their captives was a Mrs. Pustan, her child, and nurse. Her infant was soon killed, 
and she and her nurse were taken to Cana<la. A littlo moro than a month afterward, Mrs. D., her 
companion, and another prisoner, killed ten of twelve sleeping Indians, who had them in custody, 
and made their way back to Haverhill. 

* Just before the conclusion of this treaty, a Board of Trade and Plantations w.as established by 
the English government, whose duty it was to have a general oversight of the American colonies. 
This was a permanent commission, consisting of a president and seven memliers, called Lords of 
Tradf. This commission was always an instnimcnt of opi>res.«ioii in the hands of royalty, and, aa 
will be seen, was a powerful promoter of that discontent wliich led to the rebellion of the rvilomes 
in 1775. • Page 130. 



J755.] MASSACHUSETTS. 135 

«xtendecl the influence of France among tlie dynasties of Europe. Tliese, and 
some minor causes, impelled England again to declare war against France.' 
Hostilities commenced in 1702, and continued until a treaty of peace was con- 
cluded at Utrecht, in Holland, on the 11th of April, 1713. As usual, the 
French and English in America were involved in this war ; and the latter suf- 
fered much from the cruelties of the Indians who were under the influence of 
the former. This is known in America as 

QUEEN ANNE'S WAR. 

It was a fortunate circumstance for the people of New York that the FiVK 
Nations had made a treaty of neutrality with the French in Canada [Aug. 4, 
1701 J, and thus became an impassable barrier against the savage hordes from 
the St. Lawrence. The tribes from the Merrimac to the Penobscot had made 
a treaty of peace with New England, in July, 1703, but the French induced 
them to violate it ; and before the close of summer, the hatchet fell upon the 
people of the whole frontier from Casco to Wells. Blood flowed in almost 
■every valley; and early the next spring [March, 1704], a 
large party of French and Indians, under Major Ilertel de ,-■,,.&.«;: 

Rouville, attacked Deerfield, on the Connecticut River, 
applied the torch," killed forty of the inhabitants, and car- 
ried one hundred and twelve away to the wilderness. 
Among these was Rev. John Williams, the minister, whose 
little daughter, after a long residence with the Indians, williamJshousb. 
became attached to them, and married a Mohawk chief.' 
Similar scenes occurred at intervals during the whole progress of the war. 
Remote settlements were abandoned, and the people on the frontier collected in 
fortified houses,' and cultivated their fields in armed parties of half a dozen or 
more. This state of things became insupportable to the English colonists, and 
in the spring of 1707, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire, 
determined to chastise the French on their eastern borders. Connecticut 
refused to join in the enterprise, and the three colonies alone prepared an arma- 
ment. Early in June, a thousand men under Colonel Marsh, sailed from Nan- 
tucket for Port Royal,' in Acadie, convoyed by an English man-of-war. The 
French were prepared for them, and nothing was effected e.xcept the destruction 
of considerable pi'operty outside the fort. Three years later, an armament left 

' It is known in European history as the War of the Spanish Succession. 

' The only house th.at escaped the flames was tliat of the Rev. Jolui Williams, represented in 
the enpcraving-. It stood near the centre of the village, until within a few year.s. 

' Mrs. Williams and other captives, who were unalile to travel as rapidly as the Indians, were 
murdered. On liis arrival in Canada, Mr. Williams was treated with respect by the French, and 
after two years of captivity, was ransomed, and returned to Massachusetts. The chief object of the 
expedition to Deerfield, appears to have been to carry off the bell that hung in Williams's church. 
That bell wa.s purchased the year previous for the church of Saut St. Louis, at Caughnawaga, near 
Montreal The vessel in which it was brought from Havre was captured by a New England pri- 
vateer, and the bell was purchased for the Deerfield meeting-house. Father Nicolas, of the church 
4>t Caughnawaga, accompanied the expedition, and the bell was carried in triumph to its original 
destination, where it still remains. * Note 1, page 127. ' Page 58. 




136 THE COLONIES. [1G20. 

Boston [September, 1710], and. in connection with a fleet from England, under 
Colonel Nicholson, deni:inded and obtained a surrender of the fort and garri.son 
[Oct. 13j, at Port Koyal. The name of the place was then changed to Anna- 
polis, in honor of the Queen, Anne, and Acatlie was annexed to the Englisii 
realm under the title of Nova Scotia, or New Scotland. 

In July, the following year [1711 J, Sir llovendon Walker arrived at Bos- 
ton, with an English fleet and army, designed for the conquest of Canada. 
New England promptly riiiscd additional forces, and on the 10th of August, 
fifteen men-of-war and forty transports, bearing almost seven thousand troops, 
departed for the St. Lawrence to attack Quebec. Walker, like Braddock.' 
haughtily refused to listen to experienced subordinates, and lost eight of his 
ships, and almost a thousand men, on the rocks at the mouth of the river, on 
the night of the 2d of September. Disheartened by this calamity. Walker 
returned to England with the remainder of his fleet, and the colonial troops 
went back to Boston. On hearing of this failure of the naval expedition, a 
body of troops marching from Albany to attack Montreal, retraced their steps.' 
Hostilities were now suspended, and in tlie spring of 1713. a treaty of peace 
was concluded [x\.pril 11 J at Utrecht. The eastern Indians sent a flag to Bos- 
ton, and sued for peace ; and at Portsmouth the Governor of jVIassachusetts and 
New Hampshire entered into a pacific compact [July 24] with the chiefs of the 
tribes. 

A long peace now ensued, and for thirty years succeeding the close of 
■Qiiccii Aiuic's War, the colonists enjoyed comparative rejxjse. Tlien, again, 
the selfish strifes of European monarchs awakened the demon of discord, and its 
bloody footsteps were soon apparent along the northern frontiers of the English 
colonies in America. The interim had been a period of much political agitation 
in Massachusetts, during which a great stimulus had been given to the growth 
of republican principles. Disputes, sometimes violent, and sometimes in a con- 
ciliatory spirit, had been carried on between the royal governors and the repre- 
sentatives of the people; the former contending for prerogatives and salaries 
which the people deemed inadmissible.* These internal disputes were arrested 
when they heard that Frnnce had declared hostility to England [March 1"). 
1744|. and the colonists cheerfully prepared to commence the contest known in 

America as 

KING GEOllGK'S 'WAR.' 

Tliis war was not productive of many stirring events in America. The 
principal and very important one was the capture of the strong fortress of 

' King William had no children; nnd Anne, tho diiuphtcr of .Tamei? the Second (who was mar- 
ried to Prince Georpe of Denmark), .succeeded liim ns sovereign of England in 1702. ° Page 186. 

' Tlicsc were lour thousand in number, under tho conmiand of General Nicholson. They were 
furnished by New York and Connectieut. 

* Tho chief topic of controversy was the payment of s,ilarie.<i. Governors Shute, Bnmet and 
Belcher, all contended for a permanent salary, hut tho people claimed the right to vote such salary, 
each vcar, as the .sen'ices of the governor appeared justly to demand. A compromisse was finally 
effected by an agreement to vote a certain sum each year. The subject of s;ilaries was a cause of 
contention with the royal governors, until the Revolution. 

' The husband of (Jucen Anne <lied several years previous to her death, which occurred ii» 
iugust, 1701. George, Elector of Hanover, in Germany, was immediately proclaimed King of 



1755.] 



MASSACHUSETTS. 



137 



Louisbiirg, on the island of Cape Breton. It had been constructed hy the 
French after the treaty of Utrecht, at an expense of five and a half millions of 
dollars, and because of its strength, was called The Gibraltar of America. 
William Shirley,' a soldier and energetic statesman, was Governor of Massa- 
chusetts when hostilities were proclaimed. He immediately perceived the 
importance of Louisburg in the coming contest, and plans for its capture were 
speedily perfected by the Legislature of Massachusetts.- Rhode Island, New 
Hampshire, and Connecticut furnished their proper quota of troops. New 
York sent artillery, and Pennsylvania provisions. Thus common danger was 
extending the idea of a necessity for a union of the Anglo-American colonies, 
long before it assumed a practical form in 1754:.' 

After vainly waiting for some time in the expectation 
of aid from Commodore Warren (then in the West In- 
dies), the colonial forces, thirty-two hundred strong, 
under the general command of William 
Pepperell,' sailed [April 4, 1745] for 
Louisburg.' At Canseau they were un- 
expectedly joined by the fleet of Warren 
[May 9], and on the 11th of May the 
combined forces, four thousand 
strong, landed at Gabarus Bay, 
a short distance from their des- 
tination. The sudden appear- 
ance of this formidable arm- 
ament, was the first intimation ^^^^^^ ^^ iouisbueo in 1745. 
to the French, that an attack 
was meditated, and great consternation prevailed in the fortress and town. A 




England, by the title of George the First. HLs son George succeeded him in 1727, and also 
retained the title and privileges of Elector of Hanover. A contest arose between Maria Theresa, 
Empress of Hungary, and the Elector of Bavaria, for the throne of Austria. The King of England 
espoused the cause of the empress, iu 1741!, and the King of Franco took part with her opponent 
This led France to declare war against England — a contest known iu America as King Georije's 
War, but in Europe, the War of the Austrian Succession, 

' William Shirley was born m England; made governor of Massachusetts in 1741; was after- 
ward made governor of one of the Bahama Islands, and died at Roxbur.y, near Boston, in 1771. 
He appears conspicuous in history during a portion of the contest known in America as The French 
and Indian War. 

' Shirley_ proposed an expedition, but the Legislature hesitated. The measure was finally 
agreed upon by a majority of only one vote. ' Page 183. 

* Pepperell was a native of Maine, and a wealthy merchant. He was afterward made a bar- 
onet. He died in 1759. 

' Louisburg is on the east side of the Island of Cape Breton, with a fine, deep harbor. The land- 
ing-place of the British, position of the camp, etc., will be seen by reference to the map. The Royal 
Battery was taken by four hundred men. Wlien they approached, the French thought the whole 
English array was upon them. They immediately spiked their guns (that is, drove iron spikes into 
the touch-holes of the cannons, so as to make them useless), and fled In the upper part of the map 
is a profile of the fortifications at Louisburg. It is given here so a-s to illustrate certain terms which 
may be used hereafter : a, the glaeis, is the extreme outside slope of the works ; i, the lanqutt, or 
step upon which the soldiers stand to fire over the parapet ; c, a covered way into the fort, under the 
banquet; d, counterscarp, a bank or wall, outside the ditch, e;f, the parapet, a protection for the men 
and guns ft-om balls from without ; g, the inner banquet ; h, ramparts — the most solid embankment 
ef the fortress ; i the last slope in the interior of tlie fort, called talus. 



138 Til 10 CdhONIES. [ir,2n. 

direct approach was (liflTicuU on account of a morass, and a combined attack liy 
si'a and l;ind was carefully arraiij;;ed. 'IMic land forces encanii)ed in a curve in 
rear of the town, ami detaclinients secured tlie Frencli outposts, one after an- 
other. Cannons wero dragged on sledges over the morass, ' trenches were dug, 
hatteries werii erected, and a regular siege w:us connnenced, on the JHst of May. 
In the mean while, C'onmiodore Warren captured a French ship of seventy-four 
guns, and secured, as prisoners, over five hundred men, with a large quantity 
of military stores. While the siege was in progress, other English vessels oi 
war arrived, and the fleet and army agreed to make a comhined attack on the 
2i)th of dune. Despairing of successful rosist^mcc, the French surrendered tho 
fortress, the city of Louiaburg, and the island of Capo Breton, on the 28th of 
Juno, 174;").' 

Tho pride of France was greatly nuirtificd by this daring and successful 
expedition, and the following year |17-1<">| the Duke D'Anville was sent with a 
powerful naval armament" to recover the lost fortress, and to desolate the En- 
glish settlements along the seaboard. Storms wrecked many of his vessels, and 
disea.se soon wasted hundreds of his men : and D'Anville, thoroughly disjiiritt'd, 
abandoned tho enterprise without striking a blow.' Two years afterwanl a 
treaty of peace was concluded at Ai.x-la-Chapelle, in western Germany, when 
it was agreed that all jtrisoners should be relea.sed, and all ac(|uisitions of prop- 
erty or territory, mailo by either Jiarty, were to be restored. Both of the 
principal parties were heavy losers by tho contest ;^ while tho strength of the 
colonists, yet to be called forth in a luoro iuiportimt struggle, was revealed ai:d 
noted. 

Old national animosities, religious differences, and recent causes for irrita- 
tion, had inspired the English and French with inteiLse mutual hatred, when 
the treaty of Ai.\-la-Chapelle was signed on the 18th of October, 1748. The 
allegiance of ^Ia,s.sachusetts and its sister colonies to tho British crown, and tho 
acknowledged duty of obedience, restrained the resentment of the American 
people, whilti England and France were at peace. Soon, disputes about local 
boundaries began," and it was not long before preparations for war between the 
two nices, were visible in America. Then came that final bhuidy struggle be- 
tween tho English and F'rench, for dominion in the New World, known as tho 
French and Indian War.'' This wo shall consider hereafter. 



' Tho mliUory \v«s oommniulod bv liuliard f'.rUUov, who \va.s Iho cinrinoor of tho poiitinenljil 
nniiv lit liostoii ill 1775 niul 1770. Soo pn)^< '2:M. 

* Tlio (irizos and stores obtiiinod by tlio Kuglish nmoimtod, in \ nluo, to littlo U'sa tlinn five inil- 
liona or dollnr;). 

* It coiisiati'd of forty .shiiw of wiir, tilly-six tnmsporf.s thlrty-l\vo hundred men, and forty tliou- 
8J»nil iiuiskel.') for tho use of tho Fri'iioh imd Indians in (.'anaiia. 

* I1'.\nvillo, witli two or thrro vc-ssols, anohoR'd at (.'heVaii'to (now Halifax, Novn Pc-otia). whero 
ho dieil, it is lieliovi'd, hy poison. His licnlenant al.so coinniilli'd siiioido, in oonsoqneiu-o of inorti- 
lied pride. Those disiuslors to the Kreiioh lleet wore repardod by tho people of Now KiiRland as spe- 
cial innnifeslalions of rrovideneo in their tiivor, r.ihlio thnuksgivings wcro oflerod; nnd uo oaa 
donlited the ri>;ht of the Kni;lish to tho whole of Aoadic, 

* rurlianiont allerward r»Minlmrsed to tho eolonios tho cost of their preparations against Canada, 
aniouiitinjf to more than u uiilliou of dollars. !?eo page 199. 

* J'ago 180. ' I'l'ITO 179. 



1155.] NEW YORK. 139 

CHAPTER III. 

NEW YORK. [162 3.] 

The State of New York commenced its politicnl career when Peter Minuit,' 
recently appointed Governor of New Netherlund,^ arrived at New Amsterdam 
(as the germ of the present city of New York was called), in May, 1626. He 
immediately purchased of the Indians, for about twenty-four dollars, the whole 
of the island of Manhattan, ° on which the city of New York now stands, and 
began vigorously to perfect the founding of a State similar to those of Holland. 
He erected a strong fortification near the site of the present Battcnj, and called 
it Fort Amsterdarn* By conciliatory measures, he gained the confidence of 
the Indians ; and he also opened a friendly correspondence with the Puritans at 
Plymouth.'^ The English reciprocated the friendly expressions of the Dutch ; 
at the same time, they requested the latter not to send their trappers quite as 
far eastward as Narraganset Bay, to catch otters and beavers.' 

For the purpose of encouraging emigration to New Netherland, the Dutch 
West India Company' offered, in 1629, large tracts of land, and certain priv- 
ileges, to those persons who should lead or send a given number of emigrants 
to occupy and till the soil.' Directors of the company'^ availed themselves of 
the privilege, and sent Wouter (Walter) Van Twiller to examine the country 
and select the lands. Immigrants came ; and then were laid the foundations 
of the most noted of the manorial estates of New York." The proprietors were 
called patroons (patrons), and held a high political and social station in the 
New World. 

The agent of the Patrnons seems to have performed his duty well, and he 
was appointed governor of the colony, in 1633. The beginning of Van Twil- 
ler's administration w;is marked by difiiculties with the English on the Con- 

* Page 93. " Page 72. ' Note 1, page 4S. ♦ See picture on page 144. ' Page 78. 

" Trade in furs was the chief occupation of tlio Dutch of New Netherland at thi.s time. They 
became expert trappers, and were seen as far east as Nantucket, and even Capo Cod. The trade 
soon became profitable to the Company. The first year's remittance of furs to Amsterdam waa 
valued at $11,000. This trade greatly increased; and before the troubles with the Indians in 1640, 
the value of furs sent to Holland, annually, was more than $60,000. ' Page 72. 

" The land was to be feirly purchased of tlie Indians, and then the title was to be confirmed by 
the Dutch government. The privileges granted to the purchasers made them, in a degree, feudal 
lords [note 15, page 62], yet they were exempted from paying tribute to supreme authority. 

" Killiun Van Rensselaer, who purchased a tract at Fort Orange (Albany) ; Samuel Godyn and 
Samuel Bloemart, who .selected lands in West Jersey, on the Delaware ; and Michael Pauw, whoso 
domain included Jersey City and vicinity. See page 94. 

'" Van Rensselaer. A larger portion of the land in Albany and Rensselaer counties, onco 
liortii.ms of the first Patroon's estates, has passed out of the possession of the family. After 
1840. many scenes of violence and bloodshed were witnessed on those lands, growing out of 
disputes with tenants, when they were called upon to pay even the almost nominal rent which 
was demanded. Social and political questions arose and produced two strong parties. Tlio 
opposition of the tenantry was termed Anti-RetiHsm. Conciliatory measures were finally 
proposed by a purchaser of a large portion of tlie ancient manor, in Albany county, by whicli 
the tenants were allowed to buy the land, and obtain a title in fee-simple. In time, the whole 
i-itate will thus passinto the hands of numerous new owners. These angry disputes have al- 
ready become items of past history. 



140 THE COLONIES. [1623. 

liccticut River.' lie was more distiniiuislicd for his marriage connection with 
Van Rensselaer, one of the Putroons, than for any administrative qualities. 
Yet circumstances favored the advancement of the colony, and he ruled quite 
satisfactorily, especially to the company, whose interests he faithfully served. 
He was succeeded in office, in May, 1G38, by Sir William Keift, at the mo- 
ment when the Swedish colony'^ were seating themselves upon the banks of the 
Delaware. Keift was a bold, rapjicious, and unscrupulous man, and soon 
brought serious trouble upon the people. He began a tyrannous rule by con- 
centrating executive power in his own hands ; and his administration was a 
stormy and unfortunate one. The sum of its record is a tale of continual strife 
with the Swedes on the Delaware,^ the English on the Connecticut,'' the Indians 
all around him, and the colonists at his door. Ilis difficulties with the Indians 
proved the most dis;istrous of all, and finally wrought his own downfall. Pre- 
vious to his arrival, the intercourse of the Dutch with the natives had beea 
quite friendly.'' The fur trade was extending, and trappers and traders were 
all abroad among the native tribes. These carried a demon of discord with 
them. They furnished the Indians with mm, and (juarrcls and murders en- 
sued. The avaricious Keift also demanded tribute of wampum''' and beaver- 
skins from the River tribes ; and in a short time their friendship for the Dutch. 
became weakened. 

A crisis came. Some Raritan' Indians in New Jersey were accused of rob- 
bery. Keift sent an armed force to punish them [July, 1640], and blood 
flowed. Several Indians were killed, and their crops were destroyed. Savage 
vengeance did not slumber long. The Raritans murdered four planters on 
Staten Island [June, 1641], and destroyed considerable property.* An expe- 
dition sent to punish the offenders was unsuccessful. Soon afterward, a young 
AVestchester Indian, whose uncle had been murdered by a Hollander, near 
where the Halls of Justice now stand,' revenged the murder, according to the 
customs of his people,'" by killing an inoffensive Dutchman living at Turtle 
Bay." His trilje refused to surrender him on the demand of Keift, and the 
governor determined to make war upon all the offending savages. 

The people of New Netherland had already begun to murmur at Keift's 
course, and they charged the troubles with the Indians directly upon him. Un- 
willing to assume the entire responsibility of a war, himself, the governor called 
a meeting [Aug. 23, 1641] of the heads of families in New Amsterdam for 
consultation. They promptly chose "twelve select men" [August 29], with De 

' Page 85. ' Pago 93. ' Page 93. • Page 85. 

' Tlif Dut';h hail m.ade a settlement, and built a fort at Aliiany [page 72], and m.ade a treaty of 
friendsliip with the Moliawks [page 23]. Tliis tlie River Indians, in tlie vicinity of New Amster- 
dam, did not like, for the Moliawks were their oppressors. ° Note 2, page 13. 

' A tribe of the Lenni-Lenapes. Page 1 G. 

' Tliis plantation belonged to De Tries [note 2, page 92], who was a friend of the Indians. 

• On Center street, New York city. There was onee a fresh-water pond there, surrounded by 
the forest. 

'° The Indians had a custom concerning an avenger of blood, similar to that of the Jews. It waa 
the duty and the privili'ge for tlie ne.vt of kin to the murdered man, to avenge his blood by killing 
the murderer. The Indians took tlio life of any of the tribe of the oQendcr. 

" At the foot of Forty-fifth street, on the East River. 



1755.] NEW YORK. I4I 

Vries' at their head, to act for them ; and this was the fir.st representative 
assembly ever formed among Europeans on Manhattan Ishmd. They did not 
agree with the governor's hostile views ; and Keift finding them not only op- 
posed to his war designs, but that they were also taking cognizance of alleged 
grievances of the people, dissolved them, in February, 1G42. Finally, the 
commission of other murders by Indians, and the presence of a body of Mo- 
hawks, who had come down to exact tribute from the River tribes, concurred 
with the changed opinions of some leading citizens of New Amsterdam, to 
make Keift resolve to embrace this opportunity to chastise the savages. A 
large number of them had fled before the Mohawks, and sought shelter with 
the Hackensacks, near Hoboken, and there craved the protection of the Dutch. 
Now was ofiered an opportunity for a wise and humane governor to make a 
covenant of peace and friendship ; but Keift could not be satisfied without a 
flow of blood. At midnight, in February, 1643, a body of Hollanders and Mo- 
hawks crossed the Hudson, fell upon the unsuspecting fugitives, and before the 
dawn, they massacred almost a hundred men, women, and children. Many 
were driven from the clifis at Hoboken into the freezing flood ; and at sunrise 
the bloody marauders returned to New Amsterdam with thirty j^risoners, and 
the heads of several Indians. 

The fiery hatred and vengeance of all the surrounding tribes were aroused 
by this massacre, and a fierce war was soon kindled. Villages and farms were 
desolated, and white people were butchered wherever they were found by the 
incensed Indians.^ The Long Island tribes,' hitherto friendly, joined their kin- 
dred, and the very existence of the Dutch colony was menaced. Fortunately 
for the settlers, that eminent peace-maker, Roger Williams,* arrived [1643], to 
embark for England,* and he pacified the savages, and secured a brief repose for 
the colony. But the war was soon renewed, and for two years the colony suf- 
fered dreadfully. Having no competent leader, they employed Captain John 
Underhill,"^ who successfully beat back and defeated the Indians, and hostilities 
ceased. The Mohawks came and claimed sovereignty over the River Indians, 
made a treaty of peace Avitli the Dutch, and the hatchet was buried. 

The conduct of Governor Keift was so offensive to the colonists and the 
Company, that he was recalled, and he sailed for Europe in 1647, in a richly 
laden vessel. It was wrecked on the coast of Wales, and there he perished. 
He had already been succeeded in office [May, 27, 1647J, by Peter Stuyvesant, 
lately governor of Cura'.oa, a soldier of eminence, and possessed of every requis- 
ite for an efficient atlministration of government. His treatment of the Indians 
was very kind and just, and they soon exhibited such friendship for the Dutch, 
that Stuyvesant was falsely charged with a design to employ them in murder- 
ing the English in New England.' Long accustomed, as a military leader, to 

■ Note 2, page 92. 

' It was during this frenzy of revenge that Mrs. Hutchinson, who had been banished from Mas- 
sachusetts, and had taken up her residence near the present New Rochelle, Westchester County, 
New York, was murdered, witli all her family. The stream upon which she Uved is yet known as 
Hutchinson's River. ' Page 21. " Page 87. " Page 91. ' Page 87. 

' See page 121. This idea prevailed, because during almost the entire whiter of 1652-3, Ninigret 



142 



THE COLONIES. 



[1623. 



arbitrary rule, ho was stern and inflexible, but he had the reputation of an 
honest man. He immediately commenced much needed reforms ; and during 
his whole administration, which was ended by the subjugation of the Dutch by 
the English,' in IGG-i, he was the faithful and energetic defender of the integ- 




rity of the province against its foes. By prudent management he avoided col- 
lisions with the English, and peaceably ended boundary disputes' with them in 
the autumn of IGoO. This cause for irritation on his eastern frontier being 
removed, Stuyvesant turned his attention to the growing power of the Swedes, 
on the Delaware. 

Governor Stuyvesant built Fort Casimir, on the site of the present New 



and two other Narragansctt sachems had been in New Anistcrdani, and on very friendly terms with 
Stuyvesant. Tliese sachems, who were true friends of tlio Kiifilisli, iiositively disclaimed all bad 
intentions on the part of Stuyvesant, and yet historians of the present day repeat the slander. 

' Page 114. 

' See page 85. He went to Hartford, and there made a treaty whicli fixed the eastern bound- 
ary of New Nethcrland nearly on the lino of the present division between New York and Connecti- 
cut, and across Long Island, at Oyster Bay, thirty miles eastward of New York. The Dutch claims 
to lands oi\ the Connecticut River were extinguished by this treaty. From the beginning of diffi- 
culties, the Dutch were clearly in the right. This was acknowledged by iuipartial aTid just New 
Jinglanders. In a nianuscriyt letter before me, from Edward Winslow to iiovernor Winthrop, dated 
at "Marshfield, 2d of Gth month, 1644," in which lie replies to a charge of being favorable to the 
Dutch, in some respects, he says that he had asserted in substjinee, that he " would not defend Uie 
Hartford men's cause, for they had hitherto (or thus long) wronged the Dutch." 



1755.] NEW YORK. 145 

Castle, in Delaware, in 1651. This was soon seized bj the Swedes, and the 
garrison made prisoners. The States-General' resolved to prevent further 
trouble with these enterprising neighbors of the Dutch, and for this purpose, 
gave Stuyvesant full liberty to subjugate the Swedes. At the head of six hun- 
dred men, he saded for the Delaware, in August, 1655, and by the middle of 
October, he had captured all the Swedish fortresses, and sent the governor 
(Risingh) and several other influential men, to Europe. Some of the settlers 
withdrew to Maryland and Virginia, but the great body of them quietly sub- 
mitted, took an oath of allegiance to the States-General of Holland, and con- 
tinued in peaceable possession of their property. Thus, after an existence of 
about seventeen years [1638 — 1655J, New Sweden^ disappeared by absorp- 
tion into New Netherland. 

New trouble now appeared, but it was soon removed. While Stuyvesant 
and his soldiery were absent on the Delaware, some Indians, who were not yet 
reconciled to the Dutch, menaced New Amsterdam.' The return of the gov- 
ernor produced quiet, for they feared and respected him, and, for eight years, 
the colony was very little disturbed by external causes. Then the Esopus 
Indians suddenly fell upon the Dutch settlements [June, 1663] at Wiltwyck 
(now Kingston, in Ulster County),^ and killed and captured sixty-five of the in- 
habitants. Stuyvesant promptly sent a sufficient force to chastise them ; and so 
thoroughly was the errand performed, that the Indians sued for peace in May, 
1664, and made a treaty of friendship. 

External difficulties gave Stuyvesant little more trouble than a spirit opposed 
to his aristocratic views, which he saw manifested daily around him. While he 
had been judiciously removing all cause for ill-feeling with his neighbors, there 
was a power at work within his own domain which gave him great uneasiness. 
The democratic seed planted by the Twelve, in Kcift's time,' had begun to grow 
vigorously under the fostering care of a few enlightened Hollanders, and some 
Puritans who had settled in New Netherland. The latter, by their applause 
of English institutions, had diffused a desire among the people to partake of the 
blessings of English liberty, as they understood it, and as it appeared in New 
England. Stuyvesant was an aristocrat by birth, education, and pursuit, and 
vehemently opposed every semblance of democracy. At the beginning he found 
himself at variance with the people. At length an assembly of two deputies 
from each village in New Netherland, chosen by the inhabitants, convened at 
New Amsterdam [December, 1653], without the approbation of the governor. 
It was a spontaneous, and, in the eyes of the governor, a revolutionary move- 
ment. Their proceedings displeased him ; and finding argument of no avail, he 
exercised his official prerogative, and commanded obedience to his will. The 
people grew bolder at every rebuff, and finally they not only resisted taxation 
but openly expressed a willingness to bear English rule for the sake of enjoying 
English liberty. 

The opportunity for a change of rulers was not long delayed. A crisis in 



■ Note 7, page 59. " Page 93. • Page 139. « Page 283. ' Page UO. 



744 THE COLONIES. [1623. 

the affairs of New Netherland now approached. Charles the Second, of En- 
gland, witiiout any fair pretense to title, gave the whole territory of New 
Netherland [IMareh 22, lGtJ4J to his brother James, Duke of York,' The duke 
sent an English squadron, under the command of Colonel Richard Nicolls,' to 
secure the gift ; and on the 3d of September, 16(34, the red cross of St. George^ 
floated in triumph over the fort, and the name of New Amsterdam was changed 
to New York.* It was an easy conquest, for, while the fortifications and other 
means of defense were very weak, the people were not unwilling to try English 
rule. Stuyvesant began to make concessions to the people, when it was too 
late, and when his real strength, the popular will, had departed from him. He 
hesitated long before he would sign the articles of cajiitulation ; and thus, until 
the end, he was faithful to his employers, the Dutch West India Company.^ 
ATith the capital, the remainder of the province passed into the hands of the 
English; and early in October, 1664, New Netlierland was acknowledged a 
part of the British realm, and Nicolls, the conqueror became governor." Let 
us now consider 



NEW YORK UNDER THE ENGLISH. 



^^-.^i^eJfimm 


2S?5Y^CS2=:^ 


- — 




n r«^ani«*fe-^- 


^^^St_-' 


d -..___; '•--*-— 



Very soon after the 
conquest the people of 
New York" perceived 
that a change of masters 



..j^V- 



ciTT OP NEW YORK IN 1664. did not enhance their 

prosperity and happiness. 
They were disappointed in their hopes of a representative government; and 
their taxes, to support a government in which they had no voice, were increased. 
Lovelace, the successor of Nicolls, in 1667, increased their burdens ; and when 
they sent a respectful protest to liim, he ordered the paper to be burned by 
the common hangman. Like a petty tyrant, he declared that the people 
should h:i\e " liberty for no thouglit but how to pay tlieir taxes." Kut the 
people did think of something else, and were on the eve of open rebellion when 

' Pago 94. ' Note G, page 1 23. 

' Tlie royal standard of England is sometimes so named because it bears a red crii-w. which is 
called Die "cross of St. George," the patron saint of Great Britain. After the union \\ith Scotland 
[note 1, page 63], the cross of St. Andrew (in the form of an X), was added, and is now seen on 
the British Hag In tho centre aro the royal arms. Tliis Union, as tlie figure is called, was homo 
upon tho Americiui flags, sometimes, until alter tlie Beclaration of Independence, in mii. It was 
uiion tiie flag of tliirteen stnpcs, alternate red and white, which 'Washington caused to be unfurled 
at Cambridge, on tlie fmit day of that year. See page 245. 

* Tlio name of Fort Orange settlement [note 9, page 139], was changed to Albany, one of tbo 
duke's titles. • Page 72 

' 'We have elsewhere noticed tho fact, that before Nicolls was dispatched, tho duke, being cer- 
tain of victory, sold that part of New Netherland now included in New Jersey, to other parties. 
[.See page 94.] I,ong Island, which had been previously granted to the Earl of Stirhng, was pur- 
ch.-i.sed by the Dutch, in total di.sregard of the claims of Connecticut. Tho colonies on the Delaware 
remained under the jurisdiction of Now York, and were governed by deputies. 

' The above picture is a correct view of the city of Xew York iiiore t han two hundred years ago. 
It is now [1SS:!J tlie larfrest city on I he .Vinericaii continent. On the left of the picture is'.sceti Fort 
.Aiiistcnlaiii. with the church anil (iovernor's house within it. iiiul a wiiuiinill. The point oJ 
JM.iuhuttan Islaml, from the present IJattery Place to the foot of Wall-street, is here seen. 




SlUTYESANT SDERENDERINQ TilE FoRT TO THE ENGLISH. 



1755.] NEW TORK. 147 

the clouds of national war overshadowed local difficulties. War again com- 
menced between England and Holland in 1672, and in July the following year, 
a Dutch squadron sailed up the Bay of New York, and, in the absence of the 
governor, took possession of the fort and town [August 9th, 1673] without 
giving a shot. The easy conquest was the work of treason ; yet, as the royal 
libertine (Charles the Second) on the throne of England doubtless shared in the 
bribe, the traitor went unpunished. ' New Jersey and the Territories of Dela- 
ware^ yielded, and for sixteen months [from July, 1673, to November, 167-4] 
New York was again New Netherlands. When the two nations made a treaty 
of peace, the province was restored to the English, and remained in their pos- 
session until our Independence was declared in 1776.' These changes raised 
some doubts concerning the validity of the duke's title, and the king gave him 
another grant in July, 1674. Sir Edmond Andros' was appointed governor 
under the new charter, and continued arbitrary rule with increased rigor.' 

At the close of 1683, Governor Andros returned to England, when the 
duke (who was a Roman Catholic) appointed Thomas Dongan, of the same 
faith, to succeed him. In the mean while, the duke had listened to the judicious 
advice of William Penn, and instructed Dongan to call an assembly of repre- 
sentatives. They met [October 17, 1683], and with the hearty concurrence of 
the governor, a Charter of Liberties was established," and the permanent 
foundation of a representative government was laid. The people rejoiced in the 
change, and were heartily engaged in the efforts to perfect a wise and liberal 
government, when the duke was elevated to the throne, as James the Second, 
on the death of Charles, in February, 1685. As king, he refiised to confirm 
the privileges which, as duke, he had granted ; and having determined to intro- 
duce the Roman Catholic religion into the province as the established church, 
he commenced by effi^rts to enslave the people. A direct tax was ordered ; the 
printing press — the right arm of knowledge and freedom — was forbidden a 
place in the colony ; and the provincial offices were filled by Roman Catholics. 
These proceedings gave pain to the liberal-minded Dongan ; and when the king, 
in his religious zeal, instructed the governor to introduce French priests among 
the Five Nations,' he resisted the measure as highly inexpedient." His firm- 



' The traitor was Captain John Manning, the commandant of the fort. He was, doubtless, 
bribed by the Dutch commander; and the fact that the king screened him from punishment, gave 
the color of truth to the charge that the monarch shared in the bribe- ' Page Off. 

' Page 251. * Page 129. 

' The duke claimed the country from the Connecticvit River to Cape Henlnpen. Andros 
attempted to exercise authority eastward of the line agreed upon by the Dutch and the Connecticut 
people [note 2, page 142], and went to Saybrook in the summer of 1676, with an armed party, to 
enforce the claim. He met with such resistance, that he was compelled to return to New York 
witliout accxjmplishing his design. See page 116. 

" The Assembly consisted of the governor and ten councillors, and seventeen deputies elected 
by the freeholders. They adopted a Declaraiion of Rights, and asserted the principle, so nobly 
fought for a hundred years later, that iaxatkm and rejrresentation are inseparable ; in other words — 
that taxes can not be levied without the consent of the people, expressed by theu: representatives. 
At this time the colony was divided into twelve counties. ' Page 23. 

' Tliis measure would have given the French, in Canada, an influence over the Indians that 
might have proved fatal to English power on the Continent. The Five Nations remained the fast 
friends of the English, and stood as a powerful barrier against tlie French, when the latter twice 
invaded the Iroquois territory, in endeavors to reach the English, at Albany. 



148 THE COLONIES. [1623: 

ncss gave tho people confidence, and they were again on the eve of 0{)en rebel- 
lion, when tho intelligence of the flight of James, and the accession of William 
and Mary' roaclied them. Tiiey immediately apjiuintcd a committee of safety, 
and with almost unanimous voice, sauctioncd tiie conduct of Jacol) Leisler (an 
influential merchant and commanticr of tlio militia), who had taken possession 
of the fort in tho name of the now sovereigns, and by order of the inhabitants. 
Afraid of the people, MichoLson, the successor of Dongan, fled on board a vessel 
and departed, and tho people consented to Leisler's assuming the functions of 
"ovcriior until a new one should be appointed. The aristocracy and the magis- 
trates were ofl'ended, and denouncing Leisler as a usurper, they accused him 
of treason, when Governor Sloughter arrived, in 1691. 

Lcislor, in tho mean while, conducted affairs with prudence and energy. 
Having tho sanction of the people, he needed no further authority ; and when a 
letter from the British ministers arrived [December, 1G89], directed to Gov- 
emor Nicholson, "or, in his absence, to such as, for the time being," conducted 
affairs, he considered it as fairly addressed to himself. Milborne, his son-in-law, 
acted as his deputy, and was included in the accusations of the magistrates, 
who had now retired to Albany. They held Fort Orange' until the invasion 
of the French, in February, 1000,^ when they felt the necessity of claiming 
the protection of the government at New York. They then yielded, and 
remained comparatively (piiet mitil the arrival of Richard Ingoldsby, Sloughter's 
lieutenant, early in IGUl. Tliat ollicer announced the appointment of Henry 
Sloughter as governor ; and without producing any credentials of authority, he 
haughtily demanded of Leisler [February 0, 1601[ the surrender of the fort. 
Of course Leisler refused compliance; but as soon as Sloughter arrived [March 
, 29], ho sent a messenger to announce his desire to surrender all authority into 
his hands. Leisler's enemies had resolved lai his destruction ; and when he 
came forward to deliver the fort, in person, he and his son-in-law were seized 
and cast into prison. They -were tried on a charge of treason, found guilty, 
and condemned to suffer deatli. Sloughter withheld his signature to their 
death warrant; but, when made drunk at a dinner party prepared for tlie pur- 
pose, he put his name to the fatal instrument. Before he became sober. Leisler 
and Milborne were suspended upon a gallows on the verge of Beekman's swamp 
!May 20, IGOl], where Tammany Ilall — fronting on the City Hall Park. New 
York — now stands. These were the proto-martyrs of popular liberty in 
America.' 

Henry Sloughter was a weak and dissolute man, yet he came with an earn- 
est desire to promote tho welfiire of tho colonists. He convened a popular 
assemblv, and formed a constitution, which provided for trial by jury, and an 
exemption from taxes, except by the consent of the representatives of the peo- 
ple. Light was thus dawning hopefully upon the province, when delirium 

> Note 7, papco 113. ' Note 9, pngo 133. 

' At this tiiiio, Sc'liimcctnila was dcsolntpcl. Sec piipo 131. 

* 'I'lioir cstatos were conlisrntod ; but after a lapse of govcral years, and when the violence ot 
party Bpirit had subsided, tho property was restored to their tmniliea. 



1755.] NEW YORK. 149 

tremens, at the close of a drunken revel, ended the administration and the life 
of the governor [August 2, IG'JIJ, in loss than three moutiis after the murder 
of Leisler and Milbornc. He was succeeded by Benjamin Fletcher, a man of 
violent passions, and (juite as weak and dissolute, who became the tool of the 
aristocracy, and was hated l)y tlie people. Party spirit, engendered by tho 
death of Leisler, burned intensely during the whole administration of Fletcher ; 
and at tiie same time the Frencli and Indians, under the guidance of Frontenac, 
the able Governor of Canada,' were traversing tlie northern frontiers of the 
province. Fletcher prudently listened to the advice of Major Schuyler,' of 
Albany, respecting the Indians; and under his leadership, the English, and 
their unwavering allies, the Five Nations, successfully beat back the foe to 
the St. Lawrence, and so desolated the French settlements in 1692, in the 
vicinity of Lake Champlain,^ tliat Frontenac was glad to remain quiet at 
Montreal. 

A better ruler for New York now appeared. The Earl of Bellomont, an 
honest and energetic Irish peer, succeeded Fletcher in 1698 ; and the following 
year, New Hampshire' and Massachusetts'* were placed under his jurisdiction. 
He commenced reform with great earnestness, and made vigorous efforts to sup- 
press piracy," which had become a fearful scourge to the infant commerce of 
the colonists. With Robert Livingston' and others, he fitted out an expedition 
under the fomous Captain Kidd, to destroy the buccaneers. Kidd, himself, was 
afterward hung for piracy [1701], and the governor and his sons were charged 
with a participation in iiis guilt. At any rate, there can be little doubt that 
wealthy men in tiie colony expected a share in the plunder, and that Kidd, as a 
scape-goat for the sins of the others, was the victim of a political conspiracy.' 

Unfortunately for tiie colony, death removed Bellomont, on the 16th of 
March, 1701, when his liberal policy was about to bear fruit. He was suc- 
ceeded by Edward Hyde (afterward Lord Cornbury)," a libertine and a knave, 
who cursed the province witli misrule for seven years. He was a bigot, too, 
and persecuted all denominations of Christians, except those of the Church of 
England. He embezzled the pulilic moneys, involved himself in heavy debts, 
and on all occasions was the practical enemy of popular freedom. The people 



' From 1G78 to 1682, and a^in from 1689 to 1698, when he died, at tho age of 77. 

' Peter Schuyler. He was mayor of Albany, and acquired unbounded influence over the Five 
Nations of Indians. Sec page 23. 

' Schuyler's force was about tluve hundred Mohawks, and as many English. They slow about 
throo luuulred of the French and Indians, at tlio north end of the lake. ' Page 79. ' Page 117 

° Bocauso Spain claimed the exclusive right to tho West India seas, liercommerco in that region 
was regarded as fair plunder. Privateer commissions were readily granted liy the English, French, 
imd Dutch governments ; and daring spirits from all countries were found under their flags. Tho 
buccaneers, as thej' were called, became very numerous and powerful, and at length depredated 
upon Englisli commerce as well as Spanish. Privateers, or those legally authorized to seize the prop- 
erty of an enemy, became pimks, or sea robbers. Privateering is only legalized piracy. 

' An immigrant li-om Scotland, luid aneiwtor of the Livingston family in this country. He was 
connected, liy marriage, with the Van Rensselaer and Schuyler families; and in 1685, he received 
from govei-nor Pongan a grant of a feudal principality {soe patrooti, page 139) on the Hudson, yet 
known as Livingstttn's Manor. 

' King William liiniself was a shareholder in the enterprise for which Kidd was fitted out. Kidd 
•ppeared puliliely iu Boston, where he was arrested, then sent to England, tried, and executed. 

' Page 161. 



150 THE COLONIES. 11623. 

finally demanded and obtained his recall, and the moment his official career 
ceased, in 1708, his creditors cast him into prison, where he remained until his 
accession to tlie peeraj^e, on the deatii of his father.' From this period until 
the arrival of William Cosby, as governor [17;32|, the royal representatives,' 
unable to resist the will of the people, as expressed by the Assembly, allowed 
democratic principles to grow and bear fruit." 

The popular will and voiee now began to bo potential in the administration 
of public affiiirs. Rip Van Dam, "a man of the people," was acting governor 
when Coslty came. They soon quarreled, and two violent parties arose — the 
democratic, which sided with Van Dam, and tiie aristocratic, which supported 
the governor. Each party had the control of a newspaper,' and the war of 
words raged violently for a long time. The governor, unalde to compete with 
his ojjponent, hually ordered the arrest of Zenger [November, 1734J, the pub- 
lisher of the democratic paper, on a charge of libel. After an imprisonment of 
thirty-five weeks, Zenger was tried by a jury, and accjuitted, in July, 1735. 
lie was defended by Andrew Hamilton, of I'hihuh'lpliia, who was presented by 
the magistrates of the city of New York with a gold box, as a token of their 
esteem for his noble advocacy of popular rights. Then was distinctly drawn 
the line of demarcation between republicans and royalists (Whigs and Tories)," 
which continued prominent until the war of the revolution was ended in 1783. 

From the arrival of Cosby until the commencement of the French and 
Indian war," tlie history of New York is composed chiefly of the records of 
party strife, and presents very little matter of interest to the general reader. 
Only one episode demands special attention, namely, the excitement and results 
incident to a supposed conspiracy of the negroes, in 1741, to burn and plunder 
the city, murder the inhabitants, and set up a government under a man of their 
own color. Several incendiary fires had occurred in rapid succession, and a 
house had been robbed Viy some slaves. The idea of a regular and horrid con- 
spiracy at once prevailed, and, as in the case of the Salem Witchcraft,' an 
intense panic pervaded all classes, and many innocent persons sufiered.' This 
is known in history as The Neyro Plot. 

' According to an unjust law of Englami, a poor of tho realm (who is consequently a member 
of the Mouse of Lords [note 2, pafje 218]) can not bo arrcsteil Ibr dobt. This law, enacted in the 
roign of Henry the 10if,'htli, still previiils. 

" Lord Lovelace, In^ol<isl)y, Hunter, Schuyler, Runiet, and Montgomerio. 

' We have already noticed (page U.'j) tlio' breaking;- out of Queen Anne's War, in 1702, and tho 
successful expeditions lifted out and sent in tlio direction of Montreal in 1709 and 1711. Tlie debt 
which those expeditions laid upon New Yorl<, wa.s felt Ibr many years. 

• The Kap York Weeklii Jvurnal (democratic), by .Tolm Peter Zenger; TVie New York Gazette 
(aristocratic), by William liradlbrd. Tlio latter owned the lirst press ever set up in tho province. 
Ho comnicuced printing' in Now York in 1696. See note 3, page 179. 

' Note 4, pas;e 226, ' Va^c 179. ' Page 132. 

" Before tlie panic wa.s allayed, four white people were hanged; and eleven negroca wer» 
burned, eighteen were hanged , and lllly woro sunt to the West ImUea aud sold. 



lluu.] MARYLAND 151 

CHAPTER IV. 

MARYLAND. [IGnn.] 

When the first popular assembly convened at St. Mary, for legislative pur- 
poses, on the 8th of March, 16-35,' Maryland had then its colonial birth. Its 
sturdy growth began when, in 1639, the more convenient form of representa- 
tive government was established. It was crude, but it possessed the elements 
of republicanism. The freemen chose as many represent.atives as they pleased, 
and others were appointed by the proprietor. These, with the governor and 
secretary, composed the legislature. At this first session a Declaration of 
Rights was adopted, the powers of the governor were defined, and all the privi- 
leges enjoyed by English subjects were guarantied to the colonists.' 

Very soon the Indians in the vicinity, becoming jealous of the increasing 
strength of the white people, Ijegan to evince hostility. Frequent collisions 
occurred ; and in 1642, a general Indian war commenced in the region between 
the Potomac and the Chesapeake. It Was terminated in 1645, but the quiet 
of the province was soon disturbed again. Clayborne had returned from 
England" [1645], and speedily fanned the embers of discontent into a flame of 
open rebellion. He became too powerful for the local authorities, and Governor 
Calvert' was obliged to flee to Virginia. During a year and a half, the insur- 
gents held the reins of government, and the horrors of civil war brooded over 
the colony. The rebellion was suppressed in the summer of 1647, and in 
August, Calvert resumed his office. 

In the year 1649, a very important law, known as The Toleration Act, was 
passed by the Assembly. Religious freedom was guarantied by the charter,' 
yet, as much animosity existed between the Protestants" and Roman Catholics, 
the Assembly' thought proper to give the principle the solemn sanction of law. 
By that act every professed believer in Jesus Christ and the Trinity, was 
allowed free exercise of his religious opinions, and no man was permitted to 
reproach another on account of his peculiar doctrines, except under the penalty 
of a fine, to be paid to the person so insulted. Thither persecuted Churchmen 
of New England, and oppressed Puritans of Virginia, fled and found an asylum. 
This act, short of full toleration as it was (for it placed Unitarians beyond the 
pale of its defense), is the pride and glory of the early legislature of Mai-yland ; 
yet it wa.s not the first instance in America, as is often alleged, when religious 
toleration received the sanction of law.' Rhode Island has that honor. 

' Page 82. ' Page S2. ' Note 1, page 82. 

* Page 8L » Page 81. ' Note U, page ul 

' Boznian, in liis History of Maryland (II. 350 — 356), maintains that tlie majority of the mem- 
bers of the Assembly of 1G49, were Protestant,s. The reeorils of Maryland prove it 

' In May, lG-47, tlie General Assembly of Rhode Island, convened at Portsmouth, adopted a 
code of laws which cloged witli the declaration that " all men might walk as their consciences per- 
3uaded them, without molest<ition — every one in the name of his God." Tliis was broader tolera- 
tion than the Maryland act contemplated, for it did not restrict men to a belief in Jesus Christ. 



162 THK COLONIES. [1639. 

Being favored by events in tiie mother country, republicanism grew steadily 
in tiie new State. Royalty was abolished in England [1G49J, and for more 
than ten years the democratic idea was prevalent throughout the realm. Lord 
Baltimore, the j)ropi-ietor of Maryhuul, professed republicanism on the death of 
the king, but he had been too recently a royalist to secure the confidence of 
Parliament. Stone, his lieutenant, was removed from office [April IG, 1651] 
by commissioners (of whom Clay borne was one), who were sent to administer the 
government of the colony. He was soon afterward [July 8] restored. On the 
dissolution of the Long Parliament [1653J' Cromwell restored full ppwer to the 
proprietor, but the commissioners, who withdrew to Virginia, returned soon 
afterward, and compelled Stone to surrender the government into their hands. 

The colonial government had been re-organized in the mean while. The 
legislative body was divided into an Upper and Lower House in IGoO ; the 
former consisting of the governor and his council, appointed by the proprietor, 
and the latter of representatives chosen by the people. At the same session a 
law was passed prohibiting all ta.xes, uidess levied with the consent of the free- 
men. Political questions were freely discussed by the people ; and soon the 
two chief religious sects were marshaled in opposition, as prime elements of 
political parties. So great had been the influx of Protestants, that they now 
[1654] outnumbered the Roman Catholics as voters and in the Assembly. They 
acknowledged the authority of Cromwell, and boldly questioned the rights and 
privileges of an hereditary proprietor." Tiie Roman Catholics adhered to Lord 
Baltimore, and bitter religious hatred was fostered. The Protestants finally 
disfranchised their opponents, excluded them from the Assembly, and in Novem- 
ber, 1654, passed an act declaring Roman Catholics not entitled to the protec- 
tion of the laws of Maryland. 

This unchristian and unwise act of the Protestant party, was a great wrong 
as well as a great mistake. Civil war ensued. Stone returned to St. Mary,' 
organized an armed force composed chiefly of Roman Catholics, seized the colo- 
nial records, and assumed the office of governor. Skirmishes followed, and 
finally a severe battle was fought [April 4, 1G55] not far from the site of 
Annapolis, in which Stone's party was defeated, with a loss of about fifty men, 
killed and wounded. Stone was made prisoner, but his life was sjxired. Four 
other leading supporters of the proprietor were tried for treason and executed. 
Anarchy prevailed in the province for many months, when the discordant ele- 
ments were brought into comparative order by the appointment of Josiah Fen- 
dall [July 20, 1G5G] as governor. He was suspected of favoring the Roman 
Catholics, and was soon arrested by order of the Protestant Assembly. For 
two years bitter strife continued between the people and the agents of the 

' When Charles the First was belie.'ide;] [note 3, pape 108], the Parliament assumed supreme 
authority, .nnrt reniaineii in permanent session. Cromwell, with an army at his back, entered that 
assembly in the autumn of 1653, ordered tliein to disperse, and assumed supreme power liimselfl 
under the title of Lord Protector. Tliat British legislature is known in history as the Long Parlia- 
ment. 

' According to the original charter, the heirs and successors of Lord Baltimore were to be pro- 
prietors forever. * Page 82. 



1755.] MARYLAND. 153 

proprietor, when, after concessions by the latter, Fendall was acknowledged 
governor, on the 3d of April, 1658. His prudence secured the confidence of 
the people, but the death of Cromwell, in September, 1658, presaging a change 
in the English government, gave them uneasiness. After long deliberation, 
the Assembly determined to avoid all further trouble with the proprietor, by 
asserting the supreme authority of the people. They accordingly dissolved the 
Upper House [March 24, 1660],' and assumed the whole legislative power of 
the State. They then gave Fendall a commission as governor for the people. 

Tlie restoration of monarchy in England took place in June, 1660,'' and the 
original order of things was re-established in Maryland. Lord Baltimore, hav- 
ing assured the new king that his republican professions' were only temporary 
expedients, was restored to all his proprietary rights, b/ Charles. Fendall was 
tried, and found guilty of treason, because he accepted a commission from the 
rebellious Assembly. Baltimore, however, wisely proclaimed a general pardon 
for all political offenders in Maryland; and for almo.st thirty years afterward, 
the province enjoyed repose. A law, which established absolute political equal- 
ity among professed Christians, was enacted ; and after the death of the second 
Lord Baltimore [Dec. 10, 1675], his son and successor confirmed it. Under 
that new proprietor, Charles Calvert, Maryland was governed mildly and pru- 
dently, and the people were prospering in their political quietude, when the 
Revolution in England' shook the colonies. The deputy governor of Maryland 
hesitated to proclaim Williiim and Mary,' and this was made a pretense, by a 
restless spirit, named Coode,^ for exciting the people. He gave currency to the 
absurd report that the local magistrates and the Roman Catholics had leagued 
with the Indians' for the destruction of all the Protestants in the colony. A 
similar actual coalition of Jesuits' and savages on the New England frontiers^ 
gave a coloring of truth to the story, and the old religious feud instantly burned 
again intensely. The Protestants formed an armed association [Sept., 1689], 
and led on by Coode, they took forcible possession of St. Mary, and by capitu- 
lation, received the provincial records and assumed the government. They 
called a Convention, and invested it with legislative powers. Its fii'st acts were 
to depose the third Lord Baltimore, and to re-assert the sovereign majesty of 
the people. 

Public affairs were managed by the Convention until 1691, when the king 
■unjustly deprived Baltimore of all his political privileges as proprietor [June 
11], and made Maryland a royal province.'" Lionel Copley was appointed the 
first royal governor, in 1692. New laws were instituted — religious toleratioa 



' Page 152. ' Note 2, page 109. ' Page 152. • Note 7, page 113. ' Page 113. 

" Coode had been a confederate in a former insurrection, but escaped conviction. 

' A treaty with the Indians had just been renewed, and the customary presents distributed 
among them. These tilings Coode falsely adduced as evidences of a coalition with the savages. 

' Note 5, page 130. » Page 130. 

"' King William had an exalted idea of royal prerogatives, and was as much disposed as the 
Stuarts (the kings of England from James the First to James the Second) to suppress democracy in 
the colonies. He repeatedly vetoed (refused his assent) to Bills of Rights enacted by the colonial 
Assemblies ; refused his assent to local laws of the deepest interest to the colonists | and iusti-ucted 
his governors to proliibit printing in the colonies. Note 7, page 112. 



15-1 THE COLONIES. • [1639. 

■was abolished — tlio Church of England was made llic cstal)lislied religion, to be 
supported by a tax on the people ; and in the State founded by Roman Cath- 
olics, the members of tiiat denomination were cruelly dlsfrancliised, with the 
consent of their sovereign. A few years later [1716J, the proprietary rights 
of Lord Baltimore (now deceased) were restored to his inftint heir, and the 
original foi-m of government was re-established. Such continued to be the poli- 
tical complexion of the colony, until the storm of the Revolution in 177G, swept 
away every remnant of royalty and feudalism, and the State of Maryland waa 
established. 



CHAPTER V. 

C N X K C T I C U T . [ 1 G ,■? .] 

The Coxnecticut Colony' formed a pohtical Constitution on the 24th of 
January, 1639, and in June following, the New IIavex Colony performed 
the same important act." The religious element was supreme in the new organ- 
ization ; and, in imitation of the Constitution of the Plymouth settlers, none 
but church members were allowed the privileges of freemen' at New Haven. 
They first appointed a committee of twelve men, who selected seven of their 
members to be "pillars" in the new State. These had power to admit as many 
others, as confederate legislators, as they pleased. Theophilus Eaton was 
chosen governor,' and the Bible was made the grand statute-book of the colony. 
Many of the New Haven settlers being mercliants, they sought to found a com- 
mercial colony, but heavy losses by the wreck of vessels' discouraged them, and 
they turned their special attention to agriculture. Prudence marked the course 
of the magistrates of the several colonies in the Connecticut valley,' and they 
were blessed with prosperity. But difficulties with the Dutch respecting terri- 
torial boundaries,' and menaces of the neighboring Indians, gave them uneasi- 
ness, and made them readily join the New England confederation in 1G43.» 
The following year the little independent colony at Saybrook" purchased the 
land of one of the proprietors of Connecticut,'" and became permanently annexed 
to that at Hartford." 

The future appeared serene and promising. The treaty made with Gov- 
ernor Stuyvcsant, at Hartford, in 1650," gave token of future tranquillity. But 
the repose was soon liroken by international war. England and Holland drew 
the sword against each other in 1G52 ; and because it was reported that Nini- 
gret, the wily sachem of the Narragansetts," had spent several weeks at New 

' Page 89. ' Page 89. The people assembled in a bam to form a new Constitution. 

• Note 5, papo 118. 

* Ho was annually clioson to fill the office, until his death, which occurred in 1G57. 

' In 1647, a new "ship belonging to the colony foundered at sea. It was laden with a valuable 
cargo, and the passengers belonged to some of the leading families in the colony. 

° Pago 86. ' Page 85, and note 2, page U2. " Pago 121. * Page 86. 

" Page 85. " Page 88. " Note 2, page 142. " Note 7, page 141. 



1755.] CONNECTICUT. 155 

Amsterdam in the winter of 1652-3' the belief prevailed in New England, as 
we liave already observed, that Stuyvesant was leaguing with the Indians for 
the destruction of the English.'- Great excitement ensued, and a majority of 
the commissioners decided,^ in 1653, upon war with the Dutch. Immediate 
hostilities were prevented by the refusal of Massachusetts to furnish its quota 
of supplies. The Connecticut colonies (who were more exposed to blows from 
the Dutch than any other) applied to Cromwell for aid, and he sent four ships 
of war for the purpose. Before their arrival,* a treaty of peace was concluded 
between the two nations, and blood and treasure were saved. The Assembly 
at Hartford took possession of all property then claimed by the Dutch ; and 
after that the latter abandoned all claims to possessions in the Connecticut 
valley. 

On the restoration of Charles the Second, in 1660, the Connecticut colotiy 
expressed its loyalty, and obtained a charter. At first, Charles was disposed 
to refuse the application of Winthrop,' the agent of the colony, for he had 
heard of the sturdy republicanism of the petitioners. But when Winthrop 
presented his majesty with a ring which Charles I. had given to his grand- 
father, the heart of the king was touched, and he granted a charter [May 30, 
1662] which not only confirmed the popular Constitution of the colony, but 
contained more liberal provisions than any yet issued from the royal hand.' It 
defined the eastern boundary of the province to be Nan-aganset Bay, and the 
western, the Pacific Ocean. It thus included a portion of Rhode Island, and 
the whole New Haven Colony.'' The latter gave a reluctant consent to the 
union in 1665, but Rhode Island positively refused the alliance. A charter 
given to the latter the year after one was given to Connecticut [1663],' covered 
a portion of the Connecticut grant in Narraganset Bay. Concerning this 
boundary the two colonies disputed for more than sixty years. 

The colony of Connecticut suffered but little during King Philip's War,' 
which broke out in 1675, with the exception of some settlements high up on 
the fresh water river.'" Yet it furnished its full quota of men and supplies, and 
its soldiers bore a conspicuous part in giving the vigorous blows which broke 
the power of the New England Indians." At the same time, the colonists 
were obliged to defend their liberties against the attempted usurpations of Ed- 
mund Andros, then governor of New York.'" He claimed jurisdiction to the 

' This report was set afloat by Uncas, the mischievous Mohegan sachem [page 81], v:\io hated 
tile Narragansetts. It had no foundation in truth. See, also, page 21. 

" Page 141, 5 Pago 121. 

* Roger Williams, then in England, managed to delay the sailing of the fleet, and tlius, again, 
that eminent peace-maker prevented bloodshed. Page 87. 

' John Winthrop, son. of Governor Winthrop, of Massachusetts. He was chosen governor of 
Connecticut in 1657, and held the office several years. Such was his station when he appeared in 
England to ask a charter of the king. Hopkins (who was one of the founders of the New Haven 
colony) was chosen the first governor of the Connecticut colony, and for several years he and 
Haynes were alternately chosen chief magistrates. 

" This original charter is now [1883] in the office of the Secretary of the State of Connecticut. It 
contains a portrait of Charles the Second, handsomely drawn in India ink, and forming part of an. 
Initial letter. This was the instrument afterward hidden in the great oak mentioned on the next page. 

' Page 88. Thus the several settlements were united under the general name of Connecticut 

'Page 156. » Page 124. '» Page 85. " Page 22. " Page UT. 




156 TlIK COLONIES. [1639 

moutli nf tlio Connecticut River, and in .liily, 1G7.'), lie proceeded to Saybrook 
^^itll ii small naval foi'ce, to assert his authority. Jie was permitted to land; 
l)ut wlicn he ordered the garri.son in the fort to surrender, and began to read his 
eoniniission to the people. Captain JJuU, the eouiiuander, ordered him to be 
silent. Perceiving the strength and determination of his adversary, Andros 
wisely withdrew, and greatly irritated, returned to New York. 

During tiie ne.xt dozen years, very little occurred to disturb the quiet and 
prosperity of Connecticut. Then a most exciting scene took place at Hartford, 
iu which the liberties of the colony wore periled. Edmund Andros again ap- 
peared as a usurper of authority. He had been aj)pointed governor of New 
England in 108(3,' and on his arrival ho demanded a surrender of the charters 
of all the provinces. They all conijdied, e.\(te]it Coniu'cticut. She stea<lily 
refused to give up the guaranty of her political rights ; and finally Andros pro- 
ceeded to 1 lurtford with sixty ai'med men, to enforce obedience. The Assem- 
bly were iu session when he arrived fOc't. 31, 1G87|, and received him court- 
eously. He demanded tiie surrender of the ehaiter, and declared the colonial 
government dissolved. Already a plan had been arranged for securing the safety 
of that precious instrument, and at the same time to jircserve an appearance of 
loyalty. The deliates were purj)osely jirotracted until the candles were lighted, 

at evening, when the charter was brought in and laid 
upon the table. Just as Andros stepped forward to 
take it, the candles were suddenly extinguished. The 
charter was seized by Captain Wadsworth, of the mil- 
itia, and under cover of the night it was efTectually 
concealed in the hollow trunk of a huge oak, standing 
not far from the Assembly chamber." When the can- 
"'""'>*a4^o-=^ dies were relighted, the memliers wei'c in perfect 
^ "" ^*-^--.»"*""'™'"' "^ — order, but the charter could not be found. Andros 

THE CHARTKR OAK. i . i i . i i ■ i ,.-,,, , 

was highly mcensed at heuig thus toiled, but he 
wisely restrained his passion, assumed the governmcTit, and with his own hand 
wrote the word Finis after the last record of tlie Charter Assembly. The gov- 
ernment was administered in his own name until he was driven from Boston in 
1G89,' when the charter was taken from the oak [May 1!\ 1G80|, a popular 
Assembly was convened, Robert Treat was clu/sen governor, and Connecticut 
again assumed her position as an independent colony. 

Petty tyrants continued to molest. A little more than four years later, the 
Connecticut people were again compelled to ju^sert their chartered liberties. 
Colonel Fletcher, then governor of New York,' held a commission which gjivo 
him command of the militia of Connecticut.' As that poTer was reserved to 

' rasi> 12!). 

' That tree romnined vigorous until ton minutes before one o'clock in the morning, August 21, 
1856, wlien it wius prostrated ilnrinR a licuvy stiirm, and notliini; lint a .«'unip remains. It stood 
on thi- south side of Clhartor-struot, a few roils from Mni[i-slrci't, in the city of Hartford. The cavity 
in which the charter was concealed, hud become partially closed. 

• Papc i:tO. ' Pago 141. 

• Tlie declared object of this commis.sion wa-s to enable Fletcher to cal'. 'irirtti the Connecticut 
militia when proper, to repel an expected uivaaiou of Northern New Yorli, I'y the French and 
Indians. 



1755.] RHODE" ISLAND. 157 

the colony by the charter, the Legislature refused to acknowledge Fletcher's 
authority. In November, 1693, he repaired to Hartford, and, notwithstanding 
the Legislature w;is in session, and again promptly denied his jurisdiction, he 
ordered the militia to assemble. The Hartford companies, under Captain 
Wadsworth,' were drawn up in line; but the moment Fletcher attempted to 
read his commission, the drums were beaten. His angry order of " Silence!" 
was obeyed for a moment ; but when he repeated it, Wadsworth boldly stepped 
in front of him, and said, " Sir, if they are again interrupted, I '11 make the sun 
shine through you in a moment." Fletcher perceived the futility of a parley, 
or further assumption of authority ; and, pocketing his commission, he and his 
attendants returned to New York, greatly chagrined and irritated. The mat- 
ter was compi'omised when referred to the king, who gave the governor of Con- 
necticut militia jurisdiction in time of peace, but in the event of war, Colonel 
Fletcher should have the command of a certain portion of the troops of that 
colony. 

And now, in the year 1700, Connecticut had a population of about thirty 
thousand, which rapidly increased during the remainder of her colonial career. 
During Queen Anne^s War,'' and the stirring events in America from that 
time until the commencement of the French and Indian War,' when her people 
numbered one hundred thousand, Connecticut went hand in hand with her sis- 
ter colonies for mutual welfare ; and her history is too closely interwoven with 
theirs to require further separate notice. 



CHAPTER VI . 

RHODE ISLAND. [1G44.] 

When the Providence and Rhode Island plantations were united under 
the same government in 1644, the colony of Rhode Island commenced its inde- 
pendent career.* That charter was confirmed by the Long Parliament' in 
October, 1652, and this put an end to the persevering efibrts of Massachusetts 
to absorb " Williams's Narraganset Plantation." That colony had always 
coveted the beautiful Aquiday," and feared the reaction of Williams's tolerant 
principles upon the people from whose liosom he had been cruelly expelled.' A 
dispute concerning the eastern boundary of Rhode Island was productive of 
much ill feeling during the progress of a century, when, in 1741, commission- 
ers decided the present line to be the proper division, and wrangling ceased. 

' Page 156. » Page 135. = Page 179. 

* Page 91. A general assembly of deputies from the several towns, met at Portsmouth on the 
29th of May, 1647, and orgauized tfie new government by the election of a president and other offi- 
cers. At that time a code of laws was adopted, which declared the government to be a democracy, 
and that "all men raiglit walk as their conscience persuaded them." Page 151. 

■ Note 1, page 15G » Note 5, page 91. ' Page 91. 



158 THE COLONIES. [1644. 

Nor was Rhode Island free from those internal commotions, g-owing out of relig- 
ious disputes and personal ambition, ■v\hiuh disturbed the repose of other colonies. 
These were (piiotcd toward the close of 1G58, when Roger Williams was chosen 
president. Cromwell confirmed the royal charter on the 22d of May, 1655, 
and during his administration the colony prospered. On the accession of 
Charles the Second,' Rhode Island applied for and obtained a new charter 
[July 8, 1G63J, highly democratic in its general features, and similar, in every 
respect, to the one granted to Connecticut." The first governor elected under 
this instrument, was Benedict Arnold;^ and by a colonial law, enacted during 
his first administration, the privileges of freemen were granted only to free- 
liolders and their eldest sons. 

Bowing to the mandates of royal authority, Rhode Island yielded to Andros, 
in January, 1G87 ; but the moment intelligence reached the peoj)Io of the acces- 
sion of William and Mary* [May 11, 1689], and the imprisonment of the petty 
tyrant at Boston,' they assembled at Newport, resumed their old charter, and 
re-adoj)ted their seal — an anchor, with Hope for a motto. Under this charter, 
Rhode Island continued to be governed for one hundred and fifty-three years, 
when the people, in representative convention, in 1842, adopted a constitution.' 
Newport soon became a thriving commercial town ; and when, in 1732, John 
Franklin established there the first newspaper in the colony, it contained five 
thousand inhabitants, and the whole province about eighteen thousand.' Near 
Newport the celebrated Dean Berkeley pui-chased lands in 1729; and with 
him came John Smibert, an artist, who introduced portrait painting into Amer- 
ica.' Notwithstanding Rhode Island was excluded from the New England 
confederacy," it always bore its share in defensive efforts ; and its history is 
identified with that of New England in general, from the commencement of 
King AVilliam's War.'° 



' Page 109. 

' Page 154. This charter guarantied free toleration in religious matters, and tlio legislature of 
the colony re-a,«sertod the principle, so as to give it the popular force of law. Tlie a.ssertion, made 
by some, that Roman CathoUcs were excluded from voting, and that Qualicrs were outlawed, ia 
erroneous. 

' He wa,s governor several times, serving in that office, altogether, about eleven years. He waa 
«hief magistrate of the colony when he died, in 1678. * Page 130. 

' Page 130. ' Page 477. 

' Of these, about one thousand were Indians, and more tlian sixteen liundred were negroes. 

' Berkeley preached occasionally in a small Episcopal cliurch at Newport, and presented the 
congregation with an organ, the first ever heard in America. Smihort was a Scotchman, and 
married and settled at Bo.ston. His picture of Berkeley and his family is still preserved at Yale 
College [page 178], in New Haven. Berkeley (afterward made bishop of a diocese in Ireland) made 
great elTorls toward the establishment of the Arts and Learning, in America. Failing in his project 
of founding a new University, ho became one of the most liber.al benefactors of Tale College. In 
view of the future progress of the colonies, he wrote that prophetic poem, the last verse of which 
contains the oft-quoted line — 

" Westward the course of Empire takes Its way." 

• Page lai. » Page 130. 



1755.] NKW JERSEY. 161) 

CHAPTER VII. 

NEW JERSEY. [1G6 4.] 

The settlements in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware, wo have 
considered togetlier in the same chapter,' as constituting a series of events hav- 
ing intimate relations with each other. The history of the colonial organization 
of the first two, is separate and distinct. Delaware was never an independent 
colony or State, until after the Declaration of Independence, in 1776. The 
founding of the New Jersey colony occurred when, in 1664, the Duke of York 
sold the territory to Lord Berkeley and Sir George Carteret," and the new 
proprietors began the work of erecting a State. They published a form of 
agreement which they called '• Concessions,'" in which liberal offers were made 
to emigrants who might settle within the territory. Among other provisions, 
the people were to be exempt from the payment of quit-rents and other burdens, 
for the space of five years. Allured by the liberality of the " Concessions," as 
well as by the salubrity of the climate and the fertility of the soil, many families 
came from Long Island in 1664, and settled at Elizabethtown ;' and in August, 
the following year, Philip Carteret (brother of one of the proprietors) was 
appointed governor, and arrived at Elizabethtown with a number of settlers. 

At first all was peaceable. Nothing disturbed the repose of the colony 
during the five years' exemption from rents ; but when, in 1670, the specified 
halfpenny, for the use of each acre of land, was required, murmurs of discon- 
tent were loud and universal. Those who had purchased land from the Indians, 
denied the right of the proprietors to demand rent from them ; and some of the 
towns had even denied the authority of the Assembly, at its first sittmg, in 
1668. The whole people combined in resisting the payment of quit-rents ; 
and after disputing with the proprietors almost two years, they revolted, called 
a new Assembly, appointed a dissolute, illegitimate son of Sir George Carteret, 
governor, in May, 1672, and in July following, compelled Philip Carteret to 
leave the province. Preparations were in pi'Ogress to coerce the people into 
submission, when New Jersey, and all other portions of the territory claimed 
by the Duke of York, fell into the hands of the Dutch,' in August, 1673. On 
the restoration of the territory to the English," in November, 1674, the Duke 
of York procured a new charter,' and then, regardless of the rights of Berkeley 
and Carteret, he appointed Edmund Andros, "the tyrant of New England," ° 

' Page 92. 

' Page 94. The province was called New Jersey, in honor of Carteret, who was governor of 
the island of Jersey, in the British Channel, during the civil war. He was a stauncli royalist, and 
was the last commander to lower the royal flag, when the Parliament had triumphed. 

' This was a sort of constitution, which provided for a government to be composed of a governor 
and council appointed by the proprietors, and an Assembly chosen by the freeholders of the prov- 
ince. The legislative power resided in the Assembly ; the executive in the governor. The Council 
and the Assembly were each restricted to twelve members. 

* So called, in honor of Elizabeth, wife of Sir George Carteret. 

' Page 147. ' Page 147. ' Page 147. * Page 130. 



IGU THE COLONIES. [1664. 

governor of the ^Yllolo domain. Carteret demurred, and the duke partially 
restored his rights ; not, liowcver, -without leaving Andres a sufficient pretense 
for asserting his authority, ;uad j)roducing annoyances. Berkeley had become 
disgusted, and sold his interest in the province [March 28, 1(374] to Edward 
Byllinge, an English Quaker. Pecuniary embarrassment caused Byllinge to 
assign his interest to William Penn, and two others,' in 1675. These purchas- 
ers, unwilling to maintain a political union with other parties, successfully 
negotiated with Carteret for a division of the province, which took place on the 
11th of July, 1G7G. Carteret received the eastern portion as his shai-e, and 
the Quakers the western part. From that time the divisions were known as 
East and West Jersey. 

The AVest Jersey proprietors gave the people a remarkably liberal consti- 
tution of government [March 13, 1G77J ; and in 1G77, more than four hundred 
Quakers came from England and settled below the Raritan. Andros recjuired 
them to acknowledge the authority of the Duke of York. They refused ; and 
the matter was referred to the eminent Sir William Jones (the oriental scholar) 
for adjudication, who decided against the claims of the duke. The latter sub- 
miWcd tc the decision, released both provinces from allegiance to him, and the 
jERfEYft became independent of foreign control. The first popular assembly 
in West Jei-sey met at Salem, in November, 1681, and adopted a code of laws 
for the government of the people.' 

Soon after the death of Carteret, in December, 1G79, the trustees of his 
estate offered East Jersey for sale. It was purchased by William Penn and 
eleven of his brethren, on the 11th of February, 1G82, who obtained a new 
chai-ter, and on the 27th of July, 1G83, appointed Robert Barclay," a very 
eminent Quaker preacher, from Aberdeen, governor for life. A large number 
of his sect came from Scotland and England ; and others from New England 
ana Long Island settled in East Jersey to enjoy prosperity and repose. But 
repose, as well as the administration of Barclay, was of short duration; for 
when James succeeded Charles,* he appeared to consider his contracts made 
while duke, not binding upon his honor as king. He sought to annul the 
American charters, and succeeded, as we have seen, in subverting the govern- 
ments of several,' through the instrumentality of Andros. The Jerseys were 
sufierers in this respect, and were obliged to bow to the tyrant. AVhen he was 
driven from the country in 1G89,° the provinces were left without regular gov- 
ernments, and for more than twelve years anarchy ])rcvailcd there. The claims 
of the proprietors to jurisdiction, were repudiated by the people; and in 1702, 
they gladly relinquished the government by surrendering it, on the 25th of 

' These purcliascrs immediately sold one half of their interest to the Earl of Perth, fk)m whom 
the present town of Perth Amboy derives a part of its name. Amboy, or Arribo, is an Indian 
name. 

' A remnrk.ible law wa.s enacted at that session. It provided that in all criminal cases, except 
trea.son, murder, and tlieft, the afm'rieved party slioiild have power to pardon tlio otl'ender. 

° He w.1.1 the autlior of " An Apolojjy for Quakers" a work highly esteemed by his sect. It 
wa.s written in Latin, and translated into several continental languages. Barclay and Penn were 
intimate personal friends, and travelled much together. He died in Ury, in 1690, aged 42 years. 

• Page 113. ' Pages 129, 166, and 168. • Page 130. 



1155] PENNSYLVANIA. 161 

April, to the crown.' The two provinces were united as a royal domain, and 
placed under the government of Lord Cornbury, the licentious ruler of New 
York," in July following. 

The province of New Jersey remained a dependency of New York, with a 
distinct legislative assembly of its own, until 1738, when, through the efforts 
of Lewis Morris, ° the connection was for ever severed. Morris was appointed 
the first royal governor of New Jersey, and managed public afiiiirs with ability 
and general satisfaction. From that period until the independence of the colo- 
nies was declared, in 1776, the history of the colony presents but few events of 
interest to the general reader. 



<■ » ■» 



CHAPTER VIII. 

PENNSYLVANIA. [16S2.] 

The colonial career of Pennsylvania began when, in the autumn of 1682, 
William Penn arrived, < and by a surrender by the agents of the Duke of York, 
and a proclamation in the presence of the popular Assembly, the Territories 
which now constitute the State of Delaware were united with his province.' 
Already, Penn had proclaimed his intention of being governed l)y the law of 
kindness in his treatment of the Indians ; and when he came, he proceeded to 
lay the foundation of his new State upon Truth and Justice.* Where the Ken- 
sington portion of the city of Philadelphia now stands, as we have elsewhere 
mentioned, he met the Delaware chiefs in council, under the leafless branches 
of a wide-spreading elm,' on the 4th of November, 1682, and there made with 
them a solemn covenant of peace and friendship, and paid them the stipulated 
])rjce for their lands. The Indians were delighted, and their hearts melted with 
good feeling. Such treatment was an anomaly in the history of the intercouree 
of their race with the white people. Even then the fires of a disastrous war 
wei'e smouldering on the New England frontiers.^ It was wonderful how the 
savage heart, so lately the dwelling of deepest hatred toward the white man, be- 
came the shrine of the holiest attribute of our nature. " We will live in love 



' The proprietors retained their property in the soil, and their claims to quit-renta Their 
organization lias never ceased ; and unsold, barren tracts of land in West Jersey are still held by 
that ancient tenure. ^ Page 149. 

' Sou of an officer in Cromwell's army, who purchased an estate near New York, known as 
Morrisiana. He died in 1746. Apart of that estate yet [1883] remains in possession of the Morria 
family < Page 96. '' Page 96. 

° By his direction, his agent, William Markham, had opened a friendly correspondence with the 
Indians, and Penn himself had addressed a letter to them, assuring them of his love and brotherly 
feelings toward them. 

' The Penn Society of Philadelphia erected a monument upon the spot where the venerable elm 
stood, near the intersection of Hanover and Beach-streets, Kensington district. The tree was lilown 
down in 1810, and was found to be 283 years old. The monument is upon the site of tlie tree, and 
bears suitable inscriptions. " King Phihp's War, page 92. 



102 



THE COLONIKS. 



[1682. 



■with William Penn and his children," they said, " as long as the moon and the 
sun shall endure." They were true to their promise — not a drop of Quaker 
blood was ever shed by an Indian. 

Having secured the lands, Pcnn's next care was to found a capital city. 
This he proceeded to do, immediately after the treaty with the Indians, upon 
lands purchased from tlie Swedes, lying between the Delaware and the Schuyl- 
kill Rivers. The boundaries of streets were marked upon the trunks of the 
chestnut, walnut, pine, and other forest trees which covered the land,' and the 
city was named riiiladelphia, which signifies brodicrly love. Within twelve 
months almost a hundred houses were erected," and the Indians came daily 
with wild fowl and venison, as presents for their "good 
Father Penn.'' Never was a State blessed with a more 
propitious beginning, and internal peace and prosperity 
marked its course while the Quakei-s controlled its coun- 
cils. 

The proprietor convened a second Assembly at Phil- 
adelphia, in March, 1683, and then gave the people a 
"Charter of Liberties." signed and sealed by his own 
hand. It was so ample and just, that the government 
was really a representative democracy. Free religious toleration was ordained, 
and laws for the promotioti of public and private morality were framed.' Un- 
like other proprietors, Penn surrendered to the people his rights in the appoint- 
ment of officers ; and until his death, his honest and highest ambition appeared 
to be to promote the happiness of the colonists. Because of this hajipy relation 
hetween the people and the proprietor, and the security against Indian hostili- 
ties, Pennsylvania outstripped all of its sister colonies in rapidity of settlement 
and permanent prosperity. 

In August, 1684, Penn returned to England, leaving five members of the 
Council with Thomas Lloyd, as president, to administer the government during 
his absence. Soon afterwaixl. the English Revolution occurred flG88] and 
king James was driven into e.xile.* Penn's personal regard for James contin- 
ued after his fall ; and for that loyalty, which had a deeper spring than mere 
political considerations, he was accused of dissaffoction to the new government, 
and suffered imprisonments. In the mean while, discontents had sprung up in 




PENNS HOUSE. 



' This fact was the origin of the names of Cliostnut, W-ahiut, Tine, Spruce, and other streets in 
Philadelpliia, For many years after tho city was laid out, those living strect-maiks remaine<i, and 
aflbrded sliiide to tlie inl\al>itj\nt-s. 

" Markliam, Penn's a>,t>nt. erected a house for tho proprietor's use, in 16S2. It is yet [ISRH] 
standing in Lotitia court, the entrtince to wliicli is from Market-street, between Front and Second, 
streets. Anotlier, and finer house, was occupied by Toim in 1700. It yet remains on the corner 
of Norris's alley and Second-street It was the residence of General Arnold in 1778. Note 3, 
page 287. 

' It was ordained " that to prevent lawsuits, three arbitrators, to be called Peace Makers, should 
be appointed by the county courts, to hear and dotonnine sniiill diflerences between man and man; 
that children should be t.auglit some usefiil trade; that factors wronging their employers should 
niake satisfaction, and one third over; that all causes lor irreligion and vulgarity should bo repress- 
ed ; and that no man should be molested for his religious opinions, 

* Note 7, page 113. 



1155.] THE CAROLINAS. 168 

Pennsylvania, and the "three lower counties on the Delaware,""' offended at 
the action of some of the Council, \Yithdrew from the Union^ in April, 1691. 
Penn yielded to their wishes so far as to appoint a separate deputy governor 
for them. 

An important political change now occurred in the colony. Penn"s provin- 
cial government waa taken from him in 1692 [Oct. 31], and Pennsylvania was 
placed under the authority of Governor Fletcher, of New York, who reunited 
the Delaware counties [May, 1693], to the parent province. All suspicions of 
Penn"s disloyalty having been removed in 1694, his chartered rights were 
restored to him [Aug. 30], and he appointed his original agent, William Mark- 
ham, deputy governor. He returned to America in December, 1699, and was 
pained to find his people discontented, and clamorous for greater political priv- 
ileges. Considermg their demands reasonable, he gave them a new charter, or 
frame of government [Nov. 6, 1701], more liberal in its concessions than the 
former. It was cheerfully accepted by the Pennsylvania people, but those of 
the Delaware territories, whose delegates had already withdrawn ft-om the 
Assembly [Oct. 20], evidently aiming at independence, declined it. Penn 
acquiesced in their decision, and allowed them a distinct Assembly. This satis- 
fied them, and their first independent legislature was convened at Newcastle in 
1703. Although Pennsylvania and Delaware ever afterward continued to have 
separate legislatures, they were under the same governor until the Revolution 
in 1776. 

A few weeks after adjusting difficulties, and granting the new charter, Penn 
returned to England [Dec, 1701], and never visited America again. Hi3 
departure was hastened by the ripening of a ministerial project for al)olishing 
all the proprietary governments in America. Ilis health soon afterward de- 
clined, and at his death he left his American possessions to his three sons 
(Thomas, John, and Richard), then minors, who continued to administer the 
government, chiefly through deputies, until the War for Independence in 1776. 
Then it became a free and independent State, and the commonwealth purchased 
all the claims of Penn's heirs in the province, for about five hundred and eighty 
thousand dollars.' 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE CAROLINAS. [1GG5— 1680.] 

Notwithstanding the many failures which had dampened the ardor of 
English speculators, who had engaged in planting settlements in America, hope 
still remained buoyant. Success finally crowned the efforts in New England 

I Page 96. j Pa„,, gg. 

On account of the expenses incurred in Pennsylvania, Penn was compelled to borrow S30,000, 
»nd mortgage his province as security. This was tiie commencement of the State debt of Pennsyl- 
vania. 



164 THIS COLONIES. [16G5. 

and further south, :um1 the proprietors of the Carolinas, when settlements 
within that domain became permanent,' and tides of emigration from various 
sources flowed thitherward, began to have gorgeous visions of an empire in 
America, that should outshine those of the Old World. It then became their 
first care to frame a constitution of government, with functions adequate to the 
grand design, and to this task, the earl of Shaftesbviry, one of the ablest states- 
men of his time, and John Locke, the eminent philosopher, were called. They 
completed tlieir labors in March, 1669, and the instrument was called the 
Fuudamciiltil Consiilullous.'' It was in the higliest degree monarchical in its 
character and tendency, and contemplated the transplantation, in America, of 
all the ranks and aristocratic distinctions of European society.' The spirit of 
the whole tiling was adverse to the feelings of the people, and its practical 
development was an impossibility ; so, after a contest between proprietors and 
colonists, for twenty years, the magnificent scheme was abandoned, and the 
people were allowed to govern themselves, in their own more simple way.' The 
disorders which prevailed when the first attempts were made to impose this 
scheme of government upon the people, soon ripened into rebelhon, especially in 
the Albemarle, or northern colony.' E.xccssive taxation and commercial restric- 
tions bore heavily upon the industry of the people, and engendered wide-spread 
discontent. This was fostered by refugees from Virginia, after Bacon's rebel- 
lion, in 167G,' wlio sought shelter among the people below the Roanoke. They 
scattered, broad-cast, over a generous soil, vigorous ideas of popular freedom, 
and a year after Bacon's death,' the people of the Albemarle County Colony" 
revolted. The immediate cause of this movement was the attempt of the acting 
governor to enforce the revenue laws against a New England vessel. Led on 
by John Culpepper, a refugee from the Cakteret County Colony of South 
Carolina,' the people seized the chief magistrate [Dec. 10, 1677J and tlie pub- 
lic funds, imprisoned him and si.x of his council, called a new Assembly, ap- 
pointed a new magistrate and judges, and for two years conductctl theafRiirs of 
government independent of foreign control. Culpepper went to England to 
plead the cause of the people, and was arrested and tried on a charge of treason. 

' Pages 91 and 98. 

" It consists of one Imndred and twenty articles, and is supposed to have been the production, 
chiefly, of the mind of Shaftesbury. 

' There were to bo two orders of nobility : the higher to consist of landgraves, or earVs, the 
lower of caciques, or larons. The territory was to be divided into counties, eacli containing 480,000 
acres, with one landgrave, and two caciques. There were !il.so to be lords of manors, who, like the 
nobles, miglit hold courts and exenise judicial functions. Persons holding titty acres were to be 
freeholders ; the tenants held no politictil franchise, and could never attain to a higher rank. The 
four estates of proprietors, earls, b.arons, and commons, were to sit in one legislative chamber. The 
proprietors were always to be eight in number, to possess tlie whole judicial power, and have the 
supreme control of all tribunala The commons were to have four members in the legislature to 
every three of the nobility. Thus an aristocratic majority was always secured, and the real repre- 
sentatives of the pmple had no power. Kvery religion was professedly tolerated, but the Church 
of England, only, was declared to be orthodox. Such is an outline of tlie absurd scheme proposed 
for governing the free colonies of the Carolinaa 

* A governor, with a council of twelve — six chosen by the proprietors, and sis by the Assembly 
— *nd a House of Delegates chosen by the frecholdera 

' Page 97. • Page 110. ' Page 112. 

■ ~ 1 97. • Page 98. 



16S0.] THE CAROLINAS. IGo 

Shaftesbury procured his acquittal, and be returned to the Carolinas.' Quiet 
was restored to the colony, and until the arrival of the unprincipled Setb 
Sothel (one of the proprietors), as governor, the people enjoyed repose. Thus 
early the inhabitants of that feeble colony practically asserted the grand politi- 
cal maxim, that taxation without representation is tyranny,^ for the defense 
of which our Revolutionary fiithers fought, a century afterward. 

Governor Sothel arrived in North Carolina in 1683. Martin says that 
" the dark shades of his character were not relieved by a single ray of virtue ;'' 
and Chalmers asserts that " the annals of delegated authority included no name 
so infamous as Sothel." He plundered the people, cheated the proprietors, and 
on all occasions prostituted his office to purposes of private gain. After endur- 
ing his oppression almost six years, the people seized him [1689J, and were 
about sending him to England to answer their accusations before the proprietors, 
when he asked to be tried by the colonial Assembly. The favor was granted, 
and he was sentenced to banishment for one year, and a perpetual dis(juali- 
fication for the office of governor. He withdrew to the southern colony, where 
we shall meet him again. ^ His successor, Philip Ludwell, an energetic, incor- 
ruptible man, soon redressed the wrongs of the people, and restored order and 
good feelings. Governors Harvey and Walker also maintained quiet and good 
will among the people. And the good Quaker, John Archdale, who came to 
govern both Carolinas in 1695, placed the colony in a position for attaining 
future prosperity, hitherto unknown. 

While these events were transpiring in the northern colony, the people of 
the Cartei-et* or southern colony, were steadily advancing in wealth and num- 
bers. Their first popular legislature of which we have records, was convened 
in 1674,5 but it exhibited an unfavorable specimen of republican government. 
Jarring interests and conflicting creeds produced violent debates and irreconcil- 
able discord. For a long time the colony was distracted by quarrels, and 
anarchy prevailed. At length the Stono Indians gathered in bands, and plun- 
dered the plantations of grain and cattle, and even menaced the settlers with 
destruction. The appearance of this common enemy healed their dissensions, 
and the people went out as brothers to chastise the plunderers. They com- 
pletely subdued the Indians, in 1680. Many of them were made prisoners, 
and sold for slaves in the West Indies, and the Stonos never afterward had a 
tribal existence. 

Wearied by the continual annoyance of the Indians, many English families 



' Culpepper afterward became surveyor-general of the province, and in 1680, he was employed 
in laying out the new city of Charleston. [See next page.] His previous expulsion from the southern 
colony, was on account of his connection «-ith a rebellious movement in 1672. 

' Page 211. = Page 167. * Page 98. 

' The settlers brought with them an unfinished copy of the "Fundamental Cimslitidions" hut 
they at once perceived the impossibility of conformity to that scheme of government. They held a 
"parliamentary convention" in 1672, and twenty delegates were elected by the people to act with 
the governor and the council, as a legislature. Thus early, representative government was estab- 
lished, but its operations seem not to have been very successful, and a legislature proper, of which 
we have any record, was not organized until 1674, when an upper and a lower House was estab- 
lished, and laws for the province were enacted. 



1G6 



THE COLONIES. 



[1665. 




CHARLESTON IN 1G80. 



crossed the Ashley, and seated themselves upon the more eligible locality of 
Oyster Point, where they founded the present city of Charleston,' in 1680. 

There a flourishing village soon appeared ; 
and after the subjugation of the savages,' 
the old settlement was abandoned, and now 
not a vestige of it remains upon the culti- 
vated plantation at Old Town, where it 
stood. The Dutch settlers^ spread over 
the country along the Edisto and San- 
tee, and planted the seeds of future flour- 
ishing communities, while immigrants from 
different parts of Europe and from New 
England swelled the population of Charles- 
ton and vicinity. Nor did they neglect political affairs. While they were 
vigilant in all that pertained to their material interests, they were also aspir- 
ants, even at that early day, for political independence. 

Another popular legislature was convened at Charleston in 1682. It ex- 
hibited more harmony than the first, ^ and several useful laws were framed. 
Emigration was now pouring in a tide of population more rapid than any of the 
colonies below New England had yet experienced. Ireland, Scotland,' Holland, 
and France, contributed largely to the flowing stream. In 1686-7, quite a 
large number of Huguenots, who had escaped from the fiery persecutions which 
were revived in France by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes,' landed at 
Charleston. Enslish hatred of the French' caused the settlers to look with 
jealousy upon these refugees, and for more than ten years [1686 to 1697] the 
latter were denied the rights of citizenship. 

Shaftesbury's scheme of government was as distasteful to the people of 
South Carolina, as to those of the northern colony,^ and they refused to accept 
it. They became very restive, and seemed disposed to cast off all allegiance to 
the proprietors and the mother country. At this crisis, James Colleton, a 
brother of one of the proprietors, was appointed governor [1686]. and was 
vested with full powers to bring the colonists into submission. His administra- 
tion of about four years was a very turbulent one. He was in continual colli- 

' Note 1, p.<ige 165, The above enpcraTiiijj illustrates the manner of fortifyinp; towns, as a de- 
fense against foes. It exliil)its tlie walls of Cliarleston in 1G80, and tlie loaition of cliurches in 
n04. The points marked o a a, etc., are bastions for cannons. P, English church; Q, French 
church ; R, Independent church ; S, Anabaptist cliurcli ; and T, Quaker meetiiig-housc. 

' Page 165. 

' They had founded the village of Jamestown several miles up the Ashley Elver. 

♦ Page 164. 

' In 1GS4. Lord Cardros", and ten Scotch families, who had suffered persecution, came to South 
Carolina, and settled at Port Royal. The Spaniards at St. Augustine claimed jurisdiction over Port 
Roy.al; and during tlie absence of Cardon [1686], they attacked and dispersed the settlers, and des- 
olated their plantations. 

' In the city of Nantes, Henry the Fourtli of France issued an edict, in 1598, in favor of the 
Huguenots, or Protestants, allowing them free toleration. The profligate Louis the Fourteenth, 
stung with remorse in his old age, sought to gain the favor of Heaven by bringing his whole people 
into the bosom of tlie Roman Catholic Church. He revoked the flimous edict in 1G8G, and instantly 
the fires of persecution were kindled throughout the empire. Many thousands of the Protestants 
left France, and found refuge in other countries. ' Page 180. ' Page 97- 



1755.] THE CAROLINAS. 167 

sion with the people, and at length drove them to open rehellion. They seized 
the public records, imprisoned the secretary of the province, and called a new 
Assembly. Pleading the danger of an Indian or Spanish invasion,' the gov- 
ernor called out the militia, and proclaimed the province to be under martial 
law.' This measure only increased the exasperation of the people, and he was 
impeached, and banished from the province by the Assembly, in 1690. 

While this turbulence and misrule was at its height, Sothel arrived from 
North Carolina, pursuant to his sentence of banishment,' and the people un- 
wisely consented to his assumption of the office of governor.^ They soon 
repented their want of judgment. For two years he plundered and oppressed 
them, and then [1692] the Assembly impeached and banished him also. Then 
came Philip Ludwell to re-establish the authority of the proprietors, but the 
people, thoroughly aroused, resolved not to tolerate even so good a man as he, 
if his mission was to enforce obedience to the absurd Fundamental Constitu- 
tions.'' After a brief and turlaulent administration, he gladly withdrew to Vir- 
ginia, and soon afterward [1693], the proprietors abandoned Shaftesbury's 
scheme, and the good Quaker, John Archdale, was sent, in 1695, to administer 
a more simple and republican form of government, for both the Carolinas. His 
administration was short, but highly beneficial ;° and the jjeople of South Car- 
olina always looked back to the efforts of that good man, with gratitude. He 
healed dissensions, established equitable laws, and so nearly efiected an entire 
reconciliation of the English to the French settlers, that in the year succeeding 
his departure from the province, tlie Assembly admitted the latter [1697] to all 
the privileges of citizens and freemen. From the close of Archdale's adminis- 
tration, the progress of the two Carolina colonies should be considered as separ- 
ate and distinct, although they were not politically separated until 1729.' 

NORTH CAROLINA. 

We may properly date the permanent prosperity of North Carolina from the 
adminstration of Archdale,' when the colonists began to turn their attention to 
the interior of the country, where richer soil invited the agriculturist, and the 
fur of the beaver and otter allured the adventurous hunter. The Indians along 
the sea-coast were melting away like frost in the sunbeams. The powerful 
Hatteras tribe,' which numbered three thousand in Kaleigh's time, were reduced 
to fifteen bowmen ; another tribe had entirely disappeared ; and the remnants 
of some others had sold their lands or lost them by fraud, and were driven back 
to the deep wilderness. Indulgence in strong drinks, and other vices of civiliz- 

' The Spaniards at St. Augustine had menaced the English settlements in South Carolina, and, 
as we have seen [note 5, page 1 66], had actually broken up a Uttle Scotch colony at Port Royal. 

' Note 8, page 170, 3 p,,gg jgg 

' On his arrival, Sothel took sides with the people against CoUeton, and thus, in the moment of 
their anger, he unfortunately gained their good will and confidence. ' Page 164. 

* The culture of rice was introduced into South Carolina during Archdale's administration. 
Some seed was given to the governor by the captain of a vessel from Madagascar. It was distrib 
uted among several planters, and thus its cultivation began. 

' Page 171. » Page 165. ' Note 5, page 20. 



168 THE COLONIES. [1666. 

ation, had decimated them, and their beautiful laud, all the way to the Yadkin 
and Catawba, was speedily opened to the sway of the white man. 

At the commencement of the eighteenth century, religion began to exert an 
influeoce in North Carolina. The first Anglican' church edifice was then built 
in Cliowan county, in 1705. The Quakers' multiplied; and in 1707, a com- 
pany of Huguenots,^ who had settled in Virginia, came and stit down upon the 
beautiful banks of the Trent, a tributary of the Neuse River. Two years later 
[1709J, a hundred German families, driven from their homes on the Khine, by 
persecution, penetrated the interior of North Carolina, and under Count (Jraf- 
fenried, founded settlements along the head waters of the Neuse, and upon the 
Roanoke. While settlements were thus spreading and strengthening, and gen- 
eral prosperity blessed the province, a fearful calamity fell upon the inhabitants 
of the interior. The broken Indian tribes made a last effort, in 1711, to regain 
the beautiful country they had lost. The leaders in the conspimcy to crush 
the white people, were the Tuscaroras' of the inland region, and the Corees^ 
further south and near the sea-board. They fell like lightning fi-om the clouds 
upon the scattered German settlements along the Roanoke and Pamlico Sound. 
In one night [Oct. 2, 1711], one hundred and thirty persons perished by the 
hatchet. Along Albemarle Sound, the savages swept with the knife of mur- 
der in one hand, and the torch of desolation in the other, and for three days 
they scourged the white people, until disabled by fatigue and drunkenness. 
Those who escaped the massacre called upon their bretliren of the southern 
colony for aid, and Colonel Barnwell, with a party of Carolinians and friendly 
Indians of the southern nations,' marched to their relief. lie drove the Tus- 
caroras to their fortified town in the present Craven county, and there made a 
treaty of peace with them. His troops violated the treaty on their way back, 
by outrages upon the Indians, and soon hostilities were renewed. Late in the 
year [Dec, 1712], Colonel Moore^ arrived from South Carolina with a few white 
men and a large body of Indians, and drove the Tuscaroras to their fort in the 
present Greene county, wherein [March, 1713] he made eight hundred of them 
prisoners. The remainder of the Tuscaroras fled northward in June, and join- 
ing their kindred on the southern borders of Lake C)ntario, they formed the 
si.xth nation of the celebrated Iroquoi.'5 confederacy in the province of New 
York.* A treaty of peace was made with the Corees in 1715, and North Car- 
olina never afterward suffered from Indian hostilities.' 

SOTTTn CAROLINA. 

Although really united, the two colonies acted independently of each other 
from the close of the seventeenth century. Soon after the commencement of 

' The established Church of England was so called, to distinguish it from the Romish Church. 
' Pago 122. ■ Page 49. * Page 25. ' Page 20. 

' They consisted of Creeks, Catawbas, Chcrokecs, and Yainassces. See pages 26 to 30. inclusive. 
' A son of James Moure, wlio w,is governor of South Carolina in 1700. ' Page 2.1. 

' The province issued bills of credit (for the first time) to tho amount of about forty thousand 
dollars, to defray the expenses of the war. 



1755.] THE CAROLINAS. 16& 

Queen Anne's War' [May, 1702], Governor Moore of South Carolina, proposed 
an expedition against the Spaniards at St. Augustine.^ The Assembly assented, 
and appropriated almost ten thousand dollars for the service. Twelve hundred 
men (one half Indians) were raised, and proceeded, in two divisions, to the 
attack. The main division, under the governor, went by sea, to blockade the 
harbor, and the remainder proceeded along the coast, under the command of 
Colonel Daniels. The latter arrived first, and attacked and plundered the 
town. The Spaniards retired within their fortress with provisions for four 
months ; and as the Carolinians had no artillery, their position 'was impreg- 
nable. Daniels was then sent to Jamaica, in the West Indies, to procure bat- 
tery cannon, but before his return, two Spanish vessels had appeared, and so 
frightened Crovcrnor Moore that he raised the blockade, and fled. Daniels 
barely escaped capture, on his return, but he reached Charleston in safety. 
This ill-advised expedition burdened the colony with a debt of more than 
twenty-six thousand dollars, for the payment of which, bills of credit were 
issued. This was the first emission of paper money in the Carolinas. 

A more successful expedition was undertaken by Governor Mooro, in De- 
cember, 1703, against the Apalachian^ Indians, who were in league with the 
Spaniards. Their chief villages were between the Alatamaha and Savannah 
Rivers. These were desolated. Almost eight hundred Indians were taken 
prisoners, and the whole territory of the Apalachians was made tributary to the 
English. The province had scarcely become tranquil after this chastisement of 
the Indians, when a new cause for disquietude appeared. Some of the proprie- 
tors had long cherished a scheme for establishing the Anglican Church,'' as the 
State religion, in the Carolinas. When Nathaniel Johnson succeeded Governor 
Moore, he found a majority of churchmen in the Assembly, and by their aid, 
the wishes of the proprietors were gratified. The Anglican Church was made 
the established religion, and Dissenters^ were excluded from all public offices. 
This was an usurpation of chartered rights ; and the aggrieved party laid the 
matter before the imperial ministry. Their cause was sustained ; and by order 
of Parliament, the colonial Assembly, in November, 1706, repealed the law of 
disfranchisement, but the Church maintained its dominant position until the 
Revolution. 

The ire of the Spaniards was greatly excited by the attack upon St. Augus- 
tine,'' and an expedition, composed of five French and Spanish vessels,' with a, 
large body of troops, was sent from Havana to assail Charleston, take posses- 
sion of the province, and annex it to the Spanish domain of Florida.'* The 
squadron crossed Charleston bar in May, 1706, and about eight hundred troops 
were landed at different points. The people seized their arms, and, led by the 
governor and Colonel Rhett, they drove the invaders back to their vessels, after 

• Page 135. a Page 51. 

• A tribe of the Mobilian family [page 29] situated south of the Savannah River. 

Note 1, page 168. ' Note 2, page 76. ' Page 51. 

' It will be remembered [see page 135] that in 1702,'England declared war against Prance, and 
that Spain was a party to the quarrel. ' Pago 42. 



170 THE COLONIES. [icm. 

killing or capturing almost three hundred men. They also captured a French 
vessel, with its crew. It was a complete victory. So the storm wliich appeared 
80 siiddeiih' and threatening, was dissipated in a day, and the sunshine of peace 
and prosperity again gladdened the colony. 

A few years later, a more formidable tempest brooded over the colony, 
when a general Indian confederacy was secretly formed, to exterminate the 
white people by a single blow. Within forty days, in the spring of 1715, the 
^ndian tribes from the Cape Fear to the St. Mary's, and back to the moun- 
tains, had coMesced in the coiis])lracy ; and before the peo])le of Charleston had 
any intimation of danger, one liundred white victims had been sacrified in the 
remote settlements. The Creeks,' Yamassees," and Apalachians' on the south, 
confederated with the Cherokecs,' Catawbas", and Congarees° on the west, in all 
six thousand strong ; wliile more than a thousand warriors issued from the 
Neuse region, to avenge their misfortunes in the wars of 1712-13.' It was a 
cloud of fearful portent that hung in the sky ; and tlic people were filled with 
terror, for tliey knew not at what moment the consuming lightning might leap 
forth. At this fearful crisis. Governor Craven acted with the utmost wisdom 
and energy. He took measures to prevent men from leaving the colony ; to 
secure all the arms and ammunition tliat could be found, and to arm faithful 
negroes to assist the white people. He declaimed the province to be under martial 
law," and then, at the head of twelve hundred men, black and white, he marched 
to meet the foe, who were advancing with the knife, hatchet, and torch, in 
fearful activity. The Indians were at first victorious, but after several bloody 
encounters, the Yamassees and their southern neighbors were driven across the 
Savannah [May, 1715], and halted not until they found refuge under Spanish 
guns at St. Augustine. The Cherokees and their northern neighbors had not 
yet engaged in the war, and they returned to their hunting grounds, deeply 
impressed with the strength and greatness of the white people. 

And now the proprietary government of South Carolina was drawing to a 
close. The governors being independent of the people, were often haughty and 
exacting, and the inhabitants had borne the yoke of their rule for many years, 
with great inipatieice. While their labor was building uj) a prosjicrous State, 
the proprietors revised to assist them in times of danger, or to reimburse 
their expenses in Ihe protection of the province from invasion. The whole 
burden of debt .ncurred in the war with the Yamassees was left upon the 
shoulders of th(* people. The proprietors not only refused to pay any portion 
of it, but enfolT'ycd their claims for quit-rents with great severity. The people 
saw no hope in the future, but in royal rule and protection. So they met 
in convention ; resolved to forswear all allegiance to the proprietors ; and on 
Governor Johnson's refusal to act as chief magistrate, under the king, they 



' Page 30. ' Pasre 30. a Note 3, page 168. * Page 27. ' Page 26. 

• This was a small tribe tliat inhabited tlic country in tlie vicinity of the present city of Colum- 
bia, in South Carolina. 

■ Pane 168. 

' Martial law may be proclaimed by rulcis, in an emergency, and the civil law, for llie time 
being, is made snliservient to the military. The object is to allow immediate and energetic action 
for repelling invasions, or for other purposes. 



1155.] GEORGIA. 171 

appointed [December 21, 1719] Colonel Moore' governor of the colony. The 
matter was laid before the imperial government, when the colonists were sus- 
tained, and South Carolina became a royal province.' 

The people of North Carolina^ also resolved on a change of government; 
anci after a continued controversy for ten years, the proprietors, in 1729, sold 
to the king, for about eighty thousand dollars, all their claims to the soil and 
incomes in both provinces. North and South Carolina were then separated. 
George Burrington was appointed the first royal governor over the former, and 
Robert Johnson over the latter. From that period until the commencement of 
the French and Indian war,* the general history of the Carolinas presents but 
few featm-es of interest, except the efforts made for defending the colony against 
the Spaniards and the Indians. The peonle gained very little by a change of 
owners ; and during forty-five years, until the revolution made the people 
independent, there was a succession of disputes with the royal governors. 



CHAPTER X , 

GEORGIA. [17 3 2.] 



The colony founded by Oglethorpe on the Savannah River rapidly 
increased in numbers, and within eight years, twenty-five hundred immigrants 
were sent over, at an expense to the trustees' of four hundred thousand dollars. 
Yet prosperity did not bless the enterprise. Many of the settlers were unac- 
customed to habits of industry, and were mere drones ; and as the use of slave 
labor was prohibited, tillage was neglected. Even the industrious Scotch, Ger- 
man, and Swiss families who came over previous to 1740, could not give that 
vitality to industrial pursuits, which was necessary to a development of the 
resources of the country. Anxious for the permanent growth of the colony, 
Oglethorpe went to England in 1734, and returned in 1736, with about three 
hundred immigrants. Among them were one hundred and fifty Highlanders, 
well skilled in military affairs. These constituted the first army of the colony 
during its early struggles. John Wesley, founder of the Methodist denom- 
ination, also came with Oglethorpe, to make Georgia a religious colony, and to 
spread the gospel among the Indians. He was unsuccessful ; for his strict 
moral doctrines, his fearless denunciations of vice, and his rigid exercise of 
ecclesiastical authority made him quite unpopular among the great mass of the 
colonists, who winced at restraint. The eminent George Whitefield also visited 
Georgia in 1738, when only twenty-three years of age, and succeeded in estab- 
lishing an orphan asylum near Savannah, which flourished many years, and 

■ Note 7, page 168. 

' The first governor, by royal appointment, was Francis Nicholson, who had been successively 
governor of New York [page 144], Maryland, Virginia, and Nova Scotia. 

» P^e 167. ♦ Page 179. ' Page 100. 



172 THE COLONIES. [1732. 

■\y:is a real blessing. The Christian ciforts of those men, prosecuted with the 
most sincere desire for the good of their fellow-mortals, were not appreciated. 
Their seed fell upon stony ground, and after the death of Whitefield, in 1770, 
his " House of Mercy"' in (Jeorgia, deprived of hi.s sustaining influence, becauio 
a desolation. 

A cloud of trouble appeared in the Southern horizon. The rapid increase 
of the new colony excited the jealousy of the Spaniards at St. Augustine, and 
the vigilant Oglethorpe, expecting such a result, prepared to oppose any hos- 
tile movements against his settlement. He established a fort on the site of 
Augusta, as a defence against the Indians, and he erected fortifications at 
Darien, on Cumberland Island, at Frederica (St. Simon's Island), and on the 
north bank of the St. John, the southern boundary of the Englisli claims. 
Spanish conniiissioners came from St. Augustine to protest against these prepar- 
ations, and to demand the immediate evacuation of the whole of Georgia, and 
of all Soatii Carolina below Port Royal.' Oglethorpe, of course, refused com- 
pliance, and the Sjjaniards threatened liim with war. In the winter of 17tjO-7, 
Oglethorpe went to England to make preparations to meet the exigency. He 
returned in Octolier following, beai-ing tlie commission of a brigadier, and lead- 
ing a regiiEent of six hundred well-disciplined troops, for the defense of the 
whole southern frontier of the English possessions." But for two years their 
services were not much needed ; then war broke out between England and 
Spain [November, 1739], and Oglethorpe prepared an expedition against St. 
Augustine. In May, 1740, he entered Florida with four hundred of his best 
troops, some volunteers from South Carolina, and a large body of fi'icndly 
Creek Indians ;' in all more than two thousand men. His first concjuest was 
Fort Diego, twenty miles from St. Augustine. Then Fort Moosa, within two 
miles of the city, surrendered ; but when he appeared before tlie town and for- 
tress, and demanded instant submission, he was answered by a defiant refusal. 
A small fleet under Captain Price blockaded the harbor, and for a time cut oflf 
supplies from the Spaniards, but swift-winged galleys' passed through the block- 
a«ling fleet, and supplied the garrison with several weeks' provisions. Ogle- 
thorpe had no artillery with which to attack the fortress, and being warned by 
the increasing heats of summer, and sickness in his camp, not to wait for their 
supplies to become exhausted, he raised the siege and returned to Savannah. 

The ire of the Spaniards was aroused, and they, in turn, prepared to invade 
Georgia in the summer of 1742. An armament, fitted out at Havana and St. 
Augustine, and consisting of thirty-six vessels, w"ith more than three thousand 
troops, entered the harbor of St. Simon's, and landed a little above the town 
of the same name, on the 16th of July, 1 742, and erected a battery of twenty 
guns. Oglethorpe had been apprised of the intentions of the Spaniards, and 



' Note 5, page 166. 

' His commission gavo him the command of the militia of South Carolina also, and ho stood .is 
a guard between tlio Enf;llsli and Spanish poBSeasions of the southern conntry. ' Page 30. 

' A low built vessel propelled by both aaite and oars. The war vessels of the ancients were all 
galleys. See Norman vessel, page 35. 



1132.] GEORGIA. ' 173 

after unsuccessfully applying to the governor of South Carolina for troops and 
supplies, he marched to St. Simon's, and made his head- quarters at his princi- 
fortress at Frederica.' He was at Fort Simon, near the landing jilace of the 
invaders, with less than eight hundred men, exclusive of Indians, when the 
enemy appeared. He immediately spiked the guns of the fort, destroyed his 
stoi-es, and retreated to Frederica. There he anxiously awaited hoped-for rein- 
forcements and supplies from Carolina, and then he successfully repulsed several 
detachments of the Spaniards, who attacked him. He finally resolved to make 
a night assault upon the enemy's battery, at St. Simon's. A deserter (a 
French soldier) defeated his plan ; but the sagacity of Oglethorpe caused the 
miscreant to be instrumental in driving the invaders from the coast. He bribed 
a Spanish prisoner to carry a letter to the deserter, which contained information 
respecting a British fleet that was about to attack St. Augustine." Of course 
the letter was handed to the Spanish commander, and the Frenchman was 
arrested as a spy. The intelligence in Oglethorpe's letter alarmed the enemy, 
and while the officers were holding a council, some Carolina vessels, with sup- 
plies for the garrison at Frederica, appeared in the distance. Believing them 
to be part of the British fleet alluded to, the Spaniards determined to attack 
the Georgians immediately, and then hasten to St. Augustine. On their march 
to assail Frederica, they were ambuscaded in a swamp. Great slaughter of the 
invaders ensued, and the place is still called Bloody Marsh. The survivors 
retreated in confusion to their vessels, and sailed immediately to St. Augustine.' 
On their way, they attacked the English fort at the southern extremity of Cum- 
berland Island,' on the 19th of July, but were repulsed with the loss of two 
galleys. The whole expedition was so disastrous to the Spaniards, that the 
commander (Don Manuel de Monteano) was dismissed from the service. Ogle- 
thorpe's stratagem saved Georgia, and, perhaps. South Carolina, from utter 
ruin. 

Having fairly established his colony, Oglethorpe went to England in 1743, 
and never returned to Georgia, where, for ten years, he had nobly labored to 
secure an attractive asylum for the oppressed.' He left the province in a tran- 
quil state. The mild military rule under which the people had lived, was 
changed to civil government in 1743, administered by a president and council, 
under the direction of the trustees," yet the colony continued to languish. 
Several causes combined to produce this condition. We have already alluded 
to the inefficiency of most of the earlier settlers, and the prohibition of slave 
labor.' They were also deprived of the privileges of commerce and of traffic 



' Tlie remains of Fort Frederica yet formed a very picturesque ruin on the plantation of 
W. W. Hazzard, Esq., of St. Simon's Island, iu 1856. 

" Oglethorpe addressed the Frenchman as if he was 'a spy of the English. He directed the 
deserter to represent the Georgians as in a weak condition, to advise the Spaniards to attack them 
immediately, and to persuade the Spaniards to remain three days longer, within which time six 
British men-of-war, and two thousand men, from CaroUna, would probably enter the harbor of St 
Augustine. 

' They first burned Fort Simon, but in their haste they left several of their cannons and a 
quantity of provisions behind them. 

* Fort WiUiam. There was another small fort on the northern end of the island, called Fort 
Andrew. ' Page 100. • Page 100. ' Page 171. 



174 THE COLONIES. [1492. 

With the Indians ; and were not allowed the ownership, in fee, of the lands 
which thej cultivated.' In consequence of these restrictions, there were no 
incentives to labor, except to supply daily wants. General discontent pre- 
vailed. They saw the Carolinians growing rich by the use of slaves, and by 
commerce with the West Indies. Gradually the restrictive laws were evaded. 
Slaves were brought from Carolina, and hired, first for a short period, and then 
for a hundred years, or for life. The price paid for life-service was the money 
value of the slave, and the transaction was, practically, a sale and purchase. 
Then slave-ships came to Savannah directly from Africa ; slave labor was gen- 
erally used in 1750, and Georgia became a planting State. In 1752, at the 
expiration of the twenty-one years named in the patent,^ the trustees gladly 
resigned the charter into the hands of the king, and from that time until the 
Revolution, Georgia remained a royal province. 



CHAPTEH XI. 

A RETROSPECT. [1492—1156.] 

In the preceding pages we have considered the principal events which 
occurred within the domain of our Republic from the time of first discoveries, 
in 1492, to the commencement of the last inter-colonial war between the En- 
glish and French settlers, a period of about two hundred and sixty years. 
During that time, fifteen colonies were planted,' thirteen of which were com- 
menced within the space of about fifty-six years — from 1607 to 1673. By the 
union of Plymouth and Massachusetts,* and Connecticut and New Haven,' the 
number of colonics was reduced to thirteen, and these were they which went 
into the revolutionary contest in 1775. The provinces of Canada and Nova 
Scotia, conquered by the English, remained loyal, and to this day they continue 
to be portions of the British empire. 

In the establishment of the several colonies, which eventually formed the 
thirteen United States of America, several European nations contributed vig- 
orous materials ; and people of opposite habits, tastes, and religious faith, became 
commingled, after making impressions of their distinctive characters where their 
influence was first felt. England furnished the largest proportion of colonists, 
and her children always maintained sway in the government and industry of the 
whole country ; while Scotland, Ireland, Germany, Holland, France, Sweden, 
Denmark, and the Baltic region, contributed large quotas of people and other 
colonial instrumentalities. Churchmen and Dissenters,' Roman Catholics and 



• Page 116. ' Page 100. 

* Yirpnia, Plymouth, Massachusetts Bay, New Hampshire, Connecticut, New Haven, Rhod» 
Island, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, North and South Carolina, and 
GeorgiaL * Page 132. » Pago 89. • Note 2, page 76. 



1756.] A RETROSPECT. 175 

Quakers,' came and sat down by the side of each other. For a while, the dis- 
sonance of nations and creeds prevented entire harmony ; but the freedom en- 
joyed, the perils and hardships encountered and endured, the conflicts with 
pagan savages on one hand, and of hierarchica? and governmental oppression 
on the other, which they maintained for generations, shoulder to shoulder, dif- 
fused a brotherhood of feeling throughout the whole social body of the colonists, 
and resulted in harmony, sympathy, and love. And when, as children of one 
family, they loyally defended the integrity of Great Britain (tlien become the 
'■ mother country" of nearly all) against the aggressions of the French and In- 
dians' [1756 to 1763], and yet were compelled, by the unkindness of that 
mother, to sever the fihal bond* [1776], their hearts beat as with one pulsation, 
and they struck the dismembering blow as with one hand. 

There was a great diversity of chai'acter exhibited by the people of the sev- 
eral colonies, differing according to their orio;in and the influence of climate and 
pursuits. The Virginians and their southern neighbors, enjoying a mild cli- 
mate, productive of tendencies to voluptuousness and ease, were from those 
classes of English society where a lack of rigid moral discipline allowed free 
living and its attendant vices. They generally exhibited less moral restraint, 
more hospitality, and greater frankness, and social refinement, than the people 
of New England. The latter were from among the middle classes, and in- 
cluded a great many religious enthusiasts, possessing more zeal than knowl- 
edge. They were extremely strict in their notions ; very rigid in manners, 
and jealous of strangers. Their early legislation, recognizing, as it did, the 
most minute regulations of social life, often presented food for merriment." 
Yet their intentions were pure ; their designs were noble ; and, in a great de- 
gree, their virtuous purposes were accomplished. They aimed to make every 
member of society a Christian, according to their own pattern ; and if they 
did not fully accomplish their object, they erected strong bulwarks against those 



' Note 6, page 122, and note 3, page 123. 

' Hierarchy is, in a general sense, a priestly or ecclesiastical government. Such was the original 
form of government of the ancient Jews, when the priesthood held absolute rule. 

' Period IV., chapter xii., page 179. * Page 251. 

' They assumed the right to regulate the expenditures of the people, even for wearing-apparel, 
according to their several incomes. The general court of Massachusetts, on one occasion, required 
the proper officers to notice the " app.arel" of the people, especially their " ribands and great boots." 
Drinking of healths, wearing fiineral badges, and many other things that seemed improper, were 
forbidden. At Hartford, the general court kept a constant eye upon the morals of the people. Free- 
men were compelled to vote under penalty of a fine of sixpence ; the use of tobacco was prohibited 
to persons under twenty years of age, without the certificate of a physician ; and no others were 
allowed to use it more than once a day, and then they must be ten miles from any house. The 
people of Hartford were all obhged to rise in the morning when the watchman rang his Viell. These 
are but a few of the hundreds of similar enactments found on the records of the New England 
courts. In 1646, the Legislature of Massachusetts passed a law, which imposed the penalty of a 
flogging upon any one who should kiss a woman in the streets. More than a hundred years after- 
ward, this law was enforced in Boston. The captain of a British man-of-war happened to return 
from a cruise, on Sunday. His overjoyed wife met him on the wharf, and he kissed her several 
times. The magistrates ordered him to be flogged. The puni-shment incurred no ignominy, and he 
associated freely with the best citizens. When about to depart. tiie captain invited the magistrates 
and others on board his vessel to dine. When dinner was over, he caused all the magistrates to 
be flogged, on deck, in sight of the town. Then assuring them that he considered accounts settled 
between him and them, he dismissed them, and set saU. 



■\:(j 



Til K COLON I KS. 






4- 




littlo vicos wliicli compoao grent private and piililic 
evils. Dwelling upon n parsimonious soil, and pos- 
sessing iieitlicr (lie means nor tlit^ inclination lor 
Miniptiious living, inihilged in hy tlieir southern breth- 
ren, their ilwi'lliiigs were simple, and their hahits 
frugal. 

In New York, and iiorlioiis of I'ennsvlvania. and 

' ' *' . , I, 11,1,1 ,N. 1 l.l'l .^1.. 

New Jersey, the nianuors, customs, and pursuits of 

the Dutch prevailed even a century after the English 
con([uest of New Netlierland' [1(U')4|, and society had become 
p( iiiiealed by Engli.sli i(lca.s and customs. They were plodding 
money-getters; abhorred change and innovation, and loved ease, 
'i'liey possessed few of the elements of progress, but many of tho 
substantial social virtues necessary to tho stability of a State, and 
the health of society. From these the Swedes and Finns upon tho 
i)elawar(^" did not dilVer nnich ; but the habit.s of the Quakers, 
who finally predominated in AVcst Jersey* and Pennsylvania,' 
were <piit(> diflerent. They always exhibited a refined simplicity 
and ei|uaniinitv, without ostentatious dis|)lays of piety, that won 
esteem ; and they were governed by a, religious sentiment without 
fanaticism, which f )niuMl a powevrul safeguard against vice and 

immorality. 

In Maryland," the earlier settlers wen^ also less rigid moralists than the 
New Fnglanders, and greater foinialisls in religion. They were more refined, 
equally industrious, but lacked the stability of character and jierseverance 
in pursuits, of the pet)plo of the East. But at tho close of the jieriod we liavo 
been considering |l7r)()|, the ju'culiarities of the inhabitants of each section 
were greatly na)dilied by inter-migralion, and a general eonformity to the ne- 
cessities of their several conditions, as founders of now States in a wilderness. 
The tooth of religious bigotry and intolerance had lost its keenness and its 
poison, and when the representatives of the .several colonies met in a general 
Congress' (Sept., 1774), for the public good, they stood as brethren before ona 
altar, while tlu^ eloipient Duche laid the fervent petitions of their hearts before 
the throne of Oumi|iutence." 

Tho chief pursuit of tho colonists was, neccssai-ily, agriculture ; yet, during 
the tim(> we have considered, nuuuifactures and connueree were not wholly neg- 
lected. Necessity eompellcd the jieople to make many things which their 
jwverty woiild not allow them to buy ; and manual labor, especially in the New 
EnglaiKl ]irovinces, was dignifu-d from the beginning. The settlers came where 
a throne and it,s corrupting iidluenccs were unknown, and where the idleness 
and privileges of aristocracy had no abiding-place. In the magnificent forests 

' This is n picture of one of the oldest houses in New EnRland, nnd is a (hvomble specimen of 

tho lii'Mt cliuw of IVmue dwollinps nt llml liiiio. It U yet [188a] standing, wo boliovc, nonr Modtield, 
iu M.ws.u-lius.-tla. • rnifo 11 1. ' I'ats'o 9X ' I'n^'e \m 



• I'ogu 161. 



• Pago 81. 



' Page 228. 



• Pago 228. 



1756.] A RETROSPECT. I77 

of the New World, where a feudal lord' had never stood, they began a life full 
of youtli, vigor, and labor, such as the atmosphere of the elder governments of 
the earth could not then sustain. They were compelled to bo self-reliant, and 
what they could not buy from the workshops of England for their simple ap- 
parel and furniture, and implements of culture, they rudely manufactured," and 
were content. 

The commerce of the colonies had but a feeble infancy ; and never, until 
they were politically separated from Great Britain [1776J, could their inter- 
change of commodities bo properly dignified with the name of Commerce. En- 
gland early became jealous of the independent career of the colonists in res[)cct 
to manufactured articles, and navigation acts," and other unwise and unjust 
restraints upon the expanding industry of the Americans, were brought to bear 
u])on them. As early as IGoG, a Massachusetts vessel of thirty tons made a 
trading voyage to the West Indies; and two years later [1G38J, another vessel 
went from Salem to New Providence, and returned with a cargo of salt, cotton, 
tobacco, and negroes.' This was the dawning of commerce in America. The 
eastern people also engaged quite extensively in fishing ; and all were looking 
forward to wealth from ocean traffic, as well as that of the land, when the pass- 
age of the second Navigation Act,' in 16G0, evinced the strange jealousy of 
Ureat Britain. From that period, the attention of Parliament was often 
directed to the trade and commerce of the colonies, and in 1719, the House of 
Connnons declared "that erecting any manufactories in the colonics, tended to 
lessen their dependence upon (Jreat ]3ritain." Woolen goods, paper, hemp, 
and iron were manufactured in Massachusetts and other parts of New England, 
as early as 1732; and almost every family made coarse cloth for domestic use. 
Heavy duties had been imposed upon colonial iron sent to England ; and tho 
colonists, thus deprived of their market for pig iron, were induced to attempt 
the niarmfacture of steel and bar iron for their own use. It was not until 
almost a. century [1750J afterward that the mother country perceived the folly 
of her policy in this respect, and admitted colonial pig iron, duty free, first into 
London, and soon afterward into the rest of the kingdom. Hats were manufac- 

' Note )6, page G2. 

' From tlie bejjinniiig of colonization thero were shoemakers, tailors, and blacksmiths in tlio sev- 
eral colonies. Clialnic>rs says oC Now Knglanfl in 1G73: "Thero bo lino iron works whioh cast no 
fCnus; no houao in Now Kn)i;lati(l has above twenty rooms; not twenty in Boston have ton rooms 
each; a dancinfj-school was sot up hero, liut put clown ; a fcnoins-school is allowed. There be no 
nnisioians by trade. All eorda;j;o, sail-eloMi, and mats, cmno from England ; no cloth made there 
worth four sliillings per yard ; no alniu, no eo[)pora.M, no salt, made by their sun." 

' The first Navig,atiori Act [1C51| forbade all iniiiortations into England, except in English 
ships, or tlioso belonging to English colonies. In KJGO, this act was confirmed, and unjust adchtions 
were made to it. The colonies were forbidden to export their elucf productions to any country ex- 
cept to England or its dependencies. Similar acts, all bearing heavily upon colonial connnerce, 
were made law, from time to time. See note 4, page 109. 

'This was the first intro(l\iction of slaves into New England. Tho first slaves introduced into 
tho English colonies, were those landed and sold in Virginia in 1G20. [See note 6, page lO.'i.] They 
wore first recognized as such, by law, in Massachusetts, in KMl ; in Connecticut and Rhode Island, 
about 1650; in New York, in ICOG; in Maryland, in lGG:i ; and in Now .Ter.sey, in 16G5. There 
were but few slaves in Pennsylvania, and those were chiefly in Philadelphia, There were some 
there as early as 1690. The people of Delaware hold some at abo\it the same time. The introduc- 
tion of slaves into tlie Carolinas was coiwal with their -settlement, and into Cicorgia about tho year 
1160, when the people generally eviwied tho prohibitory law. Page 174. ° Note 4, page 109. 

12 



178 TIIK COLONIES. [149?. 

turcd and carried from one colony to tlio otlicr in oxcliange ; and at about the- 
same time, briyantincs and small sloops were built in Massachusetts and Penn- 
sylvania, and cxchaji^ed Avitli VVest India merchants for rum, sugar, wines, and 
silks. These movements were regarded with disfavor liy the liritish Govern- 
ment, and unwisely considering the increase of manufactures in the colonies to 
be detrimental to English interests, greater restrictions were ordained. It was 
enacted that all manufactories of iron and steel in tho colonics, should be con- 
sidered a " eonuiion nuisance," to bo abated within thirty days after notice 
beinff given, or tiic owner should suffer a fine of a thousand dollars.' The e.x- 
jiortation of hats even from one colony to another was prohibited, and no hatter 
was allowed to have more than two apiu'cntiecs at one time. The importation 
of sugar, rum, and molasses was burdened with exorbitant duties ; and the Caro- 
linian.s were forbidden to cut down the pine-trees of their vast forests, and con- 
vert their wood into staves, and their juice into turpentine and tar, for commer- 
cial purposes." These unjust and oppressive enactments formed a part of that 
" bill of i)articulars"' which the American colonies presented in their account 
with Great Eritain, when they gave to the world their reasons for declaring 
themselves " free and independent St^ites." 

From the beginning, education received special attention in the colonies, 
particularly in New England. Schools for the education of both white and 
Indian children were formed in Virginia as early as 1621 ; and in 1692, Wil- 
liam and Mary College was established at Williamsburg.' Harvard College, at 
Cambridge, jMassachusctts, was founded in Idol. Yale College, in Connecti- 
cut, was established at Saybrook in 1701,' and was removed to its present loca- 
tion, in New Haven, in 1717. It was named in honor of Eliliu Yale, pres- 
ident of the East India Company, and one of its most liberal benefactors. The 
college of New Jersey, at Princeton, called Nassau HaU, was incorporated in 
1738;' and King's (now Columbia) College, in the city of New Y'ork. was 
foudned in UoO. The college of Philadelphia was incorporated in 1760. 
The college of Rhode Island (now Brown Univei-sity) was estjiblished at War- 
ren in 1704. Queen's (now Ilutgcrs) College, in New Jer.sey, was founded 
in 1770 ; and Diu'tmouth College, at Hanover, New llamshire, was opened in 

A law WBS eimcted in IT.'iO, which prohibited the "erection orcontrivntioe of any mill or other 
engine tor eliltin^ or rollin^ iroit, or Any plating torge to work with a tilt-hammer, ur any furnace 
for milking Ktcel in ihe cnloniew." Siu'li was the oonilition of nianiifaclurere in the United Slalet> 
one linndrcd years ago. Notwillielaniling we ai-e eminently an agrictiltural people, the cenena of 
1S70 xliii>Vfd iliiil we bad, in roiinii iicnnlwi-s. $-.'.lHHI, 01)0. 001' invested in manutactures. The vahie 
of raw material was eslinnited at $'J.4(Ht.0l)(),()l)tt. 'I'he umount paitl for labor djiring that year, 
was nearly §700,000.000, distributed among "J. 000.000 operative*. The value of maaufaciureil 
arliolos \va.s o.'^tiinatod iit moi-o tliiiit i*4, 000,000,000. Fully 'JO \v\- coiit. iiuisl be lulilod for IS^X 

• For n lumdrod years the British governiiunt attemptod to eoiillne the oominoree of the eolo- 
nies to tbo intorebangoof tbi'it-aiirii'iilliirMl pi-odiu-ts foi- l-'iiglisb mnimtiu'tiiri^s oidy. The trade of il.o 
growing eolonios was eci-|niidy woitb .•iix'iiring. l-'rotii lT:fS to n4S, the avenigc value of exporn 
IKmi Great Britain to the Aineiican eolonics, was altnost tliR-e and a quarter niilUous of dollars 
nnnunlly, 

' Tbo srhooLi previously established did not flourisli, and the fuuds appropriated for tlieir sup- 
port were given to the college, 

• 111 1700, ten mini.'sters of the colony met at Saybrook, and each contributed books for tli» 
establisliinciit of a rollege. It was incorporated in 1701. See note 8, pii,g»> 158. 

• It was a feeble institution at first la 1747, Lioveruor Belcher became its patron. 



nsfi.] TIIK FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR. 179 

1771. It will be seen that the colonies could boast of no less than nine col- 
leges when the War for Independence commenced — three of them under the 
supervision of Episcopalians, three under Congregationalists, one each under 
Presbyterians, the Reformed Dutch Church, and the Baptists. But the pride 
and glory of New England have ever been its common schools. Those received 
the eailiest and most earnest attention. In 1636, the Connecticut Legislature 
enacted a law which required every town that contained fifty fomilies, to main- 
tain a good school, and every town containing one hundred householders, to 
have a grammar school.' Similar provisions for general education soon pre- 
vailed throughout New England ; and the people became remarkable for their 
intelligence. The ri^id laws which discourajred all frivolous amusements, 
induced active minds, durintr leisure hours, to engage in readintr. The sub- 
jects contained in books then in general circulation, were chiefly History and 
Theology, and of these a great many vrore sold. A traveler mentions the fact, 
that, as early as 1686, several booksellers in Boston had " made fortunes by 
their business.'" But newspapers, the great vehicle of general intelligence to 
the popular mind of our day, were very few and of little worth, before the era 
of the Revolution." 

Such, in brief and general outline, were the American people, and such their 
political and social condition, at the commencement of the last inter-colonial 
war, which we are now to consider, during whicli tliey discovered tlieir strength, 
the importance of a continental union, and their real independence of Greai 
Britain. 



<< » ■» 



CHAPTER XII. 

THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR. [1756—1763.] 

We are now to consider one of the most important episodes in the history 
of the United States, known in Europe as the Seven Years' War, and in 

' These townships were, in general, organized religious communities, and had many interests in 
common. 

^ Previous to 1753, there hail been seventy booksellers in Massacliu.setts, two in New Hamp- 
shire, two iH Connecticut, one in Rhode Island, two in New York, and seventeen in Pennssylvania. 

* The first newspaper ever printed in America was the Boston News Letter, printed in 1704. 
The next was cstablislied in PliihKlelpliia, in 1719. The first in New York was in 1725 ; in Mary- 
land, in 1728 ; in South Carolina, in 1731 ; in Rhode Island, in 1732 ; in Virginia, in 1736 ; in New 
HampshirL', in 1753; in Connecticut, in 1755; in Delaware, in 1761; in North Carolina, in 1763; 
Ml Georgia, in 1763 ; and in New Jersey, in 1777. In 187.\ there were published in the United 
Stntes. 6,793 newspapers and ninsrHziiiH^. Ii:ivin2r a circulatiim of '.2,000,000,000 of copies annually. 

' We have no exact enumeration of the iunaljitauts of the colonies; but Mr. Bancroft, after a 
carefld exainmation of many oflicial returns and private computations, estimates the number of 
white people in the colonies, at the commencement of the French and Indian War, to have been 
al50ut 1,165,000, distributed as follows: In New England (N. H., Mass., R. 1., and Conn.), 425,000; 
in the middle colonies (N. Y., N. J., Penn., Del, and Md.), 457,000 ; and in the southern colonies 
(Va., N. and S. Carolina, and Geo.), 283,000. The estimated number of slaves, 260,000, of whom 
about 11,000 were in New England; middle colonies, 71,000; and the southern colonies, 178.000. 
Of the 1,165,000 white people. Dr. Franklin estimated that oidy about 80,000 were of foreign lih'tli, 
sliowing the fact tliat emigration to America had almost ceased. At tlie beginning of tlie Revolu. 
tiou, in 1775, the estimated population of the thirteen colonies was 2,803,000. The documents o/ 
Congress, in 1775, gives the round number of 3,000,000. 



180 THE COLONIES. [1766. 

America as the Frexcii and Indiax War. It mnj with propriety be con- 
sidered introductory to the AVar for Independence, which resulted in the birth 
of our Republic. The first three inter-colonial wars, or the conflicts in America 
between the English and French colonies, already noticed,' originated in hostil- 
ities first declared by the two governments, and commenced in Europe. The 
fourth and last, which resulted in establishing the supremacy of the English in 
America, originated here in disputes concerning territorial claims. For a hun- 
dred years, the colonies of the two nations had been gradually expanding and 
increasing in importance. The English, more than a million in number, occu- 
pied the seaboard from the Penobscot to the St. Mary, a thousand miles in 
extent, all eastward of the great ranges of the Alleghanies, and far northward 
toward the St. Lawrence. The French, not more than a hundred thousand 
strong, made settlements along the St. Lawrence, the shores of the great lakes, 
on the Mississippi and its tributaries, and upon the borders of the Gulf of Mex- 
ico. They early founded Detroit [1683], Kaskaskia [1684], Vincennes [1690], 
and New Orleans [1717]. The English planted agricultural colonies; the 
French were chiefly engaged in ti-afiic with the Indians. This trade, and the 
operations of the Jesuit" missionaries, who were usually the self-denying pio- 
neers of commerce in its penetration of the wilderness, gave the French great 
influence over the tribes of a vast extent of country lying in the rear of the 
English settlements.' 

Fiance and England at that time were heirs to an ancient quarrel. Origin- 
ating far back in feudal ages, and kept alive by subsequent collisions, it burned 
yigoroiisly in the bosoms of the respective colonists in America, where it was 
contmually fed by frequent hostilities on frontier ground. They had ever 
regarded each other with extreme jealousy, for the prize before them was 
supreme rule in the New World. The trailing posts and missionary stiitions 
of the French, in the far north-west, and in the bosom of a dark wilderness, 
several hundred miles distant from the most remote settlement on the English 
frontier, attracted very little attention, until they formed a i)art of more exten- 
sive operations. But when, after the capture of Louisburg,^ in 1745, the French 
adopted vigorous measures for opposing the extension of British power in Amer- 
ica : when they built strong vessels at the foot of Lake Ontario' — made treaties 
of friendship with the Delaware" and Shawnee' tribes ; strengthened Fort Niag- 
ara f and erected a cordon of fortifications, more than sixty in number, between 
Montreal and New Orleans — the English were aroused to immediate and eficctive 
action in defense of the territorial claims given them in their ancient chartere. 
By virtue of these, they claimed dominion westward to the Pacific Ocean, south 
of the latitude of the north shore of Lake Erie ; while the French claimed a title 
to all the territory watered by the Mississippi and its tributaries, under the 
more plausible plea, that they had made the first explorations and settlements 

' King William's War (page 130); Queen Anne's War (page 1.15); and King George's War (page 
136). ' Note 4, page 130. ' Cliieliy of the Algonquin nation. Page 17. 

* Page 138. ' At Fort Frontenac, now Kingston, Upper Canada. 

• Page 20. ' Page 19. ' Page 200. 



1763.] THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR. 181 

in that region. ' The claims of the real owner, the Indian, were lost siglit of 
in the discussion.^ 

These disputes soon ended in action. The territorial question was speedily 
brought to an issue. In 17-19, George the Second granted six hundred thou- 
sand acres of land, on the south-east bank of the Ohio River, to a company 
composed of London merchants and Virginia land speculators, with the exclusive 
privilege of traffic with the Indians. It was called Tlie Ohio Compaiiij. 
Surveyors were soon sent to explore, and make boundaries, and prepare for 
settlements ; and English traders went even as far as the country of the 
Miamies' to traffic with the natives. The French regarded them as intruders, 
and, in 1753, seized and imprisoned some of them. Apprehending the loss of 
traffic and influence among the Indians, and the ultimate destruction of their 
line of communication between Canada and Louisiana, the French commenced 
the erection of forts . between the Alleghany River and Lake Erie, near the 
present western line of Pennsylvania.'' The Ohio Company complained of 
these hostile movements ; and as their grant lay within the chartered limits of 
Virginia, the authorities of that colony considered it their duty to interfere. 
Robert Dinwiddie, the lieutenant-governor, sent a letter of remonstrance to M. 
De St. Pierre, the French commander.'' George Washington was chosen to be 
the bearer of the dispatch. He was a young man, less than twenty-two years 
of age, but possessed much experience of forest life. He already held the com- 
mission of adjutant-general of one of the four militia districts of A^irginia. 
From early youth he had been engaged in land surveying, had become accus- 
tomed to the dangers and hardships of the wilderness, and was acquainted with 
the character of the Indians, and of the country he was called upon to traverse. 

Young Washington, as events proved, was precisely the instrument needed 
for such a service. His mission involved much personal peril and hardship. 
It required the courage of the soldier, and the sagacity of the statesman, to 
perform the duty properly. The savage tribes through which he had to pass, 
were hostile to the English, and the French he was sent to meet were national 
enemies, wily and suspicious. With only two or three attendants," Washington 
started from Williamsburg late in autumn [Oct. 31, 1753], and after journey- 
ing full four hundred miles (more than half the distance through a dark wildei'- 
ness), encountering almost incredible hardships, amid snow, and icy floods, and 
hostile Indians, he reached the French outpost at Venango on the 4th of De- 

' Page 180. 

' "When the agent of the Ohio Company went into the Indian country, on the borders of the 
Ohio River, a messenger was sent by two Indian sachems, to make the significant inquiry, "Where 
is the Indian's land ? Tlie Enghsh claim it all on one side of the river, the French on the other; 
where does the Indian's land lay?" ^ Page 19. 

' Twelve hundred men erected a fort on the south shore of Lake Erie, at Presque Isle, now 
Erie ; soon afterward, another was built at Le Boeuq on the Venango (French Creek), now the vil- 
lage of Waterford; and a third was erected at Venango, at the junction of French Creek and the 
Alleghany River, now the villago of Franklin. 

' Alreaily the governors of Virginia and Pennsylvania had received orders from the imperial 
govei-nment, to repel the French by force, whenever they were " found within the undoubted limits 
of then- province." 

' He was afterward joined by two others at Wills' Creek (now Cumberland), in Maryland. 



182 THE COLONIES. [175fi. 

comber. lie Wivs politely received, and his visit was made the occasion of great 
conviviality by the officers of the garrison. The free use of wine made the 
Frenchmen incautious, and they revealed to the sober Washington their hostile 
designs against the English, whicli the latter had suspected, lie perceived the 
necessity of dispatching business, and returning to Williamsburg, as speedily 
as possible ; so, after tarrying a day at A'cnango, ho jinshed forward to the 
head-quarters of St. Pierre, at Le B«3uf That officer entertained him politely 
during four days, and then gave him a written answer to Dinwiddie's remon- 
strance, enveloped and sealed. Washington retraced his perilous j)atliway 
through the wilderness, and after an absence of eleven weeks, he again stood in 
the jiresence of Governor Dinwiddle, on the 16th of January, 1754. his mission 
fulfilled to the satisfaction of all. His judgment, sagacity, courage, and execu- 
tive force — qualities which eminently fitted him for the more important duties 
as chief of the Revolutionary armies, more than twenty years afterward [1775] 
— were nobly developed in the performance of his mission. They were publicly 
acknowledged, and were never forgotten. 

Already the Virginians were restive under royal rule, and at that time 
were complaining seriously of an oljno.xious fee allowed by the Board of Trade, 
in the issue of patents for lands. The House of Burges.ses refused, at first, to 
pay any attention to Dinwiddie's complaints against the French ; but at length 
they voted fifty thousand dollars for the support of troops which had been 
enlisted to march into the Ohio country. The revelations made to Washington, 
and the tenor of St. Pierre's reply, confirmed the suspicions of Dinwiddle, and 
showed the wisdom of the legislative co-operation. St. Pierre said he was acting 
in obedience to the orders of his superior, the Marquis Du Quesne,' at IMontreal, 
and refused to withdraw his troops from the disputed territory. Dinwiddle 
immediately prepared an expedition against the French, and solicited the co-op- 
eration of the other colonies. It was the first call for a general colonial union 
against a common enemy. All hesitated except North Carolina. The legisla- 
ture of that colony promptly voted four hundred men, and they were soon on 
the march for Winchester, in Virginia. They eventually proved of little use, 
for liecoming doubtful as to their pay, a greater part of them had disbandinl 
before reaching Winchester. Some volunteers from South Carolina and New 
York, also hastened toward the seat of future war. The Virginians responded 
to the call, and a regiment of si.\ hundred men was soon organized, with Colonel 
Joshua Fry as its commander, and Major Washington as his lieutenant. The 
troops rendezvoused at Alexandria, and from that city, Washington, at the head 
of the advanced corps, marched [April 2, 1754) toward the Ohio. 

Private and public interest went hand in liand. AVhile these military prep- 
arations were in progress, the Ohio Company had sent thirty men to construct 
a fort at the confluence of the Alleghany and Monongahela Rivers, now the site of 
Pittsburg. They had just commenced operations [April 18], when a party of 
French and Indians, under Contrecceur, attacked and expelled them, completed 

' Pronounced Du Kane, 



1763.] THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR. 183 

the fortification, and named it Du Quesne, in honor of the governor-general of 
Canada.' When intelligence of this event reached Washington on his march, 
he hastened forward with one hundred and fifty men, to a point on the Monon- 
gahela, less than forty miles from Fort Du Quesne. There he was informed 
that a strong force was marching to intercept him, and he cautiously fled back 
to the Great Meadows, where he erected a stockade,^ and called it Fort Neces- 
sity.' Before completing it, a few of his troops attacked an advanced party of 
the French, under Jumonville. They -were surprised on the mornino- of 
May 28, and the commander and nine of his men were slain. Of the fifty 
who formed the French detachment, only about fifteen escaped. This was the 
first blood-shedding of that long and eventful conflict known as the French and 
Indian War. Two days afterward [May 30J, Colonel Fry died, and the 
whole command devolved on Washington. Troops hastened forward to join the 
young leader at Fort Necessity, and with about four hundred men, he proceeded 
toward Fort Du Quesne. M. de Villiers, brother of the slain Jumonville, had 
marched at about the same time, at the head of more than a thousand Indians 
and some Frenchmen, to avenge the death of his kinsman. Advised of his 
approach, Washington fell back to Fort Necessity, and there, on the 3d of July, 
he was attacked by almost eight hundred foes. After a conflict of about ten 
hours, de Vilhers proposed an honorable capitulation.* Washington signed it 
on the morning of the 4th, and marching out of the stockade with the honors 
of war, departed, with his troops, for Virginia. 

It was during this military campaign, that a civil movement of gi-eat import- 
ance -was in progress. The English and French governments had listened to 
the disputes in America with interest. At length the British ministry, per- 
ceiving war to be inevitable, advised the colonies to secure the continued 
friendship of the Six Nations,' and to unite in a plan for general defense. 
All the colonies were invited to appoint delegates to meet in convention at 
Albany, in the summer of 1754. Only seven responded by sending delegates.' 
The convention was organized on the 19th of June.' Having renewed a treaty 
with the Indians, the subject of colonial union was brought forward. A plan 
of confederation, similar to our Federal Constitution, drawn up by Dr. Franklin, 
was submitted. ° It was adopted on thelOtliof July, 1754, and was ordered to 
be laid before the several colonial Assemblies, and the imperial Board of Trade,' 

■ Page 182. ' ' 

' Stockade is a general name of structures for defense, formed by driving strong posts in the 
ground, so as to make a safe inclosure. It is tlie same as a palisade. See picture on page 127. 

' Near the national road from Cumberland to Wheeling, in the south-eastern part of Fayette 
county, Pennsylvania. The Great Meadows are on a fertile bottom about four miles from the foot 
of Laurel Hill, and fifty from Cumberland. 

' A mutual restoration of prisoners was to take place, and the English were not to erect anr 
establishment beyond the mountains, for the space of a year. The English troops were to march, 
unmolested, back to Virginia. ' pa„.g 25. 

' New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, and 
Maryland. 

' James Delaucy, of New Tork was elected president. There were twenty-five delegates in all. 

° Franklin was a delegate from Pennsylvania. The idea of union was not" a new one. William 
Penn suggested the advantage of a union of all the English colonies as early as 1700; and Coxe 
Speaker of the New Jersey Assembly, advocated it iu 1722. Now it first found tangible expression 
nnder the sanction of authority. • Note 5, page 134. 



184 THE COLONIES. [1756. 

for ratification." Its fate was sinjrular. The Assemblies considering it toa 
aristocratic — giving the rojal governor too much power — refused their assent ; 
and the Board of Trade rejected it l)ecause it was too democratic.'' Although 
a legal union was not consummated, the grand idea of political fraternization 
then began to bud. It blossomed in the midst of the heat of the Stamp Act 
cxcitemirit eleven years later [1765], and its fruit appeared in the memorable 
Congress of 1774. 

The convention at Albany had just closed its labors, when the Indians com- 
menced murderous depredations upon the Ne\v' England frontiers [August and 
September, 1754 J ; and among the tribes west of the Alleghanies. French emis- 
saries were busy arousing them to engage in a war of extermination against the 
English. Even in full view of these menaces, some of the colonies were tardy 
in preparations to avert the evil. Shirley was putting forth energetic efforts in 
Massachusetts ; New York voted twenty-five thousand dollars for milibiry serv- 
ice, and Maryland thirty thousand dollars for the same. The English govern- 
ment sent over fifty thousand dollars for the use of the colonists, and with it a 
commission to Governor Sharpe of Maryland, appointing him commander-in- 
chief of all the colonial forces. Disputes about military rank and precedence- 
soon ran high between the Virginia regimental officere, and the captains of 
independent companies. To silence these, Dinwiddle unwisely dispensed with 
all field officers, and broke the Virginia regiments into separate companies. This 
arrangement displeased Washington ; he resigned his commission, and the year 
1754 drew to a close without any efficient preparations for a conflict with the 
French.' 

CAMPAIGN OF 1755. 

Yet war had not been declared by the two nations ; and for more than a 
year and a half longer the colonies were in conflict, before England and France 
formally announced hostility to each other. In the mean while the British 
government, perceiving that a contest, more severe than had yet been seen, 
must soon take place in America, extended its aid to its colonies. Edward 
Braddock, an Irish officer of distinction, arrived in Chesapeake Bay, with two 
regiments of his countrymen, on the 20th of February, 1755. He had been 

' It proposed a general government to be administered by one chief magistrate, to be appointed 
by the crown, and a council of forty-eight members, chosen by the several legislatures Tlii.s coun- 
cil, answering to our Senate, was to have power to declare Wiu-, levy troops, raise money, regulate 
trade, conclude pea<'e, and many other things necessary for tlie general good. The delegates from 
Connecticut alone, objected to the plim, Ijecause it gave tlie governor-general veto power, or tlie 
right to refuse his signature to laws ordained by the Senate, and thus prevent them becoming stat- 
utes. 

' Tlie Board of Trade had proposed a plan which contained all the elements of a system for the 
utter enslavement and dependence of tlie Americans. They proposed a general government, composed 
of the governors of the several colonies, and certain select members of tlie several councits. These 
were to have power to draw on the British Treasury for mone)- to carry on the impending war : the 
sum to be reimbursed by taxes imposed upon the colonists by Parliament. The colonists prcfened 
to do then- own fighting, and levy tlieir own taxes, independent of Great Britain. 

' ,\ccording to a return m.-ide to the Board of Trade at ahuut this time, the population of the eiUo- 
nies amounted to one million four hundred and eighty-five thousand, sLx hundred and thirty-four. 
Of these, two hundred and ninety-two thousand seven hundred and thirty-eight were negroes. 



1763.] THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR. xS'J 

appointed commander-in-chief of all the British and provincial forces in Amer- 
ica ; and at his request, six colonial governors' met in convention at Alexandria, 
in April following, to assist in making arrangements for a vigorous campaign. 
Three separate expeditions were planned ; one against Fort du Quesne, to bo 
led by Braddock; a second against Niagara and Frontenac (Kingston), to be 
commanded by Governor Shirley ; and a third against Crown Point, on Lake 
Champlain, under General William Johnson," then an influential resident among 
the Mohawk nation of the Iroquois confederacy.' Akeady a fourth expedition 
had been arranged by Shirley and Governor Lawrence of Nova Scotia, designed 
to drive the French out of that province, and other portions of ancient Acadie.' 
These extensive arrangements, sanctioned by the imperial government, awakened 
the most zealous patriotism of all the colonists, and the legislatures of the sev- 
eral provinces, except Pennsylvania and Georgia, voted men and supplies for 
the impending war. The Quaker Assembly of Pennsylvania was opposed to 
military movements ; the people of Georgia were too poor to contribute. 

There was much enthusiasm in New England, and the eastern expedition 
first proceeded to action. Three thousand men, under General John Winslow/ 
sailed from Boston on the 20th of May, 1755, and landed at the head of the 
Bay of Fundy. There they were joined by Colonel Monckton with three hun- 
dred British regulars' from the neighboring garrison, and that officer, having 
official precedence of Winslow, took the command. They captured the forts in 
possession of the French there, in June, without difficulty, and placed the whole 
region under martial rule.' This was the legitimate result of war. But the 
cruel sequel deserves universal reprobation. The total destruction of the French 
settlements was decided upon. Under the plea that the Acadians would aid 
their French brethren in Canada, the innocent and happy people were seized in 
their houses, fields, and churches, and conveyed on board the English vessels. 
Families were broken, never to be united ; and to compel the surrender of those 
who fled to the woods, their starvation was insured by a total destruction of 
their growing crops. The Acadians were stripped of every thing, and those 
who were carried away, were scattered among the English colonies, helpless 
beggars, to die heart-broken in a strange land. In one short month, their 
paradise had become a desolation, and a happy people were crushed into the dust. 

The western expedition, under Braddock, was long delayed on account of 
difficulties in obtaining provisions and wagons. The patience of the commander 
was sorely tried, and in moments of petulance he used expressions against the 
colonists, which they long remembered with bitterness. He finally commenced 
his march from Will's Creek (Cumberland) on the 10th of June, 1755, with 
about two thousand men, British and provincials. Anxious to reach Fort du 

' Shirley, of Massewhusetts ; Dinwiddie, of Virginia; Delancey, o{ Keia York; Sharpe. of J/or;/- 
land; Morris, oi Pennsylvania:; and Dobbs, o{ North Carolina. Admiral Keppel, commander oftb& 
British fleet, was also present. ' Page 190. ' Page 25. * Page 58. 

' He was a great grandson of Edward Winslow, the third governor of Plymouth. He was a 

major-general in the Massachusetts militia, but on this occasion held the office "of lieutenant-colonel. 

This term is used to denote soldiers who are attached to the regular army, and as distinguished 

from volunteers and militia. The latter term appUes to the great body of citizens who are liable to 

io perpetual military duty only in time of war. ' Note 8, page 170. 



18fi 



THE COLONIES. 



[nSG. 




PORT DU QUESNE. 



Quesno licforo tlio i;arrison should receive re-inforcemcnta, lie inujle forced 
marclios with twelve hundred men, leaving Colonel l^unbav, 
his second in command, to follow with the remainder, and 
the wagons. Colonel Washington' had consented to act aa 
Braddoek's aid, and to him was given the command of the 
provincials. Knowing, far better than Braddock, the perils 
of their marcli and the kind of warf ire they might expect, ho 
ventured, modestly, to give advice, founded upon his experi- 
ence. But the haughty general would listen to no suggestions, 
especially from a provincial suI)ordinate. This olistinacy resulted in his ruin. 
When Avithin tiMi miles of Fort du (Quesno, and while marching at noon-day, on 
the 0th of .Tuly, in fancied security, on the north side of the Monongahela, a 
volley of Imllets and a cloud of arrows assailed the advance<l guard, under 
Lieutenant-Colonel (jage." They came from a thicket and ravine close by, 
where a thousand dusky warriors lay in ambush. Again Washington asked 
permission to fight according to the provincial custom, but was refused. 
Braddock must maneuver according to European tactics, or not at all. For 
three hours, deadly volley after volley fell upon the British columns, while 
Braddock attempted to maintain order, where all was confusion. The slain 
soon covered the ground. Every mounted oflicer but Washington was killed or 
inaimed, and finally, the really brave Braddock himself, after having several 
horses shot under liim, was mortally wounded.' Washington remained unhurt.* 
Under his direction the provincials rallied, while the regulars, seeing their gen- 
eral fall, were fleeing in great confusion. The provincials covered their retreat 
80 gallantly, that the enemy did not follow. A week after- 
wartl, Washington read the impressive funeral service of the 
Anglican Church,* over the corpse of Braddock, by torch- 
liglit |July IT), 1755]; and he w:us buried, where his grave 
may now 118G7J be seen, near the National road, between the 
fifty-third and fifty-fourth mile from Cumberland, in Mary- 
hind. Colonel Dunbar received the flying troops, and marched 
to riiiladelphia in August, with the broken companies. Wash- 
ington, with the southern provincials, went back to Virginia. 
GEN. BRADDOCK. Thus endcd the second expedition of the campaign of 1755. 

' PiiRP 181. ' Allorwavil t/cHr-™/ Gape, TOmmaiidi.'r-iii-fliief of the Biiti.<h troops at 

Boston, at tlie beginning of tin' Rovoliition. Page 22fi. 

• Urailildi'k was .shot by Tlioina,s FaiuTtI, omi of tlio provinpial poldicrs. His pica was self- 
prcservalidii. liniddoi'k liad i.'ssucd a iicksitivo orrtur, that noiio of the Eiij;lisli .should protect tlicm- 
selvea behiiiil trees, as the French and Indians did Faueett's brother had taken such position, and 
wlien Hraddock perceivcil it, lie stnick him to tho earth with his sword. Thomas, on seeinp his 
brotlier I'all, sliot Uraddnek in tho buck, and then tho provincials, fighting aa they pleased, were 
saved from utter destruction. 

* Pr. Craik, who was with ■Wa.shinpton nt this time, and also attended liim in liis last illness, 
says, tliat while in the Oliio country witli liim, fltleen years afterward, an old Indi.an eliief e.ame, as 
he said, " a long way" to see tlie Virginia cnloncl at whom he llrcd liis rifle lillceii times during tho 
battle on tlie Monongahela, witlioiil hitting liim. Washiiigtim was never wounded in battle. On 
this oecaaion he had two horses shot under him, and four bullets p,issed tlirougli his coat. Writing 
of this to his brother, he remarked, " liy the all-powerful dispensations of Proviilenee, 1 have boea 
protected beyond all human probability or expectation, ♦ * * although death was leveling my 
coiupauions ou every sida" ' Note 1, page 1G8. Sec picture ou page 187. 








BUIUAL OF BKADUOCK. 



I 



1763.] THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR. 189 

The third expedition, under Governor Shirley, designed to operate against 
the French posts at Niagara and Frontenac, experienced less disasters, but waa 
quite as unsuccessful. It waa late in August before Shirley had collected the 
main body of his troops at Oswego, from whence he intended to go to Niagara 
by water. His force was twenty-five hundred strong on the 1st of September, 
yet circumstances compelled him to hesitate. The prevalence of storms, and 
of sickness in his camp, and, finally, the desertion of the greater part of his 
Indian allies,' made it perilous to proceed, and ho relinquished the design. 
Leaving suflicient men to garrison the forts which he had commenced at 
Oswego," he marched the remainder to Albany [Oct. 24], and returned to 
Massachusetts. 

The fourth expedition, under General Johnson, prepared for attacking 
Crown Point, ^ accomplished more than that of Braddock' or Shirley, but failed 
to achieve its main object. In July [1755J, about six thousand troopa, 
drawn from New England, New York, and New Jersey, had assembled at the 
head of boat navigation on the Hudson (now the village of Fort Edward), fifty 
miles north of Albany. They were under the command of General Lyman,^ 
of Connecticut ; and before the arrival of General Johnson, in August, with 
cannons and stores, they had erected a strong fortification, which was afterward 
called Fort Edward. '^ On his arrival, Johnson took command, and with the 
main body of the troops, marched to the head of Lake George, about fifteen 
miles distant, where he established a camp, protected on both sides by an im- 
passable swamp. 

While the provincial troops were making these preparations, General the 
Baron Dieskau (a French officer of mucli repute), witli about two thousand 
men, chiefly Canadian militia and Indians, was approaching from Montreal, 
by way of Lake Champlain, to meet the English.' When Johnson arrived at 
Lake George, on the 7th of September, Indian scouts informed him that Dies- 
kau was disembarliing at the heail of Lake Chamj^lain (now the village of 

' Tribes of the Six Nations [papro 25], and some Stockbridgo Indians. The latter were called 
Housatonics, from tlio river on wliich they were found. They were a division of tlie Mohegan 
[page 21] triljo. 

' Fort Ontario on the east, and Fort Pcppcrell on tho west of Oswego River. Fort Pepperell 
was afterward called Fort Oswego. See map, page 192. The house waa built of stone, and the 
walls were three feet tliiok. It was within a square inclosure composed of a thick wall, and two 
strong square towers. 

' Upon this tongue of land on Lake Champlain, tho French erected a fortification, which they 
called Fort St. Frederick. On the Vermont side of tho lake, opposite, there was a French settle- 
ment as early a.s 1731. In allusion to the <liimnie3 of their liousos, which remained long after tho 
settlement was destroyed, it is still known as Chimney Point. 

* Pago 185. 

' Born in Durham, Connecticut, in tho year 171G. Ho was a graduate of Tale College, and be- 
came a lawyer. He was a member of tho colonial Assembly in 1750, and performed important 
services during the wliole war tliat soon afterwanl ensued. He commanded the expedition that 
captured Havana in 1762; and at the peace, in 17G3, he became concerned in lands in the Missis- 
sippi region. He died in Florida in 1776. 

° It was first called Fort Lyman. Johnson, meanly jealous of General Lyman, changed the 
name to Fort Edward. 

' Dieskau and his French troops, on their way from France, narrowly escaped capture by Ad- 
miral Boscawen, who waa cruising, with an English fleet, ofl' Nev/fouucUaud. They eluded his fleet 
during a fog, and went in safety up the St. Lawrence. 



100 



TIIK COLONIES. 



[1758. 




FORT KDWAni). 



Wliit(>li;ill), preparatory to nmrcliing af:;;iinst Fort Edward. The next scouts 
hrimglit .Idlihsdii tlie iiitclligeiici' that Dieskau's Indiana, 
terrified hy tlio Eiiglisli cannons \vhen they approached 
Fort lulward, had inihieed liini to cliange hia phins, and 
that he \Yas niarciiini^ to attack his camp. Colonel 
Epliraini 'Williams, of Deer field, Massachusetts, was imme- 
diately sent [8ept. 8], with a thousand troops from that 
colony, and two hundred Mohawks,' under the famous chief, 
llendrick, to intercept the enemy. They met in a narrow 
defde, four miles from Lake Geori:;e. The Enj^lish sud- 
denly fell into an amliuseiide. Williams and llendrick 
were both killed,' and llieir followers fell back in great con- 
fusion, upon Johnson's cam]), hotly pursued by the victors. One of the Mas- 
sachusetts regiments, which i'ought bravely in this action, was connnandcd by 
Timothy Ruggles, who was president of the Stamp Act Congress," held at New 
York in 170"), but who, when the Revolution broke out, was active on the side 
of the Crown. 

The commander-in-chief was assured of the disaster before the flying fugi- 
tives made their appearance, lie immediately cast up a breastwork of logs and 
limbs, placed upon it two cannons which ho had received from Fort Edward 
two days before, and when the enemy came rushing on, 
close upon the heels of the English, he was ])re])are(l to 
receive them. The fugitives had just reached Johnson's 
camp when Dieskau and his flushed victors appeared. 
Unsuspicious of heavy guns upon so rude a pile as John- 
son's battery exhibited, they rushed forward, with sword, 
pike, and tomahawk, and made a spiritetl attjick. One 
volley from the English cannons made the Indians flee in 
terror to the shelter of the deep forests around. The Ca- 
nadian militia also fled, as General Lyman and a body of 
troojis approached from Fort Edward ; and, finally, the French troops, after 
contiiming the conflict several hours, and losing their connnander,' withdrew, 
and hastened to Crown Point. Their baggage was captured by some New 
IIain])sliire troops from Fort Edward, and the defeat was complete. 

(ieneral Johnson erected a fortification on the site of his Ciimp, at the head 
of the lake, and called it Fort William Henry. It was constructed under the 
direction of Rii'hard Ci-idley, who commanded the artillery in the siege of 
Louisburg, ten years before." Being informed that the French were strcngth- 




SUt WILLIAM JOHNSON. 



' Pnpo 2X 

' Wliili" on his way north, WiUi.inia stopped at Alhnny, made liin will, and lipquonthpd rprtain 
property to fonnd a free school for western Mnssnehnsi'tts. That was the loiindntion of " Willinma' 
(\)'lie(;e" — his best moiunnent. The roek near whieli his boily was foniul, on the riplit side of tho 
road iVoin IJlenn's Falls to Ijake George, still bears his nnnio; and a eolleetion of water on the bat- 
tJc-jrroimd, is ealled litoody Voiiii. ' PafTO 216. 

* Dieskan wa-s found mortally wounded, carried into tho EDgligh camp, and there tenderly 
treatoit. Ho was afterward conveyed to New York, icom whence ho sailed to Knpland, where h» 
dieil. • Nuto 1, page 137. 



1703.] 



THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR. 



191 



ening their works at Crown Point, iuiil were fortifying Ticonderoga,' he tliought 

it prudent to cease offensive operations, lie garrisoned Fort Edward ;uid Fort 

William Henry, returned to Albany, and as the season was 

advanced [October, 1755J, lie dispersed the remainder of his 

troops. For his services in this campaign, the king conferred 

the honor of knighthood upon him, and gave him twenty-fivo 

thousand dollars with which to support the dignity. This 

honor and emolument properly belonged to General Lyman, 

the real hero of the campaign." Johnson had Sir Peter Warren 

and other friends at court, and so won the unmerited prize. 




FORT Wll.l.l/Va 
llENltY. 




ABERCROMBIE. 



CAMPAIGN OF 1756. 

The home governments now took up the quarrel. The campaign of 1755, 
having assumed all the essential features of regular war, and there aj)pcaring 
no prospect of reconciliation of the belligerents, England formally proclaimed 
hostilities against France, on the 17tli of May, 1756, and the latter soon after- 
ward [June 9 J rcciprocrated the action. Governor 
Shirley, who had become communder-in chief, after the 
death of Braddock, was superseded by General Aber- 
crombie^ in the spring of 1756. lie came as the lieu- 
tenant of Lord Loudon, whom the king had appointed 
to the chief command in America, and also governor of 
Virginia. Loudon was an indolent man, and a remark- 
able procrastinatcr, and the active genei'al-in-chief was 
Abercrombic, who, also, was not remarkable for his 
skill and forethought as a commander. He arrived 
with several British regiments early in June. The 
plan of the campaign for that year had already been arranged by a convention 
of colonial governors held at Albany early in the season. Ten thousand men 
were to attack Crown Point;* six thousand were to proceed against Niagara;' 
three thousand against Fort du Quesne ;" and two thousand were to cross the 
country from the Kennebec, to attack the French settlements on the Chaudiero 
River. 

The command of the expedition against Crown Point was intrusted to Gen- 
eral Winslow,' who had collected seven thousand men at Albany, when Aber- 

' Page 196. 

' Lyman urfjod Johnson to pursue tlio Frencli, ami nsaail Crown Point. Tlio Mohawks Ijumed 
for an opportunity to avon^^e tlio (loath of HcMidriek. But .lolinsoii prefcrrod oa.so anil .>!afoty, and 
spoilt the autumn in construolinp; Fort Williani lloiuy. Ho meanly withheld all praiso from Ly- 
man, in liis dispatolios to povornmcnt. Jolinson wa-s lioni in Irulanil. in 1714. lie c.itno to Amer- 
iea to tako charp;6 of tho lands of his unelo, Admiral Warren [page 1.37], on tho Mohawk River, 
»nd trained great inHueneo over tho Indians of New York. Ho died at his seat (now tho village 
of Johnstown) in tho Mohawk valley, in 1774. 

' A strouEf party in England, irritated by tho failures of the campaign of 17.55, cast tho blamo 
of Bniddo"k's defeat and otlicr disasters, upon tlio American.s, and finally procured tlic recall of 
Shirley. Ho completely vindicated liis cliaracter, and was afterward appointed governor of the- 
Bahama Islands. * Page 200. » Pago 200. " Page 186. ' Page 185. 



19i 



THE COLONIES. 



[1756. 



cromhie arrived. Difficulties immediately occurred, respecting military rank, 
and caused delay. They were nut adju.sted -when the tardy Loudon arrived, at 
niidsunnner; and his arrogant assumption of superior rank for the royal officers, 
increased the irritation and discontent of the provincial troops. When these 
matti'rs were finally adjusted, in August, the French liad gained such jwsitive 
advantages, that the whole plan of the campaign was disconcerted. 

Barou Dieskau' was succeeded by the Marquis de Montcalm, in the com- 
mand of the I'l-ench troops in Canada. Perceiving tlie delay of the English, 
and knowing that a large number of their troops was at Albany, short of pro- 
visions, and suffering from small-po.x, and counting wisely upon the inefficiency 
of their commander-in-chief, lie collected about five thousand Frenchmen, Ca- 
nadians, and Indians, at Frontenac,'^ and crossing Lake Ontario, landed, with 
thirty pieces of cannon, a few miles east of Oswego. Two days afterward, he 
appeared before Fort Ontario [Aug. 11, 175GJ, on the cast side of the river, 
then in command of Colonel Mercer. After a short but brave resistance, the 
garrison abandoned the fort [Aug. 12], and withdrew to an older fortification, 
on the west side of the river.^ Their commander was killed, and they were 
soon obliged to surrender themselves [Aug. 14] prisoners 
of war. The spoils of victory for Montcalm, were four- 
teen hundred prisoners, a large amount of military stores, 
consisting of small arms, ammunition, and provisions ; one 
hundred and thirty-four pieces of cannon, and several ves- 
sels, large and small, iu the harbor. After securing them, 
he demolished the forts, ^ and returned to Canada. The 
whole country of the Six Nations was now laid open to 
the incursions of the French. 
The loss of Oswego was a severe blow to the English. When intelligence 
of that event reached Loudon, he recalled the troops then on their way toward 
Lake Champlaiu ; and all the other expeditions were abandoned. Forts Wil- 
liam Henry* and Edward" were strengthened ; fifteen hundred volunteers and 
drafted militia, under Wa.shington, were placed in stockades' fi)r the defense of 
the Pennsylvania and Virginia frontiers ; and on tlie western borders of the 
Carolinas several military posts were established as a protection against the 




Otor 

OSHIGO 

oswEcol; 



FORTS AT OSWEGO. 






' Pasje 189. ' Note 5, page 180. 

' A palisaded block-house, built by order of Governor Burnet in 
1727, near the spot whore Fort Pcpperell w.-us erected. A redoubt 
or block-houso is a fortified buildin);, of pccviliar construction, well cal- 
culated for defense. They were pcncrally built of logs, in tlie form 
represented in the cn.irravin.c. They were usually two stories, with 
niirrow openinirs tlu'uutrh wliicli to tire nniskets t'rom within. They 
were soinetinies prepared with openings for cannons. 

* This was to please the Si.x Nations, wlio had never felt eon 
tented with this supporter of power in their midst. The demolition 
of these fort,s, induced the Indians to assume an attitude of neutrality, 
by a solenm treaty. 

' Pafce 191. It commanded a view of the lake from its head to 
the Narrows, tiftcen miles. 
" Pa(!:e 190. The Hudson is divided at Kurt lOdward, into two channels, by RoRor's Island, 
upon which the provincial troops out of the fort, usually encamped. ' Note 2, page 183. 




BLOCK HOUSE. 



1163.] THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR. 193 

€herokees' and Creeks," whom French emissaries were exciting to hostilities 
as^ainst the English. Hitherto, since the commencement of hostilities, some of 
the colonial Assemblies had been slow to make appropriations for the support 
01 the war. Pennsylvania and South Carolina, actuated by different motives, 
had held back, but now the former made an appropriation of thirty thousand 
pounds, to be issued in paper, and the latter granted four thousand pounds 
toward enlisting two companies for the public service. 

The most important achievement of the provincials during that year, was 
the chastisement of the Indians at Kittaning, their chief town, situated on the 
Alleghany River. During several months they had spread terror and desola- 
tion along the western frontiers of Pennsylvania and A'^irginia, and almost a 
thousand white people had been murdered or carried into captivity. These acts 
aroused the people of Pennsylvania, and Dr. Franklin undertook the military 
command of the frontier, with the rank of colonel. His troops were voluntary 
militia. Under his directions, a chain of forts and blockhouses was erected 
along the base of the Kittaning mountains, from the Delaware to the Maryland 
line. Franklin soon perceived that he was not in his right place, and he 
abandoned militai-y life forever. The Indians continuing their depredations, 
Colonel John Armstrong of Pennsylvania,^ accompanied by Captain Mercer' of 
Virginia, with about three hundred men, attacked them on the night of the 7tli 
of September [1756], killed their principal chiefs, destroyed their town, and 
completely humbled them. Thus ended the campaign of 1756. The French 
still held in possession almost all of the territory in dispute, and of the most 
important of their military posts. They had also expelled the English from 
Oswego and Lake George, and had compelled the powerful Six Nations to 
make a treaty of neutrality. On the whole, the campaign of 1756 closed with 
advantages on the part of the French. 

CAMPAIGN OF 1757. 

A military council was held at Boston on the 19th of January, 1757, when 
Lord Loudon proposed to confine the operations of that year to an expedition 
against Louisburg," and to the defense of the frontiers. Because he was com- 
mander-in-chief, wiser and better men acquiesced in his plans, but deplored his 
want of judgment and executive force. The people of New England, in par- 
ticular, were greatly disappointed when they ascertained that the execution of 
their favorite scheme of driving the French from Lake Champlain was to be 
defen-ed. However, the general ardor of the colonists was not abated, and the 
call for troops was so promptly responded to, that Loudon found himself at the 
head of six thousand provmcials on the first, of June. The capture of Louis- 
burg was Loudon's first care. He sailed from New York on the 20th of that 
month, and on arriving at Halifax ten days afterward [June 30], he was joined 

' Page 27. ' Page 30. 

' He was a general ia the war for Independence, twenty years later. See note 1, page 249i. 
* Page 2G9. ' Page 131 

13 



194 



THK COLONIES. 



[1766. 



by Admiral Ilolborne, witli a powerful naval armament and five thousand land 
troops, from Enj^laiul. 'I'lioy wore about to proceed to Cape Breton,' wi..'n 
they wero iiilbrnied that six thousand troops were iu the fortress at Louishurg,'' 
and that a Frencli fleet, larger than lIolborne"s, was lying in tliat iiai'bor. 
Tlie latter liad arrived and taken jiosition wliile Loudon was moving sKnvly, 
with liis cliaraeteristic indecision. Tlie enterprise was abandoned, and Loudon 
returned to New York [Aug. 31], to hear of defeat and disgrace on the corth- 
eru frontier, tlie result ofiiis ignorance and utter iinskillfulness. 

Montcalm had again borne away important trophies of victory. Toward 
the close of July, he left Ticonderoga with about eight thousand men (of whom 
two thousand were Indians), and proceeded to besiege Fort William Henry, at 
the iiead of Lake (leorge.'' The garrison of tliree thousaiul men was commandeil 
by Colonel Monro, a bravo English officer, who felt strengthened in his position 
by the close proximity of his ciiief, General Webb, wlio was at the Iiead of four 
tliousaiul troops at Fort Edward,* oidy fifteen miles distant. Lut his confidence 
in his commanding general was sadly misplaced. Wiien Montcalm demanded a 
surrender of the fort and gariison f.Vugust 4, 1757J. Monro lioldly refused, and 
sent an express to Cieneral Webl), for aid. It was not furnislicd. For si.x days 
I\Iontcalm continued the siege, and expresses were sent daily to W'ebb for rein- 
forcements, but in vain. Even when General Jolinson,' with a corps of 
provincials and Putnam's Rangers," had, on reluctant permission, marched 
several miles in the direction of the beleaguered fort, Webb 
recalled them, and sent a letter to Monro, advising him to 
surrender. That letter was intercepted by Montcahn,' and 
with a peremptory demand for capitulation, he sent it to 
Monro. Perceiving further resistance to be useless, Monro 
yielded. Montcalm was so pletised with the bravery dis- 
played by the garrison, that he agreed upon very honorable 
terms of surrender, and promised the troo])s a safe escort to 
Fort Edward. His Indians, expecting blood and booty. 
■were enraged by the merciful terms, and at the moment 
when the Englisli entered tlie forests a mile from F(^rt Wil- 
liam Henry, the savages fell upon tiiem with great fury, 
slaughterwl a largo number, plundered their baggage, and 
pursued them to witliin camion shot of Fort Edward. 
Montcalm declared iiis inability to restrain the Indians, and 
exjiressed his deep sorrow. The fort and all its appendages were burned 
or otJierwise destroyed.' It -was never rebuilt ; and until 1854, nothing marked 

Notp r>, pafTP !.■?■.■ ' rnpo 137. " Papc 101. • Pofio 190. » Pajre 100. 

Israel rutnam, alVrward a mnjor-general in tlio army of the Revolution. IIo now held the 
ccimuiissioii of major, and with Major Rogers and his rangers, performed important services during 
t'..c whole Fronoli and liuliim War. 

" It is said tliat Montcalm was just on the point of raising the siege and returning to Ticon- 
derogih wlion Wehli'.s eowardly letter fill into his hand.s. The number and stn'ngth of Johnson 'i 
troops .'lad lioen greatly exagjterated, and Montcalm was preparing to lice. 

" Major rntiiiuii visited the ruins while the llrcs were yet burning, and he described the sceno 
US very iippiilliug. The bodies of murdered KngUshmcQ were scattered iu every direction, some of 




LAKE OEOROE AND 
VICINITY. 



HGIi.] FRENCH A X 1) INDIAN WAR. 105 

its site but an irregular line of low mounds on the border of the lake, a short 
distance from the village of Caldwell. Since then a hotel has been erected 
upon the spot, for the accommodation of summer tourists. Thus ended tho 
milifciry operations of the inefficient Earl of Loudon, for the year 1757. 

The po.4ition of affairs in America now alarmed the English peojde. The 
result of the war, thus far, was humiliating to British pride, while it incited 
the French to greater efforts in the maintenance of their power in the West. 
In the Anglo-American' colonies there was much irritation. Thoroughly 
imbued with democratic ideas, and knowing their competency, unaided by royal 
troops, to assert and maintain their rights, they regarded the interferences of 
the home government as clogs upon their ojjerations. Some of the royal gov- 
ernors were incompetent and rapacious, and all were marked by a haughty 
deportment, offensive to the sturdy democracy of the colonists. Their demands 
for men and money, did not always meet with cheerful and ample responses ; 
and the arrogant assumption of the English officers, disgusted the coiiimanders 
of the provincial troops, and often cooled the zeal of whole battalions of brave 
Americans. Untrammeled by the orders, exactions, and control of imperial 
power, the Americans would prol)ably have settled the whole mitter in a single 
campaign; but at the close of the second year of the war [175G] the result 
appeared more uncertain and remote than ever. The people of England had 
perceived this clearly, and clamored for tlie dismissal of tin; weak and corrupt 
ministry then in power. The popular will prevailed, and William Pitt, by far 
the ablest statesman England had yet produced, was called to the control of 
public affairs in June, 1757. Energy and good judgment marked every move-' 
ment of his administration, especially in measures for prosecuting the war in 
America. Lord Loudon was recalled,' and General Abercrombie' was appointed 
to succeed him. A strong naval arinamont was prepared and iikiccd under the 
command of Admiral Boscawen; and twelve thousand additional English troops 
were allotted to the service in America.'' Pitt addi-cssed a letter to the several 
colonies, asking them to raise and clotiie twenty thousau<l men. lie promised, 
in the name of Parliament, to furnish arras, tents, and provisions for them ; 
and also to reimburse the several colonies all the money they should expend in 
raising and olotliing the levies. These liberal offers had a niagie:il effect, and 
an excess of levies soon ajipeared. New England alone raised fifteen thousand 
men;' New York furnished almost twenty-seven hundred, New Jersey one 

them half consumed among the embers of the conflagration. Among the dearl were more than one 
hundred women, many of wliom liad been .«oalped [note 4, pnpe 14] by the Indiiins. 

ThiH is thi' title ijiven to Amerii'aMs who are of l<>inlisli deseent. Thoso wlio are dcsecndanta 
of the Saxons who aettlcHl in Kn;j;land, are ealled Anirio-Saxons. 

Pitt gave as a chief reason for reeallini; liOMdini, that lie eoiild never hear from him, and did 
not know what he was abo\it. London wius alu-ays arranging gre.'it plans, hnl exei'Uted nothing. 
It was remarked to Dr. Franklin, wlien ho made inr(niries concerning him, that ho was "like St. 
George on the signs — always on horseback, but never rides forward." ' Page 191. 

* Pitt had arranged such an admirable militia system for home defense, that a largo number of 
the troops of the standing army coidd bo spared for foreign service. 

'■ Pulilic and private adv.ances during 1758. in Ma.ss.achusetts alone, amounted to more than a 
million of dollars. The taxes on real estate, in (jrder to raise money, were enoriuotis ; in many 
instances equid to two thirds of the income of the tax-payers. Yet it w.as levied Inj l/ieir mm rqrr' ■ 
eentatives, and they did not nmrmur. A few years later, au almost nominal tax in the form of dm/ 



196 



THE COLONIKS. 



[1766. 



thousand, Pennsylvania almost three thousand, and "\'irginia over two thousand. 
Some came from other colonies. Royal American troops (as tliey were called) 
organized in the Carolinas, were ordered to the Nortii ; and when Abercrombie 
took command of the army in the month of May, 1758, he found fifty thousand 
men at his dis))osal ; a number greater than the whole male population of the 
French dominions in America, at that time." 




LORD .\JinEnST. 



CAMPAIGN OF 1158. 

The plan of the campaign of 1758, was comprehensive. Louisburg," Ticon- 
deroga, and Fort du Quesne," were the principal points of operations pccified in 
it. This was a renewal of Shirley's scheme, and ample 
preparations were made to carry it out. The first blow 
was directed against Louisburg. Admiral Boscawen 
arrived at Halifax early in May, with al)Out forty armed 
vessels bearing a laiRl force of over twelve thousand men, 
under General Amherst' as chief, and General Wolfe^ as 
his lieutenant. They left Halifax on the 28th of May, 
and on the 8th of June, the troops landed, without much 
opposition, on the shore of Gabarus Bay, near the city 
of Louisl)urg.° The French, alarmed by this demonstra- 
tion of power, almost immediately deserted their outposts, 
and retired within the town and fortress. After a vigorous resistance of almost 
fifty days, and when all their sliipping in the liarl)orwas destroyed, the French 
surrendered the town and fort, together with the island of Cape Breton and 
that of St. John (now Prince Edward), and their dependencies, by capitulation, 
on the 2Gth of July, 1758. The spoils of victory were more than five thousand 
prisoners, and a large quantity of munitions of war. By this victory, the 
English became masters of the coast almost to the mouth of the St. Lawrence. 
When Louislmrg fell, the power of France in America began to wane, and from 
that time its decline was continual and rapid. 

Activity now prevailed everywhere. While Amherst 
and Wolfe were concjuering in the East, Abercrombie and 
young Howe were leading seven thousand regulars, nine 
thousand provincials, and a heavy train of artillery, 
against Ticonderoga, then occupied by Montcalm with 
almost four thousand men. Abercrombic's army had ren- 
dezvoused at the head of Lake George, and at the close 
of a calm Sab])ath evening [July, 1758] they went down 
that beautiful sheet of water in flat-boats, and at dawn 

upon an article of luxury, levied without their consent, excited the people of that colony to rebellion. 
See pane 109. 

' The totiJ number of inhabitants in Canada, then capable of bearing arms, did not exceed 
twenty thousand. Of them, between four and five thousand were regular troops. 

" Pago 229. ' Pago 186. 

' Lord .Tpflroy Amherst was born in Kent, Kngland, in 1717. lie was commander-in-chief of 
the army in Kiigland, during a part of our Wiir for iiidopenUoncc, and afterward He died in 1797, 
aged ciglity vcars. ° Note 8, page 200. ° Note 5, page 137. 




TIOONDEROOA. 



I76;i.] 



THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR. 



197 




LORD HOWE. 



[July 6] landed at its nortliern extremity. Tlie whole 
country from there to Ticonderoga was then covered 
with -^ dense forest, and tangled morasses lay in the 
pathway of the Englisli army. Led by incompetent 
guides, they were soon bewildered, and while in this 
conditioi. they were suddenly attacked by a French 
scouting party. The enemy was repulsed, but the vic- 
tory was a^ the expense of the life of Lord IIowc' lie 
fell at the head of the advanced guard, and a greater 
part of the troops, who considered him the soul of the 
expedition, retreated in confusion to the landing-place. 

In the midst of the temporary confusion incident to the death of Howe, 
intelligence reached Abercrombie that a reinforcement for Montcnlm was 

approaching. Deceived concern- 
ing the strength of the French 
lines across the neck of the pen- 
insula on which the fortress stood," 
he pressed forward to the attack 
without his artillery, and ordered 
his troops to scale the breast- 
works [July 8], in the face of 
the enemy's fire. These proved 
much stronger than he antici- 
pated, ^ and after a bloody con- 
flict of four hours, Abercrombie 
fell back to Lake George, leav- 
ing almost two thousand of his men dead or wounded, in the deep forest.* He 
hastened to his former camp at the head of the lake, and tlien, on the urgent 
solicitation of Colonel Bradstreet, he detached three thousand men under that 
officer, to attack the French post at Frontenac.^ They went by way of Oswego 




RUINS OF TICONDEROGA. 



' Lord Howe was brother of Admirnl Lord Howe, who commanded the British fleet on the 
Amerioan coast, in 1776-77, and ol'Sir WilUam Howe, the commander of the land forces. He was 
greatly beloved by the troops; and Mante, wlio was in the service, remarks: "With him tlie soul 
of tlie expedition seemed to expire." He was only thirty-four years of age when he fell. The 
legislature of Massachusetts Bay appropriated one thousand two hundred and fifty dollars for a 
monument to his memory, in Westminster Abbey. His remains were conveyed to Albany by 
Captain (afterward General) Philip Schuyler, and there placed in a vault belonging to the fiimily 
of that officer. They were .afterward removed to a place under the chancel of St. Peter's Church, 
on State-street, Albany, where they remain. At the time of their removal, it was found that Lord 
Howe's hair, which was very short when he was killed, had grown several inclies, and exhibited 
beautiful smooth and glossy locks. 

' The diagram (p. 196) .shows the general form of the princip.al works. The ground on which 
Ticonderoga stood is about one hundred feet above the level of the lake. Water is upon three sides, 
and a deep morass extends almcst across the fourth, forming a narrrow neck, wliere tlie Frencli had 
erected a strong line of breastworks with batteries. This fine was about a mile north-west of tlie 
fortress, which occupied the point of the peninsula. The ruins of the fort, delineated in the above 
sketch, are yet [1883] quite picturesque. 

' The breastworks were nine feet in height, covered in front by sharpened branches of felled 
trees, pointing outward like a mass of bayonet.s. 

' Among ttie wounded was Captain Charles Lee, afterward a general in the army of the Revo- 
lution. See note 4. page 248. ' Page 180. 



jgs^ THE COLON IKS. fllSC. 

and Lake Ontario, and two days after landing [August 27, 1758], tlicy cap- 
tured the fort, garrison, and shipping, without much resistance.' Bradstreet 
lost only three or four men in the conflict, but a fearful sickness broke out in 
his camp, and destroyed about five hundi-ed of them. AVith the remainder, he 
i !o\vly retraced his steps, and at the carrying-place on the Mohawk, where the 
A- illage of Rome now stands, his troops assisted in building Fort Stanwix.' Aber- 
crombie, in the mean while, after garrisoning Fort George,^ returned with the 
remainder of his troops to All)any. 

The expedition against Fort du Quesne,' in the West, was commanded by 
General Joseph Fbrbos, who, in July, had about six thousand men at his dis- 
posal, at Fort Cumberland and Raystown, including the Virginia troops under 
Colonel Washington, the Carolina Royal Americans, and an auxiliary force of 
Cherokee Indians. Protracted sickness, and perversity of will and judgment 
on the part of Forbes, caused delays almost fatal to the expedition. Contrary 
to the advice of Washington, he insisted, under the advice of some Pennsylvania 
land speculators, in constructing a new road, further north, over the mountains, 
instead of following the one made by Braddock. Ilis progress was so slow, that 
in September, when it was known that not more than eight hundred men were 
at Fort du Quesne,' Forbes, with six thousand troops, was yet east of the Al- 
leghanies. Major Grant, at the head of a scouting party of Colonel Bouque t's 
advanced corps, was attacked [Sept 21], defeated, and made prisoner. Still 
Forbes moved slowly and methodically, and it was November [Nov. 8], before 
he joined Bouquet with the main body, fifty miles from the point of destina- 
^ tion. The approach of winter, and discontent of the troops, caused a counsel 
of war to decide upon abandoning the enterprise, when three prisoners gave 
information of the extreme weakness of the French garrison. Washington 
was immediately sent forward, and the whole army prepared to follow. In- 
dian scouts discovered the Virginians when they were within a day's march 
of the fort, and their fear greatly magnified the number of the provincials. 
The French garrison, reduced to five hundred men, set fire to.the fort [Nov. 
24], and fled down the Ohio in boats, in great confusion, leaving every thing 
behind them. The Virginians took possession the following day. Forbes 
left a detachment of four hundred and fifty men, to repair and garrison the 
fort, and then hastened back to go into winter quarters. The name of Fort 
du Quesne was changed to Fort Pitt, in honor of the great English statesman.* 

' They made eight hundred prisoners, and seized nine armed vessels, sixty c.innoiis, sixteen 
mortars, a largo quantity of ammunition and store.s, and )?oods (U'sipned for tratBe with the Indians. 
Among Bradstreet's subalterns, was Nathaniel WoodhuU, afterward a general at the conimeneemeiit 
of tho'w'ar for Independence. [See note 3, p.igo 252.] Stark, Ward, Pomeroy, Gridley, Putnam, 
Sehuyler, and many others who were di.sting\iished in tho Revolutionary struggle, were active par- 
tieipants in the scenes of the I'rcnch and Indian War. 

" Page 278. 

• Fort George was erected about a mile south-east of the ruins of Fort, 'William Henry, at tho 
head of Lake George. Tho ruins of tho main work, or citadel, are still [188.SJ quite prominent 

* Page 1S6. 

' Tho capture of Fort Frontenac spread alarm among the French west of that important post, 
because their supplies from Canada were c-ut otl'. It so all'ei'tod the Indians with fear, that a greater 
part of those who were allied to tho Froueh, deserted them, and I'ort du Quesne was feebly gar- 
1 nned. ' Page 195. 



1163.] THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR. 199 

With this event, closed the campaign of 1758, which resulted in great gain 
to the English. Thej had effectually humbled the French, by capturing three 
of their most important posts,' and by weakening the attachment of their 
Indian allies. Many of the Indians had not only deserted the French, but at 
a great council held at Easton, on the Delaware, during the summer of that year 
they had, with the Six Nations,'- made treaties of friendship or neutrality 
with the English.' The right arm of French success was thus paralyzed, and 
peace was restored to the frontiers of Pennsylvania and Virginia. 

CAMPAIGN or 1759. 

Four years had elapsed since the commencement of this inter-colonial war. 
The final struggle was now at hand. Encouraged by the success of the cam- 
paigns just closed, Pitt ' conceived the magnificent scheme of Conquering all 
Canada, and destroying, at one blow, the French dominion in America. That 
dominion was now confined to the region of the St. Lawrence, for more distant 
settlements in the west and south, were like weak colonies cut off from the 
parent country. Pitt had the rare fortune to possess the entire confidence and 
esteem of the Parliament and the colonists. The former was dazzled by his 
greatness ; the latter were deeply impressed with his justice. He had promptly 
reimbursed all the expenses incurred by the provincial Assemblies during the 
campaign,* amounting to almost a million of dollars, and they as promptly sec- 
onded his scheme of conquest, which had been communicated to them mider an. 
oath of secresy. The unsuccessful Abercrombie^ was succeeded by the success- 
ful Amherst," and early in the spring of 1759, the new commander-in-chief 
found twenty thousand provincial troops at his disposal. A competent land and 
naval force was also sent from England to co-operate with the Americans, and 
the campaign opened with brilliant prospects for the colonies. The general 
plan of operations against Canada was similar to that of Phipps and Winthrop 
in 1690.' A strong land and naval force, under General Wolfe, was to ascend 
the St. Lawrence, and attack Quebec. Another force, under Amherst, was to 
drive the French from Lake Champlain, seize Montreal, and join Wolfe at 
Quebec : and a third expedition, commanded by General Prideaux, was to cap- 
ture Fort Niagara, and then hasten down Lake Ontario to Montreal. 

On the 22d of July, 1759, General Amherst appeared before Ticonderoga 
with eleven thousand men. The French commander had just heard of the 
arrival of Wolfe at Quebec [June 27], and offered no resistance. The garrison 
left the lines on the 23d of July, and retired within the fort, and three days 
afterward [July 26] they abandoned that also, partially demolished it, and fled 
to Crown Point. Amherst pursued them, and on his approach, they took to 
their boats [Aug. 1], and went down the lake to Isle Aux Noix,' in the Sorel 

' Louisburg, Frontenae, and Du Quesne. Others, except Quebec, were stockades. Note 2, 
page 183. a Page 25. 

3 The chief tribes represented, were the Delawares, Shawnees, Nanticokes, Mohegans, Conoys, 
and Monseys. The Twightwee.s. on the Ohio [page 19], had always remained the friends of the 
EngUsh. < Page 195. ' Page 191. 

" Page 196. ' Page 131. ' Pronounced Noo-ak 




TIIK fOLONMKS. 



1176& 



CUUH.N ri'lM'. 



Auilii'ist rciiminctl ;it (^niwii I'oiiit luii'i cnougli to construct a sufficient 
iiuihIkt of link' luiats to I'Diivoy his troops, artillery, und bag- 
gage, and then started to drive liis enemy before liini, aeross tiio 
St. Lawrence. It was now inid-autunin [Oct. 11], and heavy 
storms i'om|)elled him to return to Crown I'oiiit, anil place his 
troops in winter tiuarters.' While there, they constructed that 
strong fortress, ^Yho8o j)ictures(iuc ruins, after the lapse of more 
than a hundred years, yet | lSS:i| attest its strength. 
Accompanied by Sir ^Villiam Johnson, as his lieuten- 
ant, Trideaiix collected liis forces (chieHy {)rovinciaIs)' 
at Oswego, and .sailed from thence to Niagara. IIo 
landed without opposition, on the ITtli of July, and im- 
mediately couftuenced the siege. On the same day ho 
WIS killed, by the bursting of a gun, and was succeeded 
in command by tleueral .lohnson. Tlio beleaguered gar- 
rison, in daily expectation of reinforceuuuUs which had 
been ordered from the southern and western forts, held 
out bravely for three Aveeks, -when, on the :24th of July, 
the expected troops ai)peared. Tiiey were almost three thousand strong, one 
half being French regulars, and the reuninder Indians, many of them from tho 
Creek* and Cherokee'' nations. A severe eoidlict ensued. The relief forces 
were completely routed, and on the following day (July 2")|, Fort Niagara ajid 
iti* dependencies, and the garrison of seven huinlred men, were surrendered to 
Johnson. Tho connecting link of French military posts between Canada and 
Louisiana'' was elVectually broken, nover again to be united. Encumbered with 
his ni'isoners, and iinable to procure a sufficient number of vessels for tho pur- 
pose, Johnson could not j)roceed to Montreal, to co-operato with Amherst and 
Wolfe on tho St. Lawrence, aceonliug to tho original plan.' lie garrisoned 
Fort Niagara, and returninl home. 

.\nimated with high hopes, AVolfe'' left Louisburg, with eight thousand 
tJXK)ps, under a convoy of twenty-two liuo-of-battle ships, and as many frigates 




KOUT NIAOARA. 



' ^VIlil^> i>t Oi-own Point, Major Rogers, nt tlio liomi of Iiis polohrntptl Unntrcrs. wont on nn ox- 
pcilitioM ;iir:iinst llio St. Knmois Imiiiins, wlio li;iil lomr Ihhmi ii ti'iror to tlio ll-onlicr scllliinont!* of 
New iMitfiiinil. Tlio \•illal^> w.-i.-i (U'.stiMViii, a laiyo nuiiilior of Iniliaiis woiv .slain, and tlio Uanwrs 
woiv wniplololy violorioii.i, 'fliov !iiilloivil fiiaii >.v\i\ and lmiii,i'r wliilo on tlioir n>tuni, and many 
woro U'lt doad in tlio l"on>st boion* llio parly rvaohod tlio noan'.<t soltloinont at Hollows Kails. 
Uopoix wont to Kn^'land altor tho war, n>tiirnod in 177B, joined tho Britisli nrniy at Now York, 
Bud soon wont to l')iiu;land aijain, \vhon> lio diod. 

" Tho aliovo diagram sliows ttio ^^■nol•al form of tlip military works nt Crown Point. Tliosp. 
like tho niins at Tii-ondorojra, aiv quilo iiiolnn'squo it'mains of tlio past. A .V A shows tho position 
of tho slmiii; slono Imrnioks, portions of wliioh aiv vol slandiiiir. \V shows tho plaoo of a very doop 
woU, diiir tiu-oni'h tho so\>d rook. It was lillod up. and so ii'iiiainod iinlil a low yoars ai,'\\ wlion 
Romo nioiioy-dijrijia's, fimlishly lioliovinir llion> was tioasinv at tho lioltom, oloanod it out, Thoy 
found nothimr hnl a low s, nips of ir<Mi ami ollior rulihish. 

' .lohnson 's inlliuiuv ovor llio Si.\ Nations, miido many of tliom disrojftmi tho tronty of noutnil- 
Itv niado with Montoulni [noto 4, pnjfo \9'i], and a wiisidoniblo numbor ncconipaniiHt him to 
^fillKara. ' Pairo 'M\ ' Pa({o 27. ' Pairo ISO. ^ Pai.n> 199, 

" .lamos Wolfo was tho son of a Rritish jn-nond. and was horn in Kont, Knsland, in 1726. Bo- 
thro ho wiu twenty yom-s of ai^', ho was distinguished in battle, llo was now only thirty-lhro* 
yeiars old. 



ncs.] 



TIIIC KRKNCII AND INDIAN \\'.\]l. 



201 




QENHliAl, WilLI'K. 



and smaller armed vessels, coiniiiiindcd liy Adniiiuls Holmes and Saunders, iiiid, 

on the 27tii of June, landed upon Orleans island, a i'lw miles below QuelxH'. 

That eity then, as now, eonsistcd oF an Upper and Lower Town, the i'ormer 

within fortified walls, upon the top and deelivities of a high peninsula; Ihii 

latter lying upon a narrow beach at the edge of tiio 

water. Upon the heights, three hundred feet above the 

^atcr, was a level plateau ealled tlu^ I'laiiis of Ahra- 

ham. At the mouth of the St. Charles, which hero 

enters tlu- St. Lawrence, the French had moored several 

floating batteries.' The town was stiongly garrisoned 

bv French regulars, and along the north bank of the 

St. Ijawrence, from the St. Charles to the Montniorenei 

Kiver, was the main French army, under IMontcalm,' in 

a fortified camp. It was eomj)Osed chiefly of Canadian 

militia and Indians. 

On the oOth of -July, the English, after a slight skirmish, took jiossession 

of Point Levi, opposite Quebec, and throwing hot shot from a battery, they 

almost destroyed the Lower Town. They could not damag(> ^h(^ strong fortifi- 
cations of tlu! city from that distance, 
and ^Volfo resolved to attack the 
French camp. Ho had already land- 
ed a large force, under (lenenils 
Townshend and Murray, and formed 
a camp [July 10, 175!)|, below the 
Kivr iMontmorenci. General Monek- 
ton, with grenadiers' and other troops, 

crossed from Point Levi, and landed 
Mn.r['Aiiy operations at Qv.mv.o. up„„ tj,,. ),^,^^.i, |j „i^ jj^ j^ ^^^ „,„ ,,„^^, 

of the high river bank, just above that stream. Murray and Townshend were 
ordered to force a j)assago across the IMontmorenci, and co-ojjerate with him, 
but Monckton was too eager for attack to await their coming. He unwis(dy 
rushed forward, but was soon repulsed, and compelled to take shelter behind a 
block-house' near the beach, just as a heavy thunder-storm, whii^h had been 
gathering for several hours, burst upon the combatants. Night came on before; 
it ceased, and the roar of the rising tide warned the English to lake; to their 
boats. Five hundred of their number bad perished. 

Two months elapsed, and yet the Englisii had gained no im|ior(ant advan- 
tages. Wolfe had received no intelligence from Andierst, and the future ap- 




' These were a kind of flat-boats, with proper bronstworks or other defennos, and armed with 
cannons. 

' lie was descended from a noblo family. TTo was appointed Rovornor of Canada in 1750. His 
remains are henpntli tli« Ursiilino convoiit, at Qiichrc. 

" (Ji'ouadiors are coinpimirH of tlio rcKulnr army, difltintjinslieil (i'nni (Ik! n'»t liy Homo poouliarity 
of driws and accoutrcnuMitM, ami always i'oiTi|iiiHPd'of tlui tiillcst niid iiKwt.iniiHciil.'i'r nu'ii in llin Hcrv- 
icc. They iiro ^fnurally employed in buyonut cliargos, and aomt'timcs canv ^'riMiiidrs, a, kind of 
small Ijonib-slii'll. < 'j^otu H, pago 11)2. 



202 THE COLONIES. [1756. 

peared gloomy. The exposure, fatigue, and anxiety wliich he had endured 
j)roduced a violent fever, and at the beginning of September [175UJ. he lay 
prostrate in his tent. He called a council of war at his bedside, and, on the 
suggestion of Townshend, it was resolved to scale the heights of Abraham,' and 
assail the town on its weakest side. Wolfe heartily approved of the design. 
A plan was speedily matured, and feeble as he was, the commander-in-chief 
determined to lead the assault in person. The camp at the Montmorenci was 
broken up [Sept. 8], and the attention of Montcalm was diverted from the real 
designs of the English, by seeming preparations to again attack his lines. The 
affair was managed so secretly and skillfully, that even De Bourgainville, who 
had been sent up the St. Lawrence l)y Montcalm, with fifteen hundred men, 
to watch the movements of the English, had no suspicion of their designs. 

All preparations having been completed, the English ascended the river, in 
several vessels of the fleet, on the evening of the 12th of September. They 
went several miles above the intended landing-place. Leaving the ships at 
midnight, they embarked in flat boats, with muflled oars, and moved silently 
down to the mouth of a ravine, a mile and a half from the city, and landed.' 
At dawn [Sept. 13], Lieutenant-Colonel Howe' led the van up the tangled 
ravine, in the face of a sharp fire from a guard above. He was followed by the 
generals and the remainder of the troops, with artillery : and at sunrise the 
whole army stood in battle array upon the Plains of Abraham. It was an 
apparition little anticipated by the vigilant Montcalm. He 
perceived the peril of the city ; and marching his whole army 
immediately from his encampment, crossed the St. Charles, and 
between nine and ten o'clock in the morning, confronted the 
English. A general, fierce, and bloody battle now ensued. Al- 
though twice severely wounded, Wolfe kept his feet; and as 
the two armies closed upon each other, he placed himself at the 
head of his grenadiers, and led them to a charge. At that mo- 
ment a bullet entered his breast. He was carried to the rear, 
and a few moments afterw.ard, Monckton, who took the com- 
MoxraEXT TO WOLFE mand, alsofcll, severely wounded. Townshend continued the 
A>i> MONTCALM. ij^{{]g Montcalm soou rcccl vcd a fatal wouud j ^ and the French, 
terribly pierced by English bayonets, and smitten by Highland broadswords, 
broke and fled. Wolfe died just as the battle ended, with a smile upon his lips, 
because his ears heard the victory-shouts of his army. Five hundred French- 

' The declivity from Cape Diamond, on which the chief fortress stand-s, along the St Lawrence 
to the cove below Sillory, was calltd bv the general name of the Heights of Abrah.'un, the plains of 
that name being on the top. See map on page 201. 

' This place is known as Wolfe's Cove ; and tlie ravine, which here breaks the steepness of the 
rocky shore, and up wliieh the English clambered, is called Wvlfe's liavine. 

' Afterward General Sir William Howe, the commander-in-chief of the English forces in Amer- 
ica, when the Revolution had fairly commenced. Page 247. 

* He was carried into the eity, and when told that he mnst die, he said. "So much the better; 
I shall then be .^iiarert the mortification of seeing the surrender of Quebec." His remains are yet 
in Quebec; those of Wolfe were conveyed to England. Pcoiile of the two nations have long dwelt 
peaceably together in that ancient city, and they have united in erecting a tall granite obelisk, 
dedicated to the linked memory of Wolfe and Montcalm. 





.;;:«'' 



:^;;mm!^ 



)V)'&o 



1763.] THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR. 208 

men were killed, and (ineluJing the wounded) a thousand were taken prisonera. 
The English lost si.x hundred, in killed and wounded. 

General Townshend now prepared to besiege the city. Threatened famine 
within aided him; and five days after the death of Wolfe [Sept. 18, 1759], 
Quebee, with its fortifications, shipping, stores, and people, was surrendered to 
the English, and five thousand troops, under General Murray, immediately took 
possession. The fleet, with the sick and the French prisoners, sailed for 
Halifax. The campaign now ended, yet Canada was not con((uered. The 
French yet held Montreal, and had a considerable land and naval force above 
Quebec. 

CAMPAIGN OF 17 0,0. 

Notwithstanding these terrible disasters, the French were not dismayed, 
and early in the spring of 1700, Vaudreuil, then governor-general of Canada, 
sent M. Levi, the successor of Montcalm, to recover Quebec. lie w^ent down 
the St. Lawrence, with si.x frigates and a strong land force. General Murray 
marched out, and met him at Sillery, about three miles above Quebec, and 
there, on the 4tli of April, was fought one of the most sanguinary battles of the 
war. Murray was defeated, lie lost all his artillery, and about a thousand 
men, but succeeded in retreating to the city with the remainder. Levi now 
laid siege to Quebec, and Murray's condition was becoming perilous, from the 
want of supplies, when an English squadron, with reinforcements and jjrovisions, 
appeared [May 9] in the St. Lawrence. Levi supposed it to be the wdiolo 
British fleet, and at once raised the siege [May 10], and fled to Montreal, after 
losing most of his slii])ping. 

Now came the final struggle. The last stronghold of the French wiia now 
to be assailed ; and Vandrcuil gathered all his forces at Montreal for the 
conlliet. vVmherst had made extensive preparations during the summer ; and 
early in September [Sept. 6-7], three English armies met before the doomed 
city. Amherst, at the head of ten thousand troops, and a thousand warriors 
of the Six Nations, under General Johnson,' arrived on the Gth, and was 
joined, the same day, by General Murray, and four thousand troops, from 
Quebee. The ne.xt day, Colonel Ilaviland arrived, with three thousand troops, 
from Crown Point, ■' having taken po.ssession of Isle vVux-Noi.x^ on the way. 
Against such a crushing force, resistance would be vain ; and Vandrcuil im- 
mediately signed a capitulation [S(^pt. 8, 17G0], surrendering Montreal, and 
all other French posts in (Janada, into the hands of the English.' The regular 
troops, made prisoners at Montreal, were to bo sent to France ; and the Cana- 
dians were guarantied perfect security in person, property, and religioTi.' 
General Gage" was appointed governor at Montreal ; and Murray, with four 
thousand men, garrisoned Quebec. ■ 



' Page 190. » Page 198. ' Note 8, page 197. 

' Tlio chief posts surrendered wore Prosque Isle (now Erie, Pennsylvania), Detroit, and Mac- 
kinaw. 

' Tliof were chiefly Roman Catholics, and that ia yet the prevailing religion in Lower Canada,. 
• Pages 186 and 226. ' 



204 THE COLON IKS. [noG. 

Tho coiKjuest of Canada produced great joj in llic Anglo-American 
colonies,' and in none was it more intense than in that of New York, 
because its whole northern frontier lay exposed to the enemy. The exultation 
was very great in New England, too, for its eastern frontiers were now relieved 
from the terrible scourge of Indian warfare, by which they had been desolated 
cix times witliin a little more than eighty years. In tiiese wars, too, the 
Indians had become almost annihilated. The subjugation of the French seemed 
to be a guaranty of peace in the future, and the people everywhere assembled 
to utter public thanksgiving to Hi.M who rules the nations. 

Althouuli the war had ceased in America, the French and English contin- 
ued it upon the ocean, and among the West India Islands, with almost con- 
tinual success for the latter, until 1763, when a definitive treaty of peace,' 
agreed upon the year before, was signed at Paris [February 10, 1763], by 
which France ceded to Great Britain all her claimed possessions in America, 
eastward of the Mississippi, north of tho latitude of Iberville River." At the 
same time, Sj);un, with whom the English had been at war for a year previously, 
ceded [February 10. 1763J East and West Florida to the British crown. And 
now, England held undisputed possession (except by the Indians) of the wliole 
Continent, from the shores of the Gulf of Mexico to the frozen North, and from 
ocean to ocean.* 

The storm of war still lowered in the southern horizon, when the French 
dominion ceased in Canada. While the English were crushing the Gallic power 
in the north, the frontier settlements of the Carolinas were suffering dreadfully 
from frequent incursions of Indian war parties. French emissaries were busy 
among the Chcrokees, hitherto the treaty friends of the English ; and their 
influence, and some wrongs inflicted upon the Indians by some frontier Virginia 
Elangei-s, produced hostilities, and a fierce war was kindled in March, 1760.' 
The whole western frontier of the Carolinas was desolated in the course of a few 
weeks. The people called aloud for help, and Amherst lieeded their supplica- 
tions. Early in April, Colonel Montgomery, with some British regulars and 
provincial troops, marched from Charleston, South Carolina, and laid waste a 
portion of the Cherokee country. ° Those bold aboriginal highlanders were not 
subdued; but when, the following year. Colonel Grant led a stronger force 
against them,' burned their towns, desolated their fields, and killed many of 
their warriors, they humbly sued for peace [June, 1761], and ever afterward 
remained comparatively quiet. 

The storm in the South had scarcely ceased, when another, more porten- 
tous and alarming, gathered in the North-west. Pontiac, a sagsicious chief of 

' N'ote 1. page 193. ' Fr.ance and England, Spain and Portugal, were parties to this treaty. 

' New Orleans, and the whole of Louisiana, was ceded by France to Spain at tho same time, 
and slie relinqui-slied her entire pns.'iessions in North Americi. In 1800, Spain, by a secret treaty, 
retrcxvdeci Louisiana to Pranoe; and in 1803, Napoleon sold it to tho United States for fifteen mil- 
lions of dollars. See page 390. 

* Tho cost, to England, of this Seven Years' War, as the conflict was called in Europe, was five 
hundred and si.xty millions of dollars. ° Page 27. ° Page 2". 

' Marion, Moultrie, and several other men, afterward distinguished in the war for Independ- 
ence, accompanied Grant on this occasion. 



1763.] THE 1.-KENCH AND INDIAN WAR. 205 

the Ottawas," who had been an early ally of the French, secretly confederated 
several of the Algonquin tribes, in 1763, for the purpose of expelling the 
English from the country west of the Alleghanies.^ After the fall of Montreal,' 
Pontiac had professed an attachment to the English ; and as there seemed safety 
for settlers west of the mountains, immigration began to pour its living stream 
over those barriers. Like Philip of Mount Hope,* Pontiac saw, in the future, 
visions of the displacement, perhaps destruction, of his race, by the pale-faces ; 
and he determined to strike a blow for life and country. So adroitly were his 
plans matured, that the commanders of the western forts had no suspicions of 
his conspiracy until it was ripe, and the first blow had been struck, in the 
month of June. Within a fortnight, all the posts in possession of the English, 
west of Oswego, fell into his hands, except Niagara,^ Fort Pitt,' and Detroit. 
Colonel Bouquet saved Pittsburg;' Niagara was not attacked; and Detroit, 
after sustaining a siege of almost twelve months, was relieved by Colonel Brad- 
street," who arrived there with reinforcements, in May, 1764. The Indians 
were now speedily subdued, their power was broken, and the hostile tribes sent 
their chiefs to ask for pardon and peace. The haughty Pontiac refused 
to bow to the white people, and took refuge in the country of the Illinois, 
where he was treacherously murdered' in 1769. This was the last act in the 
dramaof the French and Indian War.'° 

In our consideration of the history of the United States, we have now 
arrived at a point of great interest and importance. We have traced the growth 
of the colonies through infxncy and youth, as their interests and destinies gradu- 
ally commingled, until they really formed one people," strong and lusty, like 

' Page 18. 

' The confederation consisted of the Ottawas, Miaraies. "'^yandots, Chippewas, Pottawatomies. 
Mississaguies, Shawnoese, Outagamies or Foxes, and Winnebagoes. TheSenecas, the most westerly 
clan of the Six Nations, also joined in the conspiracy. ' Page 203. 

« Page 124. " Page 200. « Pago 198. 

' Henry Bouquet was a brave English officer. He was appointed lieutenant-colonel in 175G, 
and was in the expedition against Fort du Quesne (page 198). In 1763, Amherst sent him from 
Montreal, with provisions and military stores for Fort Pitt. His arrival was timely, and ho saved 
the garrison from destruction. The following year he commanded an expedition against the Indians 
in Ohio, and was successful. His journal was published after the war. ' Page 198. 

° An English trader bribed a Peoria Indian to murder him, for wliich he gave him a barrel of 
rum. The place of liis death was Cahokia, a small village on tlie east side of the Mississippi, a httlo 
below St. Louis. Pontiac was one of the greatest of all the Indian chiefs known to the white peo- 
ple, and deserved a better fate. It is said, that during the war of 1763, he appointed a commissary, 
and issued bills of credit. So highly was he esteemed by the French inhabitants, that these were 
received by them. Montcalm thought much of him ; and at the time of his death, Pontiac was 
dressed in a French uniform, presented to him by that commander. See page 202. Pontiac was 
buried where the city of St. Louis now stands, and that busy mart is his monument, though not his 
memorial. 

'" The work most accessible to the general reader, in which the details of colonial events may 
be found, is Graham's Colonial History of tlie United States, in two volumes octavo, published by 
Blanchard and Lea, Philadelpiiia. 

" It must not be understood, that there was yet a perfect unity of feeUng among the various 
colonists. Sectional interests produced sectional jealousies, and these worked much miscliief, even 
while soldiers from almost every colony were fighting shoulder to shoulder [page 190] in the conti- 
nental army. Burnaby, who traveled in America at this period, expressed the opinion, that 
.sectional jealousy and dissimilarity would prevent a permanent union ; yet he avers that the people 
were imbued with ideas of independence, and that it was frequently remarked among tliem, that 
" the tide of dominion was running westward, and that America was destined to be tlie mistress of 
the world." The colonists themselves were not unmindful of the importance of their position, and 



206 THE coLONi?:s. [noG. 

the mature miin, propnred to vindicate natural riglits, and to fashion politicjil and 
social systems adaj)ted to tlieir position and wants. We view them now, con- 
scious of their physical and moral strength, possessing clear views of right and 
justice, and prepared to demand and defend both. This is the point in the 
progress of the new and growing nation to which our observation is tiow 
directed, when the great question was to be decided, whether independent self- 
control should be enjoyed, or continued vassalage to an ungenerous parent 
should be endured. Our ne.\t topic will be the events connected with the 
settlement of that question. It is a topic of highest significance. It looms up 
in the panorama of national histories like some giant Alj), far above its fellows, 
isolated in grandeur, yet assimilated in sympathy with all others. 

thoy pavo froclj' of their stibstanco to carry on tho oonte.ot for tlio ma.<stpry. Proh.tbty. the " Seven 
Yours' Wtir" cost tho colonim*, in tlie njftrrcgato, full twenty millions of dollars, besides the flower 
of their youth ; and, in return, Parliament granted tlieni, during; tho contest, at diflerent periods, 
iil)oiit five millions and a lialf of dollars. Tarliament subseqviently voted one million of dollars to 
the eolonie;-, bvit, on account of llio troubles wising from the Stamp Act and kindred measures, min- 
isters witldickl the sum. 

The Ibllowinj^ is a list, taken fVom official records, of "Tho grants in Parliament fbr Rewards, 
Kncourajrement, and Indemnification to tho Provinces in North America, for tlieir Services and Ex- 
penses during the last [seven years'] War: 

"On tlie 3d of l-'ebniary, 175G, a.s a free gift and reward to the colonies of New England, New 
York, and .Tersey, lor their past services, and as an encouragement to eontinuo to exert themselves 
with vigor, $,')".'),nOO. 

"May I'.ith, 1151. For tho iiso and relief of the provinces of North and South Carolina, and 
Yirginia, in roeompenso for services performed and to be performed, $2f)l),000. 

".Tune 1st, 1758. To reiniburso the province of Ma.ss!ichusetts Bay their expenses in furnishing 
provisions and stores to the troops rai.sed by them iu 175G, $136,900. To reimburse llie province 
of Connecticut their expenses for ditto, $fi8,GS0. 

"April 30th, 1759. As a compensation to the respective colonies for the expanses of clothing, 
pay of troops, etc., $1,000,000. 

"March 31st, 1760. For tho same, $1,000,000. For tho colony of New York, to reimburse 
their expenses in furnishing provisions and stores to the troops in 1756, $14,885. 

"■Ian. 20th, 1761. As a compensiition to tho respective colonies for clotliing, pay of the troops, 
etc., «(1,000.000. 

"Jan. 2eth, 1762. Ditto, $666,666. 

"March 15th, 17G3. Ditto, $666,660. 

"April 22d, 1770. To ivimburse tho province of New Hampshire their expenses in fumishingr 
provisions and stores to the troops in the campaign of 1756, $30,015. Total, $5,108,842." 

In a pamphlet, entitled liiijlil.i of BitiTAix iiitd Chiims nf America, an answer to the Declara- 
tion of the t'ontinental ('ongres.<<, setting forth the causes and the uwessity of their taking up arms, 
printed in 1776, is a table showing the annual expenditures of the British govermneiit in supixirt of 
the civil and military jxiwers of the Aineriean colonies, lixim tlie accession of the family of Hanover, 
in 1714, until 1775. Tlie cxpres.sion of tho writer is, "Kmployed in the defense of America." This 
isineonvct; for the wars with the French on this continent, which cost the greatest amount of 
money, were wars lor conquest and territory, though ostensibly for the defense of the Anglo- Amer- 
ican colonies against the eiicToaehments of their tJallic neighbors. During the period alluded to 
(sixty years), tho sums granteil fbr tho army amounted to $43,899,625; for the navy, $50,000,000; 
nionev laid out in Indian present.s, in holding Congresses, and purchasing cessions of land, 
$30,.')"00,000 ; making a total of $123,899,625. Within that period the following bounties on 
American commodities were paid: On indigo. $725,110; on hemp and Ha.x, $27,800; on naval 
stores imported into Oreat Hritain from .\meri('a, $7,293,810; making the tot;U .sum paid on ao- 
oount of iiounlics, $8,047,320. The tutul amount of money expended in sixty years on account of 
America, $131,946,946. 




THE REVOLUTION. PRELIMINARY EVENTSi 

17G1— ms. 



CHAPTER I. 



JAMES OTIS. 



Principle^!, like the ultimate particles of 
matter, and the laws of God, are eternal, inde- 
structible, and uncliange;iblc. They have 
existed in the moral realm of our world since the advent of man ; and devious 
as may be their manifestations, according to circumsfamces, they remain the 
same, inherently, and always exhibit the same tendencies. When God gave to 
man an intelligent soul, and invested him with the prerogatives of moral free 
agency, then was born that instinctive love of liberty which, through all past 
time, has manifested itself in individuals and in societies ; and in every age, the 
consciences of men have boldly and indignantly asked, in the presenco of 
oppression, 

" If I'm design'd yon lordling's slave, 
By Nature's laws designed ; 
Why was an independent wish 

E'or planted in my mind ? 
If not, why am I subject to 

His cruelty or scorn? 
Or why has man tlie will and pow'r 
To make liis fellow mourn?"' 

' Burns. 



208 THE REVOLUTION. [17GI. 

Nations, like men, have thus spoken. The principles of civil and religious 
liberty, and the inalienable rights of man which they involve, were recognized 
and asserted lonji before Columbus left Palos for the New "World." Their 
maiuteiuiucc had shaken thrones and overturned dynasties before Charles the 
Fii'st was brought to the block ;- and they had lighted the torch of revolution long 
before the trunii)et-toiies of James Otis' and Patrick Henry' aroused the Anglo- 
Americans' to resist British aggression. From the earliest steps in the progress 
of the American colonies, we have seen the democratic theories of all past reform- 
ers developed into sturdy democratic practice; and a love of liberty which had 
fieiTuinated beneath the heat of persecution in the Old World, budded and 
blossomed all over the New, wherever English hearts beat, or English tongues 
gave utterance. Nor did English hearts alone cherish the precious seedling, 
nor English tongues alone utter the noble doctrines of popular sovereignty ; but 
in the homes of all in this beautiful land, whatever country gave the inmates 
birth, there was a shrine of freedom, and a refuge for the oppressed. Here 
kin^-craft and priest-craft never had an abiding-place, and their ministers were 
always weak in the majestic presence of tlie popular will. 

Upon tlie bleak shores of Massachusetts Bay ; upon the banks of tlic Hud- 
son, the Delaware, the Potomac, and the James ; and amid the pine-forests or 
beneath the palmettos of the Carolinas, and the further South, the colonists, 
from the very beginning, had evinced an impatience of arbitrary rule ; and 
every manifestation of undue control by local magistrates or distant monarchs — 
every eifort to abridge their liberties or absorb their gains, stimulated the 
growth of democratic principles. These pernieateil the whole social and politi- 
cal life in America, and finally evolved from the crude materials of royal 
charters, religious covenants, and popular axioms, that galaxy of representative 
governments which, having the justice of the English Constitution, the truth 
of Christian ethics, and the wisdom of past experience for their foundation, 
were united in "the fullness of time," in that symmetrical combination of free 
institutions known as the Republic of the United States of America. 

It is a common error to regard the Revolution which attended the birth of 
this Republic, as an isolated episode in the history of nations, having its causes 
in events immediately preceding the convulsion. It was not the violent result 
of recent discontents, but the culmination of a long series of causes tending to 
such a climax. The parliamentary enactments which kindled the rebellion in 
1775, were not oppressive measures entirely novel. They had their counter- 
parts in the British statute books, even as early as the restoration of monarchy 
1 1660 1' a hundred years before, when navigation laws,' intended to crush the 
growing commerce of the colonies were enacted. They were only re-assertions 
of tyrannical legislative power and royal prerogatives, to which the colonies, in 
the weakness of their infancy and early youth, were compelled to submit. Now 
they had grown to maturity, and dared to insist upon receiving exact justice. 

'Page 39. • Note 3, page 108. 'Page 212. * Note 1, page 214. 

• Note 1, page 193. " Page 109. ' Note 4, page 109. 



1T75.J PRELIMINARY KYENTS. 209 

They had recently emerged from an exhausting war, whieb, instead of weaken- 
ing them, had taught them their real moral, political, and physical strength. 
They had also learned the important lesson of power in union, and profited by 
its teachings. Having acquired a mastery over the savages of the wilderness, 
and assisted in breaking the French power on their frontiers, into atoms,' they 
felt their manhood stirring within them, and they tacitly agreed no longer to 
submit to the narrow and oppressive policy of Great Britain. Their industry 
and commerce were too expansive to be confined within the narrow limits of 
those restrictions which the Board of Trade," from time to time, had imposed, 
find they determined to regard them as mere ropes of sand. For long and 
gloomy years they had struggled up, unaided and alone, from feebleness to 
strength. They had built fortifications, raised armies, and fought battles, for 
England's glory and their own preservation, without England's aid, and often 
without her sympathy.^ And it was not until the growmg importance of the 
French settlements excited the jealousy of Great Britain, that her ministers 
perceived the expediency of justice and liberality toward her colonies, in order 
to secure their loyalty and ciScient co-operation.'' Compelled to be self-reliant 
from the beginning, the colonists were made strong by the mother's neglect; 
and when to that neglect she added oppression and scorn, they felt justified in 
using their developed strength in defense of their lights. 

The colonists had grown strong, not only in material prosperity, percep- 
tions of inalienable rights, and a will to be free, but in many things in which 
the strength and beauty of a State consist, they exhibited all the most prom- 
inent developments of a great nation. A love for the fine arts had been grow- 
ing apace for many years ; and when the Revolution broke out, West^ and 
Copley," natives of America, were wearing, in Europe, the laurel-crowns of 
supreme excellence as painters. Literature and science were beginning to be 
highly appreciated, and the six colonial colleges' were full of students. God- 
frey, the glazier, who invented the quadrant, had flourished and passed away ;" 

■ Page 203. " Note 5, page 134. 

° Georgia, alone, received parliamentary aid [page 100], in the cstablisliment of settlements. In 
all the other colonies, where vast sums were expended in fitting out expeditions, ))urc'hasing the 
soil of the Indians, and sustaining the settlers, neither the crown nor parliament ever contributed 
a farthing of pecuniary aid. The settling of Massachusetts alone, cost a million of dollars. Lord 
Baltimore spent two hundred thousand dollars in colonizing Maryland ; and William Penn became 
deeply involved in debt, in his eflbrts to settle and improve Pennsylvania. ' Pago 197. 

^ Benjamin West was born in Chester county, Pennsylvania, in 1738. His parents were 
Quakers. He commenced art-life as a portrait-painter, when wealthy men furnished him with 
means to go to Italy. He soon triumphed, went to England, w;ia patronized by the king, and 
became the most eminent historical painter of bis age. Ho died in London in 1820, in the eighty- 
second year of his age. 

" John Singleton Copley was also bom in 173S, in the city of Boston. He became a pupil of 
Spaibert [note 8, page 158], and became an eminent portrait-painter. His family relations identified 
him with the Royalists at the commencement of the Revolution, and ho went to England to seek 
employment, where he was patronized by West. There he painted two memorable pictures ; oll 
for th(; House of Lords, the other for the tlouse of Commons. These established his feme, and led to 
fortune. His son became lord chancellor of England, and was made a peer, with the title of Lord 
Lyndhurst. Copley died in England, in 1815, at the age of seventy-seven years. 

' Page 178. J J 

' Thomas Godfrey was a native of Pennsylvania, and was born in 1704. He was the real 
inventor of the quadrant known as Hadlcy's. See Lossing's Einiumt Americans. 



210 



TIIK REVOLUTION. 



[1761. 



Bartram, the farmer, liad become 'American Botanist to his Majesty;"' 
Franklin, tlic printer, wa.s known, wliorever civilizution had planted her ban- 
ners, as the lightning-tamer and profound moral philosopher; and Kittenhouse, 
the clock-maker, had calculated and observed the transit of Venus, and oon- 



///■<// 



i 



'it? 



%% 







structed that rianetarinra which is yet a wonder in the world of mechanism.' 
Theology and the legal profession, had taken high ground. Edwards' had 
written his great work on The Freedom of the Will, and was among the 
dead ; and already Otis,* Henry,' Dickenson,' Rutledge,' juid other lawyers, 
had made their brilliant marks, and were prepared to engage in the great strug- 
gle at h:md. All classes of men had noble representatives in the colonies, when 
the conflict commenced. 

There was no cause for complaint on the part of the colonists, of the willful 
exercise of tyrannical power, for purposes of oppression, by Great Britain. 

" See Tyossinp's Eminent Americans. 

' r>avi(l Rittenhouse wns born in Roxboronpli. Pennsylvania, in 1732. Ashe exhibited prpat 
raechanical penius. his father apprentieo<i him to a cloek-maVjor. and he became one of the most 
eminent meelianicians and niatliematitians of liis time. He discovered that remarkable feature in 
nicebraic analysi-S called flttsioti.% and applied it to tlie mediauic arts. He constructed a machine 
which represented the motions of the solar system. That Planetarium is now in tlie possession of 
the ColleRO of New .Jersey, at Princeton Riltenliouso succeeded Franklin as president of th9 
American Philosophical Society. He died in 1"9.3. at the ape of sixty-four years, 

' .lonatlian Edwards w.is one of tlie most eminent of American divines. He was bom in East 
Windsor, Coimectio\it, in 1703, and died at Prinix'ton, New ,lcrsev. while president of the collegev 
in 1768. * Pago 21S. * Page 2U. • P.age 219. ' Page 310. 



1775.] 



PRELIJIINART EVENTS. 



211 



There was no motive for such a course. But they reasonably complained of 
an unjust and illiberal policy, which accomplished all the purposes of absolute 
tyranny. The rod of iron was often covered with velvet, and was wielded as 
often by ignoi-ant, rather than by wicked, hands. Yet the ignorant hand, with 




the concealed rod. smote as lustily and offensively, as if it had been a wicked 
one, and the rod bare. The first form of governmental and proprietary oppres- 
sion' was in the appointment of local rulers. The people were not represented 
in the appointing power. Then came commercial restrictions,^ prohibitions to 
manufacture,^ imposts upon exchanges,' and direct ta.xation, by enactments of 
parliament, in which the colonists were not represented. At the beginning, 
they had asserted, and during their whole progress they had maintained, that 
important pohtical maxim, that taxation without representation, is tyranny. 
This was the fundamental doctrine of their political creed — this was the test of 
all parliamentary measures — this was the strong rock upon which the patriots 
of the Revolution anchored their faith and hope. 

When the French and Indian War was closed by the treaty of Paris, 



' Three forms of government had existed, namely, charter, proprietary, and royal The New 
England governments were based upon royal charters ; New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and 
the Carolinas, were owned and governed by individuals or companies, and the remainder wero 
immediately subject to the crown. Notwithstanding tliis diversity m the source of government, the 
anti-monarchical spirit pervaded the people of all, from the beginning, and gave birxh to popular 
legislative assemblies. 

" Note 3, page 177. ' Pag"^ 177 and 178. * Page 178. 



212 THE RK VOLUTION. [1761, 

ill 1703, tlie colonists looked forward to long years of prosperity and 
lepose. A young monarch,' virtuous and of upright intentions, had l>ecn 
recently [17(51] seated upon the British throne. Having confidence in his 
integrity, and having lately felt the justice of the government, under the direc- 
tion of I'itt,- they were disposed to forget past grievances; and being identified 
with the glory of England, now become one of the first powers on the earth, 
they were fond of their connection. But the serenity of the political sky soon 
disappeared, and it was not long before violent tempests were raging there. 
Even before the treaty at Paris, a cloud had arisen which portended future 
trouble. The war had exhausted the ]3ritisli treasury,' and ministers devised 
various schemes for replenishing it. They had observed the resources of the 
colonists, as manifested by their efforts during the recent struggle,* and as they 
were relieved from further hostilities by the subjugation of Canada' [1759], 
the government looked to them for aid. Instead of asking it as a favor, it waa 
demanded as a rijlit ; instead of inviting the colonial Assemblies to levy taxes 
and make appropriations, government assumed the right to ta.x their expanding 
commerce; and then commenced a vigorous enforcement of existing revenue 
laws, which had hitherto been only nominally oppressive.' 

One of the first acts which revealed the intentions of Parliament to tax the 
colonics by enforcing the revenue laws, was the authorization, in 1761, of 
Writs of Assistance. These were general search-warrants, which not only 
allowed the king's officers who held them, to break open any citizen's store or 
dwelling, to search for and seize foreign merchandise, on which a duty had not 
been paid, but compelled sheriffs and others to assist in the work. The people 
could not l)rook such a system of petty oppression. The sanctities of private 
life might be invaded, at any time, by hirelings, and the assertion, based upon 
the guaranties of the British Constitution, that "every Englishman's house is 
his castle," would not be true. These writs were first issued in Massachusetts, 
and immediately great excitement prevailed. Their legality was questioned, and 
the matter was brought before a court hold in the old town hall in Boston. 
The advocate for the Crown (Mr. Gridley) argued, that as Parliament was the 
supreme legislature for the whole British nation, and had authorized these 
writs, no subject had a right to complain. He was answered by James Otis,' 



' George tlio Thirii. Ho was crowned in 17G1, at the age of twenty years. Ho reigned almost 
sixty veiirs, und died in 1820. ' Page 195. " Note 4. page 20i. 

♦ Frencli and Indian War. ' Page 204. 

• Commercial restrictioua were imposed upon the colonies as early as 1051 [note 4, page 109]. 
In 1660, 1G"2, 1676, 1691, and 1692, attempts were made by parliament to derive a revenue by a 
tarifl'-taxalion upon the colonies. lu 1696 a proposition was made to levy a direct tax upon the 
c-olonies. Then, not only in Britain, but in America, tlio power of parliament (wherein the colonists 
were not represented), to tax those colonics was strenuously denied. 

■" James Otis was born in Barnstable, M.n.ssachusett.s, in 172.1. and became the leader of the 
Revolutionary party in that province, at the beginning. He was wounded by a blow from a cudgel, 
In the hands of a British offii'ial in 1769, and never fairly recovered. For years he was afllictod 
with occasional lunacy, and presented but a wreck of the orator and schokr. The following anec- 
dote is related of Mr. Otis, as illustrative of his ready use of Latin, even during moments of mental 
aberration. Men and boys, heartless or thoughtless, would sometimes make themselves merry at 
his expense, when ho was seen in the streets afflicted with lunacy. On one occasion he waa pass- 
ing a crockery store, when a young man, who had a knowledge of Latin, sprinkled some water 



ms.] PRELIMINARY EVENTS. 213 

the younger, then advocate-general of the province. On that occasion, the 
intense fire of his patriotism beamed forth witii inexpressible brilliancy, and his 
eloquence was like lightning, far-i'elt and consuming. On that day the trumpet 
of the Revolution was sounded. John Adams afterward said. "The seeds of 
patriots and heroes were then and there sown ;""and when the orator exclaimed, 
" To my dying day I will oppose, with all the power and fixculties God has given 
me, all such instruments of shivery on one hand, and villauy on the other," tlio 
independence of the colonies w;is proclaimed.' From that day began the triumphs 
of the popular will. Very few writs were issued, and these were ineflfectual. 

Young King George unwisely turned his back upon Pitt,'' and listened to 
the councils of Bute,^ an unprincipled Scotch adventurer, who had been his 
tutor. Disastrous consequences ensued. Weak and corrupt men controlled 
his cabinet, and the pliant Parliament approved of illiberal and unjust measures 
toward the colonists. The Sugar bill,* which had produced a great deal of ill- 
feeling in the colonies, was re-enacted ; and at the same time, George Grenville, 
then prime minister, proposed "certain stamp duties on the colonies." The 
subject was left open for consideration almost a year, when, in the spring of 
1765, in defiance of the universal opposition of the Americans, the famous 
Stamp Act, which declared that no legal instrument of writing should bo valid, 
unless it bora a government stamp, became a law.' Now was executed, without 
hesitation, a measure which no former ministry had possessed courage or reck- 
lessness enough to attempt." 



upon him from a sprinkling-pot with which he was wetting the floor of the second story, at the same 
time saying, Pluit tantum, nescio quantmn. Sc.is ne tuf "It rains so much, I know not liow mucli. 
Do you know?" Otis immediately picked up a missile, and, hurling it tlirougli tlio whidow of tlie 
crockery store, it smashing every tiling in ils way, exclaimed, Fniji lot, nescio quot. Scis ne tu ? 
"I have Ijroken so many, I know not how many. Do you know?" Mr. Otis, according to his 
expressed desire, was killed by lightning in 1782. See portrait at tlie head of this chapter. 

' Later tlian tliis [1768], Otis wrote to a friend in London, and said : " Our fathers were a good 
people ; we have been a free people, and if you will not let us remain so any longer, we shall be a 
great people, and the present measures can have no tendency but 1o hasten with great rapidity, 
events wliicli every good and honest man would wish delayed for ages." He evidently alluded to 
the future indejiendence of tho colonies. 

' Pitt, dis^nnti'd by tho ignoranco and assurance of Bute and tho misplaced confidence of the 
king, resigned his ollice, and retired to his country seat at Hayes. The king esteemed him highly, 
but was too mucli controlled by Bute to follow his own inclinations. It was not long, however, 
before public affairs became so complicated, that the king was compelled to call upon the great 
commoner to untangle them. 

" ' Bute was a gay Scotch earl, poor and proud. Ho became a favorite with the mother of George 
the Third, was appointed ins tutor, and acquired such influence over the mind of tho prince, that on 
his accession to the throne, ho made him liis chief minister and adviser. The English people were 
much incensed ; and the unwise measures of tho early years of George's reign, were properly laid 
to the charge of Bute. A placard was put up in London, with the words, "No Scotch minister — 
no petticoat government." Tlie last clause referred to the influence of the queen mother. 

' A bill which imposed a duty upon sugar, coffee, indigo, &c., imported into the colonies from 
the West Indies. 

The stamps were upon blue paper, in the form seen in the engraving on page 213, and were 
to be attached to every piece of paper or parchment, on which a legal insfrniment was %vritten. 
For these stamps government charged specific prices: for example, for a common property deed, 
one shilling and sixpence; for a diploma or certificate of a college degree, two pounds, &c., ic. 

' During Robert Walpole's aflministration [1732], a stamp duty was proposed. He said, "I 
will leave the taxation of America to some of my successors, who have more courage than I have." 
Sir William Keith, governor of Pennsylvania, proposed such a tax in 1739. Prankhn thought it 
just, when a delegate in the Colonial Congress at Albany, in 1754 [page 183]. But when it was 
proposed to Pitt in 1709, he said, "I will never burn my fingers with an American Stamp Act." 



214 



THK HEVOLUTION. 



[ITGI. 



The colonists liail vatdiud ^vitll anxiety tlie growth of tliis new genu of 
oj)j)ression ; luul the intelligence of the passage of the Aet produced general 
and intense indig-nation in America. The hearts of the people were yet thrilled 
by the eloquent denunciations of Otis ; and soon Patrick Henry sent forth a 




response equally eloquent from the heaving bosom of the Virginia Assembly.' 
The people, in citie.s and village.'^, gathered in e.xeited groups, and boldly 
expressed their indignation. The pulpit denounced the wicked scheme, and 

' Patrick Henry wan a very Boancrjrcs at the openinp of the Revolution. He was bom in 
]IauoTer Comity, Virginia, in 1736. In youlli and nianlioi«l he was exoceiiingly indolent and dulL 
At the afto of twenty-seven, his oloqiience snddonly beamed forth in a speech in court, in his native 
county, and ho soon became a leading man in Virginia. He was elected the first Republican gov- 
ernor of his State, in 1776, and held that ollice again m 1784. He died in 1799, at the age of 
almost sbcty-lhreo years. At the time alluded to in the text. Henry introduced a series of resolu- 
tions, highly tinctured with' rebellious doctrines. Hea.s.scrted the general rights of all the colonies; 
then the exclusive right of the Virginia As.scinbly to tax the people of that province, and boldly 
declared that the people were not bound to obey any law relative to taxation, which did not pro- 
ceed from their rcpR\scntative,'<. Tlie la.st resolution declared tliat whoever should dissent from the 
doctrines inculcated in the others, should be considered an "enemy of the colonies." The introduc- 
tion of these resolutions produced great excitement and alarm. Henry supported them with all the 
power of his wonderful elofiuence. Some ro.se from their seats, and others sat in breatliless silence. 
At length, when alluding to tyrants, ho exclaimed, " Cicsiir had his Urutus, Charles the Krst his 
Cromwell, and tleorge the Third" — there was a cry of " Treason I Treason I" Ho paused a moment, 
and said — "may prolit by tlieir example. If that be treason, make the most of it." [See picture 
at the head of this chapter.] A part of his rcsohitions were adopted, and these formed the first 
ca\uitlet of defiance east at the feet of the British monarch. Their jxjwer was felt tliroughout the 
I ind. 




J776.1 PRELIMINARY EVENTS. 215 

associations of Sons of Liberty^ in every colony put forth their energies in 
defense of popular freedom. The press, then assuming great power, spoke out 
like an oracle of Truth. In several cities popular excite- 
ment created mobs, and violence ensued. The Stanij)s 
were seized on their arrival, and secreted or burned 
Stamp distributors^ were insulted and despised; and on 
the first of November, 1765, when the law was to take 
effect, there were no officials courageous enough to 
enforce it. 

The people did not confine their opposition to expres- 
sions at indignation meetings, and acts of violence. The 
public sentiment took a more dignified form, and assumed 
an aspect of nationality. There was a prevailing desire 
for a general Congress, and several coloides, in the midst of the great excite- 
ment, appointed delegates for that purpose. They met in the city of New 
York, on the 7th of October, 1765,' continued in session fourteen days, and in 
three well-written documents,' they ably set forth the grievances and the rights 
of the colonists, and petitioned the king and parliament for a redress of the 
former, and acknowledgment of the latter. The proceedings of this Second 
Colonial Congress" were applauded by all the provincial Assemblies, and the 
people of America were as firmly united in heart and purpose then, as they 
■were after the Declaration of Independence, more than ten years later. 

At length the momentous day — the first of November — arrived. It waa 
observed as a day of fasting and mourning. Funeral processions paraded the 
streets of cities, and bells tolled funeral knells. The colors of sailing vessels 
were placed at half-mast, and the newspapers exhibited the black-line tokens 
of public grief The courts were now closed, legal marriages ceased, ships 
remained in port, and for some time all business was suspended. But the lull 
in the storm was of brief duration. The people were only gathering strength 
for more vigorous achievements in defense of their rights. The Sons of Lib- 
erty put forth new efforts ; mobs began to assail the residences of officials, and 
burn distinguished royalists, in effigy." Merchants entered into agreements 



' These associations were composed of popular leaders and others, who leagued with the 
avowed determination to resist oppression to the uttermost. After their organization in the differ- 
ent colonies, they formed a sort of national league, and by continual correspondence, aided effectu- 
ally in preparing the way for the Revolution. 

' Men appointed by the crown to sell the government stamps, or stamped paper. 

' Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Marj-land, and South 
Carolina, were represented. The Assemblies of those not represented, declared their readiness to 
airree to whatever measures the Congress might adopt. Timothy Ruggles, of Massachusetts (wh« 
afterward commanded a corps of Tories) [note 4, page 224], presided. 

* A Declaration of Rights, written by John Cruger, of New Yorlc ; a Memorial to loth Houses oj 
Parliament, by Robert R. Livingston, of New York ; and a Petition to Dm Icing, by James Otis, of 
Mas.sachusetta. » Page 183. 

" PubUo indignation is thus sometimes manifested. A figure of a man intended to represent 
the obnoxious individual, is paraded, and then hung upon a scaffold, or burned at a stake, as an 
intimation of the deserved fate of the person thus represented. It was a common practice in En- 
gland at the time in question, and has been often done in our own country since. Nowliere was 
popular indignation so warmly manifested as in New York. Cadwallader Golden, a venerable 
Scotchman of eighty years, was acting-governor of New York. He refused to deUver up tho 



216 



THE EEVOLUTION. 



[1761. 



not to import goods from Great Britain while the obnoxious Act remained a law ; 
and domestic nuuiufactinvs wore eoiiniK'nced in almost every family.' The 
wealthiest vied with the miildling classes in economy, and wore clothing of 
their own manufacture. That wool might not become scarce, the use of sheep 




flesh for food, waa discouraged. Soon, from all cliisses in America, there went 
to the ears of the Britisli ministry, a respectful but firm protest. It Wivs 
seconded by the merchants and manut'aeturers of London, whose American 
trsAe was prostrated," luid the voice, thus made potential, was heard and heeded 
in high places. 

stamped paper on the demand of the people, when they proiveded to hang him in effipy, near tho 
spot where Lei.<ler was executed [pi«re US] sevemy-tive yeju-s before. They also bunied his fine 
coach in front of the fort, near the present Howlin;; Ciiven, and upon the smoliing pile Ihey east his 
eflSgy. Colden was a man of great seientilio attainnienls. lie wrote a History of the >Vie Auftona 
[page 23], and was in constant correspondence with some of tho most eminent philosophers and 
scliolars of Europe. A life of Colden, from the pen of .lolui W. Kranei.-s. M.D., L.LP., may be found 
in tho Amtrican Medical and Philosophical Jieyisler, ISll. He died in September. 1""6. 

' The newspapers of the d.iy contain many laudatorv- notices of tho conformity of wealthy 
people to these agreements. On one occasion, forty or tilty young ladies, who called themselves 
" Daughters of Liberty." met at tho house of tho Rev. Mr. Morcjiead, in Boston, with their spinning- 
wheels, and spvni two hundred .ind thirty-two skeins of yarn, during the day. mid presented them 
to the pastor. It is said "tliere were upward of one hundred spinners in Mr Morehead's i>o<.ietj-." 
"Within eighteen months." wrote a gentleman at Newport, R, 1., "four hundred and eighty-seven 
yards of cloth, and thirty-six pairs of stockings, have been .-;pun and knit in the family of James 
Kiion, of this town." 

' Half a million of dollars were due them by the colonists, at that time, not a dime of which 
oould bo collected under the existing state of things. 




1775.] PRELIMINARY EVENTS. 217 

While these events were iu progress, Grenville had bcea succeeded in office 
by the Mai-quis of Rockingham, a friend of tlic colonies, and an cnlightenetf 
sbitesman. William Pitt,' who hud been called from his retirement by the 
voice of the people, hoping much from the new ministry, appeared in Parlia- 
ment, and was there the earnest champion of tlic Amer- 
icans. Justice and expediency demanded a repeal of the 
Stamp Act, and early in January, 1766, a bill for that 
purpose was introduced into the House of Commons, and 
■was warmly supported by Pitt, Colonel Barrc, and others. 
Then Edmund Burke first appeared as the champion of 
right ; and during the stormy debates on the sulyect, 
which ensued, he achieved some of those earliest and 
most wonderful triumphs of oratory, which established his 
fame, and endeared him to the American people.^ The 

obnoxious act was repealed on the 18th of March, 1766, when London ware- 
houses were illuminated, and flags decorated the shipping in tlic Tliames. In 
America, public thanksgivings, bonfires, and illuminations, attested tlie general 
joy; and Pitt,^ who had boldly declared his conviction that Parliament had no 
right to tax the colonies without their consent,'' was lauded as a political Mes- 
siah. Non-importation associations were dissolved, business was resumed, and the 
Americans confidently expected justice from the mother country, and a sjieedy 
reconciUation. Alas ! the scene soon changed. 

Another storm soon began to lower. Pitt, himself tenacious of British 
honor, and doubtful of the passage of the Repeal Bill without some concessions, 
hiid appended to it an act, which declared that Parliament possessed the power 
" to bind the colonies, in all cases whatsoever." The egg of tyranny which 
lay concealed in this " declaratory act," as it was called, ^v'as not perceived by 
the colonists, while their eyes were filled with tears of joy ; but when calm re- 
flection came, they saw clearly that germ of future oppre-isions, and were 
uneasy. They perceived the Repe;il Bill to be only a truce in the war upon 
freedom in America, and they watched every movement of the government 
party with suspicion. Within a few months afterward, a brood of obnoxious 
measures were hatched from that egg, and aroused the fiercest indignation of 
the colonists. 

The American people, conscious of rectitude, were neither slow nor cautious 

' Note 2, page 213. 

' Edmund Burke was born in Irel.and, in 1730. He became a lawyer, arr) ^yas a very popular 
writer, as well as a speaker. He was in public office about thirty years, and died in 1797. 

' William Pitt was born in England in 1708, and hold many high offices of trust and emolu- 
ment. During an exciting debate in Parliament, on American affairs, in the spring of 1778, l]i» 
swooned, and died within a monta afterward. 

* " Taxation," said Pitt, " is no part of the governing or legislative power. Taxes are the vol- 
untary gift or grant of the commons alone." "I rejoice," he said, "that America has rcsi.stcd. 
Three millions of people, so dead to all the feelings of liberty, as voluntarily to become Isaves, would 
have been fit instruments to make slaves of the rest." And Colonel Barr'o declared that the colon- 
ists were planted by English oppression, grew by neglect, and in all the essential elements of a freo 
people, were perfectly independent of Great Britain. He then warned the government to act justly, 
or the colonies would be lost to Great Britain forever. 



218 THK REVOLUTION. [17G1. 

in exhibiting their indignation, and this boldness irritiited their oppressors. A 
largo portion of the House of Lords," the whole bench of bishops," and many of 
the Connnons, -were f;noral)le to coercive measures toward the Americans. Not 
doubting tlie power of Parliament to tax them, they prevailed on the ministry 
to adopt new .schemes for replenishing tiie e.xliausted treasury' from the coffers 
of the colonists, and urged the justice of employing arms, if necessary, to en- 
force obedience. Troops were accordingly sent to America, in June, 1766 ; 
and a Mutiny Act was jiasscd, which provided for their partial subsistence by 
the colonies.' The appearance of these troops in New York, and the order for 
the people to feed and shelter the avowed instruments of their own enslavement, 
liroduced violent outbreaks in that city, and burning indignation all over the 
land. The Assembly of New York at once arrayed itself against the govern- 
ment, and refused compliance with the demands of the obnoxious act. 

In tlie midst of the darkness, light seemed to dawn upon the Americans. 
Early in the month of July, Pitt was called to the head of the British ministry, 
and on the 30th of that month, he was created Earl of Chatham. He opposed 
the new measures as unwise and unjust, and the colonists hoiied for reconcilia- 
tion and repose. But Pitt could not always prevent mischief. During his 
absence from Parliament, on account of sickness, the Chancellor of the Ex- 
(•lic(pier (CharU^s Townshend) coalesced with Grenville in bringing new tax- 
ation schemes before that body.' A bill w^is passed in June, 1707, for levying 
duties upon tea, glass, paper, painters' colors, etc., which should be imported 
into the colonies. Another was jjassed, in July, for establishing a Board of 
Trade in the colonies, independent of colonial legislation, and for creating resi- 
dent conunissioners of customs to enforce the revenue laws." Then another, a 
few days later, which forbade the New York Assembly to perform any legisla- 
tive act whatever, until it shoulil comi>ly with the recjuisitions of the Mutiny 
Act. These taxation schemes, and blows at popular liberty, produced excite- 
ment throu-'hout the colonies, almost as violent as those on account of the 
Stamp Act.' The colonial Assemblies boldly protested ; new non-importation 
iiwsociations -were formed; pamphlets and newspapers were filled with inflam- 
matory appeals to the jicople, defining their rights, and urging them to a united 
resistance ;' and early in 1768, almost every colonial Assembly had boldly ex- 



' Every peer in tlie British realm is a legislator by virtue of his title; and when they are i 
Mod lor Icjtislntivo duties, they constitute the House of Lords, or upper branch of the legislature, 
anawerinp, in some degree, to our Senate. 

' Two archbishops, and t\\ enty-four bishops of EiiKlnnd and AValos, have a f\f;\it to sit and vote 
in the lionse of Lord.s, and have the Siune (idlitical importance as the peei-s. By the act of union 
between Ireland and Kngland, four ''lords .ipirilual" from among the archbishops and bishops of the 
liirmor coiuitry, have a seat in the House of Lords. The "lords foniporal and lords spiritual" con- 
stitute the Ili'itlie. of Ijtrds. The Ilouxe of Commons is com|xisod of men elected by the people, and 
answers to the Ilousf of hVprfsntntires of our Federal Tongrcss. ' Page 212. 

• This act also allowed ntilitarv officers, possessing a warrant from a justice of the peace, to 
break into anv house where he might suspect deserters were concciUed. Like the Writs of Assist- 
anrf fpage 2l'21, this power might be used for wicked purposes. 

• In .Tanuarv, 1767, Grenville proposed a direct taxation of the colonies to the amount of twentj 
thousand dollars. 

• Note 6, page 212, and note 5, page 134. . rape -IB 

• \mong the most powerful of these appeals, were a series of letters, wnttcn by .John Dicken- 
son of riiiladelphiii, and entitk'd Letters of a Femsylvania fanner. Like Paine's Crisis, ten years 



17T5.] 



PRELIMINARY EVENTS. 



219 



pressed its conviction, that Parliament had no right to tax the colonics. Tlicsa 
expressions were in response to a circular issued by Massachusetts [Feb., 1768J 
to the several Assemblies, asking their co-operation in obtaining a redress of 
grievances. That circular greatly offended the iVIinistry ; and the governor of 




Massachusetts was instructed to command the Assembly, in the king's name, to 
rescind the resolution adopting it. The Assembly, on the JiUth of June follow- 
ing, passed an almost unanimous vote not to rescind,' and made this very order 
an evidence of the intentions of government to enslave the colonists, by restrain- 
ing the free speech and action of their representatives. 

The British Ministry, ignorant and careless concerning the character and 
temper of the Americans, disregarded the portentous warnings which every 
vessel from the New World bore to their ears. Having resolved on employing 
physical force in the maintenance of obedience, and not doubting its potency, 



ktor [note 4, papje 250], thego Letters produced a wide-sproiid and poworful effect on the pul)lio 
mind. James Otis asserted, in a pamplilet, that "taxes on trade [taritl's], if designed to raise a 
revenue, wore as muoli a violation of their rights as any other tax." John Diel<eusoii was horn in 
Maryland, in November, 1732. lie studied law in England for three years, and made his first ap- 
pearance in public life, as a member of the Pennsylvania Asscnihlv. Ho was a momhcr of the 
Stamp Act Congress [page 215], and of the Continental Congress [jiage 22r)]. He was an eloquent 
speaker, and eleg.ant writer. He was opposed to tlie independence of the colonies, but acquiesced, 
aud was an able menil)er of the conveiiti<in th.at framed tlie Feder.al Constitution. He remained long 
in public life, and died in 1808, at the age of seventy-five years. 

' James Otis and Samuel Adams were the principal speakers on this occasion. "When Lord 
Hillsborough [colonial secretary] knows," said the former, " that we will not rescind our acts, he 
should appeal to Parliament to rescind theirs. Let Britona rescind their measures, or the colonies 
are lost to them forever." 



220 THE REVOLUTION. [1761. 

thoy became loss regardless of even tiie forms of justice, and began to treat the 
colonists as rebellious subjects, rather than as free British brethren. Ministers 
sent orders to the colonial Assemblies, Avarning them not to imitate the factious 
disobedience of Massaehusetts ; and the royal governors were ordered to enforce 
submission by all means in tlieir power. The effect of these circulars was to 
disgust and irritate the Assemblies, and to stiuuilatc their sympatiiy lor Massa- 
chusetts, now made the special object of displeasure. 

It Wiis in the midst of the general excitement, in May, 17G8, that the new 
commissioners of customs arrived at Boston. They were reganled with as 
much contempt sis were the ta.x-gathcrers in Judea, in the time of our Saviour.' 
It was difficult to restrain the more ignorant and c.xcitalde portion of the pop- 
. ulaliou from committing personal violence. A crisis soon arrived. In June, 
1768, the sloop Liberty, belonging to John Hancock, one of the leaders of the 
popular mind in Boston," arrived at that port with a cargo of Madeira wine. 
The conniiissioncrs demanded the payment of daties, and when it was refused, 
they seized the vessel. The news spread over the town, and the people re- 
solved on innnediato and effectual resistance. An assemblage of citizens soon 
became a mob, who dragged a custom-house boat tiirough the town, burned it 
upon the Common, assailed the commissioners, damaged their houses, and com- 
pelled them to seek safety in C;istle William, a small fortress at the entrance 
totlic harb-jr.^ Alarmed by these demonstrations of the popular feeling, Gov- 
ernor Bernard unwisely invited General Gage,* then in command of British 
troops at Ilalil'ix, to bring soldiers to Boston to overawe the inhabit;mts.' They 
came in September [Sept. 27, 17G8J, seven hundred in number, and on a (^uiet 
Sabbath morning, landed under cover of the cannons of the British ships which 
brougiit them, and with drums beating, and colors flying, they marched to the 
Common," with all the parade of a victorious army entering a conquered city. 
Religiim, popular freedom, patriotism, were all outraged, and the cup of the 
people s indignation was full.' The colonists were taught the bitter, but neces- 
sary lesson, that armed resistance nnist oppose armed oppression.'* 

Like the Assembly of New York, that of Massachusetts refused to afford 



' Tlio puhlicam, or toU-satliorcrs of Judca, beinp: a, standing monumpnt of the dcpnid.ition of the 
Jews undiT tlio Uoiiiaii yoko, wt-ro abliurrod. Ono of tlie accusations against our Saviour was, that 
ho did "cat witli puhlieans and sinners." ' Pajrc 231. 

' About tlireo miles south-east from Boston.- The fortros-s was ceded to the United States in 
170S; and the followiu^ year it was visited by President Adams, and nanieil Fort Independence, its 
present title. In connection with Castle William, we find the lirst mention of tlie tunc of " Yankeo 
Doodle." In the Boston Journal of the 7V»«f.<. September 29, 1708, is the Ibllowin);: "The fleet 
was broiipht to anchor near Castle William ; that night there was throwinp: of sky-rockets ; .ind 
these passiuR in boats observed great rejoicings, and that the Yankee Doodle Song was the capital 
piece in the band of nuisic." * Pago 186. 

' The British ministry had already resolved to send troops to Boston to subdue tlie rebellious 
propensities of the people. 

' A largo public park on the southern slope of Beacon Hill 

' As tlie people refused to supply the tniops with quarters, they wero placed, some in the State 
House, some in Kaiieuil Hall [page 225], anil othei-s in tents on the Common. Cannons wero 
planted at dilVcrcnt points; sentinels challenged the citizens as they p,issed ; and the whole town 
liad the appearand' of a camp. 

■ There wero, at that lime, full two huudrod lliouaimd meu iu the colouies capable of bearing 
ftrms. 



1T75.] PRELIMINARY EVENTS. 221 

food and shelter for the royal troops in that province, and for this offense, Par- 
liament, now become tlic supple instrument of the crown, censured their dis- 
obedience, approved of coercive me;isures, and, by resolution, prayed the king 
to revive a long obsolete statute of Henry the Eighth, by which the governor 
of the refractory colony should be required to arrest, and send to England for 
trial, on a charge of treason, the ringleaders in the recent tumults. The colo- 
nial Assembly indignantly responded, by re-asserting the chartered privileges 
of the people, and denying the right of the king to take an offender from the 
country, for trial. And in the House of Commons a powerful minority battled 
manfully for the Americans. Burke pronounced the idea of reviving that old 
statute, as "horrible." " Can you not trust the juries of that country?" he 
asked. " If you have not a party among two millions of people, you must 
either change your plans of government, or renounce the colonies forever." 
Even Grenville, the author of the Stamp Act, opposed the measure, yet a ma- 
jority voted in favor of the resolution, on the 26th of January, 17(59. 

The British troops continued to be a constant source of irritation, while, 
month after month, the colonies were agitated by disputes with the royal gov- 
ernors, the petty tyranny of lesser officials, and the interference of the imperial 
government with colonial legislation. The Assembly of Massachusetts, encour- 
aged by the expressed sympathy of the other colonies, firmly refused to appro- 
priate a single dollar for the support of the troops. They even demanded their 
withdrawal from the city, and refused to transact any legislative business while 
they remained. Daily occurrences exasperated the people against the troops, 
and finally, on the 2d of ]\Iarch, 1770, an event, apparently trifling in its char- 
acter, led to bloodshed in the streets of Boston. A rope-maker quarreled with 
a soldier, and struck him. Out of this affray grew a fight between several sol- ^ 
uiers and rope-makers. Tlie latter were beaten, and the result aroused the 
vengeance of the more excitable portion of the inhabitants. A few evenings 
afterward [March 5], about seven hundred of them assembled in the streets, 
for the avowed purpose of attacking the troops.' A sentinel was iissaulted near 
the custom-house, when Captain Preston, commander of the guard, went to his 
rescue with eio-ht armed men. The mob dared the soldiers to fire, and attacked 
them with stones, pieces of ice, and other missiles. One of the soldiers who 
received a blow, fired, and his six companions also discharged their guns. 
Three of the citizens were killed, and five were danger- 
ously wounded.' The mob instantly retreated, when all 

' Tliese were addressed by a tell man, disguised by a white wig and 
a scarlet cloak, who closed his haranjjue by shouting, " To the main 
guard! to the main guard I" and then disappeared. It was always be- 
lieved that the tall man was Samuel Adams, one of the most inflexible 
patriots of the Revolution, and at that time a popular leader. He was 
a descendant of one of the early Puritans [page 15], and was bom in 
Boston in 1722. He was one of the signers of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence; was afterward governor of Ma.S8a<'husetts ; and died in 
1803. A purer patriot than Samuel Adams, never lived. SAMIIBL ADAMS. 

" The leader of the mob was a powerful mulatto, named Crispus 
Attacks. He and Samuel Gray ajid James Caldwell, were killed instantly ; two others received 
mortal wounds. 




2:^2 • THE REVOLUTION. [1761. 

the bells of the city rang an alarum, ami in less than an hour several thou- 
sands of exasperated eitizens were in the streets. A terrible scene of blood 
would have ensued, had not Governor Hutchinson assured the people that 
justice should be vindicated in the morning. They retired, but with firm re- 
solves not to endure tlie military despotism any longer. 

The morning of the Gth of ilarch was I'lear and frosty. At an early hour 
Governor Hutchinson was called upon to fulfill his promise. The people de- 
manded the instant removal of tho troops from Boston, and the trial of Captain 
Preston and his men, for murder. These demands were complied with. Tho 
troops were removed to Castle AVilliam [March 12, 1770], and Preston, ably 
defended by John Adams and Josiah Quincy, two of tho popular leaders, was 
tried and acquitted, with si.\ of his men, by a Boston jury. The other two sol- 
diers were found guilty of manslaughter. This result was a comment on the 
enforcement of the statute of Henry tho Eighth, highly favorable to the Amer- 
icans. It was so regarded in England, and was used with good eflect by the 
opposition in Parliament. It showed that in the midst of popular excitement, 
the strong conservative principles of justice bore rule. The victims of the riot 
were regarded as martyrs to liberty,' and for many years, the memory of the 
" Boston ^lassaere," as it was called, was kept alive by anniversary orations in 
the city and vicinity. 

Perceiving the will and the power of the colonists in resisting taxation with- 
out their consent, the British ministry now wavered. On the very day of the 
bloody riot in Boston (March 5], Lord North, who was then the English jirime 
minister, proposed to I'arliament a repeal of all duties imposed by the act of 
1767," except that upon tea. An act to that effect was passed a month after- 
ward f Ajiril 12]. This concession was wrung from the minister partly by the 
clamor of English merchants and manufacturers, who again felt severely tho 
operations of the non-importation associations in America. As tea was a lux- 
ury, North sujiposed the colonists would not object to tho small duty laid upon 
that article, and he retained it as a standing assertion of the ri(//i/ of Paidiament 
to impose such duties. Tho minister entirely mistook tho character of the peo- 
ple he was dealing with. It was not the jictty tiinoiiiif of duties of which they 
complained, for all the taxes yet imposed were not in the least burdensome to 
them. They were contending for a great principle, which lay at the foundation 
of their liberties; and they regarded the imposition of a duty upon one article 
as much a violation of their sacred rights, as if ten were included. They ac- 
cepted the ministerial concession, but, asserting their rights, continued their 
non-impoi'tation league against the purchase and use of tea.' 



' Tlioy wore Iniried with grfnt parade. All tlip bi'Us of Eostoii niid vicinity tolled n funeral 
knoll while tho procession was moving; and as intended, the all'air made a dwp impression on tlio 
pubUc mind. * Pape 218. 

' Kven before North's proposition was mado to Parliament, special agreements concerning tho 
disuse of tea, had been made. Already the popular feelinit on tliis subject had been manilestcd to- 
ward a Boston merchant wlio continued to sell tea, A compjuiy of half-grown boys placed an effigy 
near his door, with a frngir upon it pointing toward his store. 'NVhilo a man was attempting to 
pull it down, he was polled with dirt and stones, lie ran into the store, and seizing a gun, dis- 
diorgod its contents among tho crowd. A boy named Suyder was killed, and Christopher Gore 



iViS.] PRELIMINARY EVENTS. 223 

The spirit of opposition was not confined to the more northern and eastern 
colonies. It was rife below the Roanoke, and was boldly made manifest when 
occasion required. In 1771, the Carolinas, hitherto exempted from violent out- 
bursts of popular indignation, although never wanting in zeal in opposing the 
Stamp Act, and kindred measures, became the theater of great excitement. To 
satisfy the rapacity and pride of royal governors, the industry of the province 
of North Carolina, especially, was enormously taxed.' The oppression was real, 
not an abstract principle, as at the North. The people in the interior at length 
formed associations, designed to resist unjust taxation, and to control public 
affairs. They called themselves Regulators ; and in 1771, they were too nu- 
merous to be overawed by local magistrates. Their operations assumed the 
character of open rebellion ; and in the spring of that year, Governor Tryon" 
marched into that region with an armed force, to subdue them. They met him 
upon Alamance Creek, in Alamance county, on the IGth of May, and there a 
bloody skirmish ensued. The Regulators were subdued and dispersed, and 
Tryon marched back in triumph to the sea-board, after hanging six of the lead- 
ers, on the 19th of June following. These events aroused, throughout the South, 
the fiercest hatred of British power, and stimulated that earnest patriotism so 
early displayed by the people below the Roanoke, when the Revolution broke out.' 

The upper part of Narraganset Bay exhibited a scene, in the month of 
June, 1772, which produced much excitement, and widened the breach between 
Great Britain and her colonies. The commander of the British armed schooner 
Gaspi, stationed there to assist the commissioners of customs' in enforcing the 
revenue laws, annoyed the American navigators by haughtily commanding them 
to lower their colors when they passed his vessel, in token of obedience. The 
William Tells of the bay refused to bow to the cap of this petty Gesler.' For 
such disobedience, a Providence sloop was chased by the schooner. The latter 
grounded upon a low samly point; and on that night [June 9, 1772], sixty-four 
armed men went down from Providence in boats, captured the people on board 
the Gaspii, and burned the vessel. Although a large reward wa.s offered for the 
perpetrators (who were well known in Providence*), they were never betrayed. 

(afterward governor of Massachusetts) was wounded. The aflair produced fi^eat excitement At 
about the same time, three hundred " mistresses of families" in Boston signed a pledge of total ab- 
stinence from the use of tea, while the duty remained upon it. A few days afterward a large num- 
ber of young ladies signed a similar pledge. 

' Governor Tryon caused a p.ilace to bo erected for his residence, at Newbern, at a cost of 
$75,000, for the payment of whicli the province was taxed. This was in 1768, imd was one of the 
principal causes of discontent, which produced the outbreak here mentioned. 

' Page 248. = Pago 237. * Page 220. 

' Gesler was an Austrian governor of one of the cantons of Switzerland. He placed his cap on 
X pole, at a gate of the town, and ordered all to bow to it, when they should enter. William Tell, ii 
brave le.ider of the people, refused. Ho was imprisoned for disobedience, escaped, aroused his 
countrymen to arms, who drove their Austrian masters out of the land, and achieved the indepen- 
dence of Switzerland. 

° One of the loaders was Abraham Wliipple, a naval commander d\iring the Revolution [page 
.310]. Several others were afterwfird distinguialied for bravery during that struggle. Four years 
afterward, when Sir James Wallace, a British commander, was "in the vicinity of Newport, Whipple 
became known as the leader of the attack on the Gaapi. M'allace sent him the following letter: 
"You, Abraham Whipple, on the 9tli of June, 1772, burned his majesty's vessel, the Gaspc, and I 
will liang you at tlie yard-arm." To I his Whipple replied : " To Sir James Wallace. Sir-. Always 
catch a man before you haug Inm. — Akhaham Whipple. " 




224 THE REVOLUTION. [17G1. 

These rebellious acts, so significant of the temper of the Americans, greatly 
perplexed the British ministry. Lord North' Mould gladly have conciliated 
them, but ho was pledged by words and acts to the iiiaiutenance of the asserted 
principle, that Parliament had the undoubted right to ta.x the colonies without 
their consent, lie labored hard to perceive some method by which conciliation 
and parliamentai'y supremacy might be made to harmonize, and early in 1773, 
a new thought upon taxation entered his brain. The East India Company,'^ 
having lost their valuable tea customers in America, by the operation of the 
non-importation associations, and having more than seventeen millions of pounds 
of the article in their warehouses in England, petitioned Parliament to take off 
the duty of three pence a pound, levied upon its importation into America. 
The company agreed to pay the government more than 
an equal amount, in export duty, if the change should be 
made. Here was an excellent opportunity for the gov- 
ernment to act justly and wisely, and to produce a per- 
fect reconciliation ; but tlie stupid ministry, fearing it 
mij;ht be considered a submission to "rebellious sub- 
jects," refused the olive branch of peace. Continuing 
to misappreliend the real question at issue. North intro- 
duced a l)ill into Parliament, allowing the company to 

LORD NORTH. , . , . , . ° • i 

export their teas to America on tlieir own account, with- 
out paying an export duty. As this would make tea cheaper in America than 
in England, he concluded the Americans would not olycct to paying the three 
pence duty. This concession to a commercial monopoly, while spurning the 
appeals of a great principle, only created contempt and indignation throughout 
the colonies. 

Blind as the minister, the East India Company now regarded the American 
market as open for their tea, and soon after the passage of the bill [May 10, 
1773], several large ships, heavily laden with the article, were on their way 
across the Atlantic. Intelligence of these movements reached America before 
the arrival of any of the ships, and the people in most of the sea-board towns, 
where consignments of tea had been made, resolved that it should not even be 
landed. The ships which arrived at New York ;uid Philadelphia, returned to 
England with their cargoes. At Charleston it was landed, but was not allowed 
to be sold ; while at Boston, the attempts of the governor and his friends," who 

' Frederick, Earl of Guilford (Lord North), was a man of talent, sineerely attached to Enirlish 
liberty, and conscientious in tlic pcrformanauce of his duties. Like many other statesmen ot his 
time, he utterly misapprehended the character of tlie American people, and could not perceive the 
justice of their claims. Ho was prime minister durinc; tlio whole of our War for Independence. 
He was afflicted with blindness during the last years of his life. He died in July, 1792, at tlie ag» 
of sixty years. 

' The Engli.sh Ea-st India Company was formed and chartered in 1600, for the purpose of 
carrying on a trade by sea, between England and the coimtries lying east of the Cape of Good 
Hope [note 1, page 31]. It continued prosperous; and about the middle of the last century, the 
governor of its stations in India, under the pretense of obtaining security for tlieir trade, siil>dued 
small territories, and thus planted the foundation of that great British empire in the East, which 
now comprises the whole of Ilindostan. from Cape Conioriii to the Himalaya mountains, with a 
population of more than one hundred and twenty millions of people. 

' The public mind in Massachusetts was greatly indamed against Governor Hutchinson at this 



1775.1 



PRELIMINARY EVENTS. 



225 




FANEUIL HALL. 



irerp consignees, to land the tea in defiance of the public feeling, resulted in the 

destruction of a large quantity of it. On a cold moonlight night [December 

16, 1773J, at the close of the last of several spirited 

meetings of the citizens held at Faneuil Hall,' a party 

of about sixty persons, some disguised as Indians, 

rushed on board two vessels in the harbor, laden with 

tea, tore open the hatches, and in the course of two 

hours, three hundred and forty-two chests containing 

the proscribed article, were broken open, and their 

contents cast into the water. This event produced a 

powerful sensation throughout the British realm, and 

led to very important results. 

While the American colonies, and even Canada, Nova Scotia, and the 
British West Indies, sympathized with the Bostonians, and could not censure 
them, the exasperated government adopted retaliatory measures, notwithstand- 
ing payment for all damage to their property was promised to the East India 
Company. Parliament, by enactment []March 7, 1774], ordered tlio port of 
Boston to be closed against all commercial transactions whatever, and the re- 
moval of the custom-house, courts of justice^ and other public offices, to Salem. 
The Salem people patriotically refused the proffered advantage at the expense 
of their neighbors ; and the inhabitants of Marblehead, fifteen miles distant, 
offered the free use of their harbor and wharves, to the merchants of Boston. 
Soon after the passage of the Boston Port Bill, as it was called, another act, 
which leveled a blow at the charter of Massachusetts, was made a law [March 
28, 1774]. It was equivalent to a total subversion of the charter, inasmuch 
as it deprived the people of many of the dearest privileges guarantied 1)y that 
instrument.' A third retaliatory act was passed on the 21st of April, provid- 
ing for the trial, in England, of all persons charged in the colonies with mur- 
ders committed in support of government, giving, as Colonel Barr^ said, 
"encouragement to military insolence already so insupportable." A fourth 
bill, providing for the quartering of troops in America, was also passed by 
large majorities in Ijoth Houses of Parliament ; and in anticipation of rebellion 
in America, a fifth act was passed, making great concessions to the Roman 
Catholics in Canada, known as the Quebec Act. This excited the animosity of 



time, whose letters to a member of Parliament, recommending stringent measures toward the coU 
onies, had been procured in England, and sent to the speaker of the colonial Assembly, by Dr. 
Franklin. At about the same lime, Parliament had passed a law, making the governor and judges 
of Massachusetts independent of the Assembly for their salaries, these being paid out of the reve- 
nues in the hands cf the commissioners of customs. This removal of these officials beyond all de- 
pendence upon the people, constituted them fit instruments of the crown for oppressing the inhabit- 
ants, and in that aspect the colonists viewed the measure, and condemed it. 

' Because the Revolutionary meetings in Boston were held in Faneuil Hall, it was (and still is) 
called TJit Cradle of Liberty. It was built, and presented to the town, by Peter Faneuil, in 1742. 
The picture shows its form during the Revolution. The vane on the steeple, in the form of a grass- 
hopper (symbolical of devouring), yet [1867] holds its original place. 

" It empowered shorifls appointed by the crown, to select juries, instead of leaving that power 
with the selectmen of tlio towns, -svlio were chosen by tlie people. It also prohibited all town 
meetings and other gatherings. It provided for tlie appointment of the council, judges, justices of 
the peace, ett., by the crown or its representative. 

15 



226 THE REVOLUTION. [1761. 

all Protestants. These moasures created universal indignation toward the gov- 
ernment, and sympathy for the people of Boston. 

On tiie first of June, 1774, the Boston Port Bill ■went into operation. It 
was a heavy blow for the doomed town. Business was crushed, and great suf- 
fering ensued. The utter ])rostration of trade soon produced wide-spread dis- 
tress. The rich, deprived of their rents, Ijecame straitened; and the poor, 
denied the privilege of laboring, were reduced to beggary. All classes felt the 
scourge of the oppressor, but bore it with remarkable fortitude. They were 
conscious of being riglit, and everywhere, tokens of the liveliest sympathy were 
manifested. Flour, rice, cereal grains, fuel, and money, were sent to the suffer- 
ing people from the different colonies ; and the city of London, in its corporate 
capacity, subscribed one hundred and fifty thousand dollars for the poor of Boston. 
For the purpose of enforcing these oppressive laws, General Gage, the com- 
mander-in-chief of the British army in America,' was appointed governor of 
Massachusetts, and an additional military force was orilered to Boston. Theso 
coercive demonstrations greatly increased the public irritation, and diminished 
the hopes of reconciliation. Slavish sulimission or armed resistance, was now 
the alternative presented to the American jicople. Committees of correspond- 
ence which had been formed in every colony in 1773,' had been busy in the 
interchange of sentiments and opinions, and throughout the entire community 
of Anglo-Americans there was evidently a general consonance of feeling, favor- 
able to united efforts in opposing the augmenting tyranny of Great Britain. 

Yet tliey hesitated, and resolved to deliberate in solemn 

council before they should appeal to " the last argument 

of kings.'" 

The patriots of Massachusetts stood not alone in 

their integrity. In all the colonies the Whigs' were 






SNAKE DEVICE. j^g inflexible and bold, and as valiantly defied the power 

of royal governors, when unduly exercised. But those of Massachusetts, Ijeing 
the special objects of ministerial vengeance, suffered more, and required more 
boldness to act among bristling bayonets and shotted cannons, prepared ex- 
pressly for their bosoms. Yet they grew stronger every day under persecu- 
tion, and bolder as the frowns of British power became darker." Even while 

' Page 220. 

' At a consuU.ition of leading members of the Virginia House of Assembly, in Jfaroli, 1773, lield 
im tlie old Kaloigh tavern at Williamsburg, at which Patrick Henry, Thomas JoffersoD, Ricliard 
Henry Leo, and others, wore present, it was agreed to submit a resolution in tlie House the follow- 
ing day, appointing a ooniniittoo of vigilance and correspondence, and rccommonding the s;imo to 
the other colonies. Tlio measure was carried, ami theso connniltoes formed one of the most power- 
ful engines in c:u'rying on tlio work of tlie Revolution. Similar committees had akeady been formed 
in several towns in Massachusetts. 

' These words, in Latin, wore often placed upon caunou. Before the armor_v, at Riclimonil, 
Virginia, was destroyed, in April, 18G5, several old Froncli cannons, made of brass, were there, on 
two of which tliose words appeared. Tliey also appear upon some Froncli cannon at West Point. 

* T!ie terms, Whir and Toi;v, liad long been used ui i';ns;lan<i .as titles of political parties. Tlio 
firmer <lenotod llio opposors of royalty; tlie latter indicated its supporters. Tliese terms were 
introduced into America two or three years belbro thu Revolution broke out, and became tiio dis- 
tinctive titles of tlio piilriots and loyaliats. 

' Kveu the chiklron seemed to lose their timidity, and became bolder. Thoy nobly exhibited it 



1775.] 



PRELIMINARY EVENTS. 



227 



troops, to overawe them were parading the streets of Boston, sturdy representa- 
tives of the people assembled at Salem,' and sent forth an invitation to all the 
colonies to appoint delegates to meet in a general Congress at Philadelphia on 
the 5th of September following. It met with a hearty response from twelve or 




i^^^^^r ^^^-^^2^ 



the thirteen colonieg, and the Press and the Pulpit seconded the measures with 
great emphasis. Some newspapers bore a significant device. It was a snake 
cut into thirteen parts, each part bearing the initials of a colony upon it, as 
seen in the engraving." Under these were the significant words, Unite or die. 
The delegates were all appointed before the close of August, and the First 



on one occasion. They were in the habit of building mounds of snow in winter, on Boston Com- 
mon. These the soldiers battered down, so as to annoy the boys. This being repeated, a meeting 
of larger boys was held, and a deputation was sent to General Gage, to remonstrate. " We come, 
sir," said the tallest boy, "to demand salist'aotion. " "WhatI" exclaimed Gage; "have your 
fathers been teaching \'ou rebellion, and sent you liere to exhibit it?" "Nobody sent us here, sir," 
said the boy. while his eyes flashed with indignation. "We have never insulted nor injured your 
troops, but they have trodden down our snow-hills, and liroken the ice on our skating-grounda 
We complained ; and, calling us young rebels, told us to help ourselves if wo could. We told the 
captain of this, and he laughed at us. Yesterday our works wore destroyed for the third time, and 
we will bear it no longer." Gage admired the spirit of the boys, promised them redress, and turn- 
ing to an officer, he said, "The very children here di-aw in a love of liberty with the air they 
breathe " 

' At that meeting of the General Assembly of Massachusetts, the patriots matured a plan tor ;i 
general Congress, provided for munitions of war to resist British power in their own province, and 
formed a general non-importation league for the whole country. In the midst of their prococcUngs, 
General Gage sent his secretary to dissolve them, but the doors of the Assembly chamber wero 
locked, and the key was ii) Samuel Adams's pocket. Having finished their business, the Assembly 
adjourned, and thus ended the last session of that body, under a royal governor. ' Page 226. 




228 TUE REVOLUTION. [1161. 

Continental Congress' assembled in Carpenter's Hall, riiiladelphia, on the 
5th of September, 1774, tlio day nameil iu the circular. All but Cioorgia were 
represented. Peyton Ivaiulnlpli, of ^'irgiuia, was apjjointed President, and 
Charles Thomson of Pennsylvania, Secret;iry.'' The regular business of the 
Congress comnicnced on the morning of the 7th,-' after an impressive prayer for 
Divine guidance, uttered ]>y the Rev. Jacob Duchc,* of Philadelphia. They 
remained in session until the 26th of October, during which time tliey matured 
measui-es for future action, which met with the general ai)probation of the 
American people.^ They prepared and put forth sev- 
eral State papers," marked by such signal ability and 
wisdom, as to draw from the Earl of Chatham these 
words in the House of Lords : " I must declare and 
avow, that in all my reading and study of history — 
(and it has been my favorite study — I have read Thu- 
cydides, and have studied and admired the master 
States of the world) — that for solidity of reasoning, 
force of sagacity, and wisdom of conclusion, under 

CARPENTER'S HALL. i T t.- C • i. l' 

such a compucation oi cn-cumstances, no nation or 

body of men can stand in preference to the general Congress at Philadelphia.^ 

In all its proceedings Congress manifested decorum, firmness,' moderation, 

' This name was given to distinguish it from tho two colonial Congresses [pages 183 and 215] 
already held ; one at Albany in 1154, tho other at New York in 17G5. 

" Tlioni.son was secretary ol' Congress, perpetually, from 1774, until tho adoption of tho Federal 
Constitution, and the organization of tho new government, in 1789. Watson relates that Thomson 
had just conio into Philadelphia, with his bride, and was alighting from his chaise, when a messen- 
ger from tlio delegates in Carpenter's Hall came to him, and said they wanted him to como and 
take minutes of their proceedings, as he was an expert at such business. For his first year's serv- 
ice, he received no pay. So Congress infoi.n^d his wife that they wished to compensate hn- for the 
abseni-e of her husband during th.at time, and wished her to name what kind of a piece of plate Ao 
would like to receive. She cliose an nrn, ami that silver vessel ia yet in tlie family. Thomson was 
born in Ireland iu 1730, came to America wlieii eleven years of age, and died in 1824, at tho ago 
of ninety-four years. 

• When tho delegates had assembled on the .'Jth, no one seemed inclined to break the silence, 
.■ind deep anxiety was depicted in every countenance. Soon a grave-looking man, in a suit of 

, '■ minister's gray," and unpowdered wig, arose, and, with a sweet, nuisical voice, he \ittered a few 
eloquent word.s, that elei'triticd tho whole audience. "Who is he?" w.is a question that went 
from lip to lip. A few who knew him, answered, " It is Patrick Henry, of Virginia." There was 
no longer any hesitation. He who, nine years before, had cast the gauntlet of defiance at tlie feet 
of British |)o'\ver, now set iu motion tlint august machinery of civil power, which assisted in work- 
ing out tho independence of tho United States. 

• Duche was a nunister of tho Church of England, and afterward became n Tory. 

' They prepared a plan for a general commercial non-intercourse with Great Britain and her 
West India possessions, which was called Tlie American Associalio7i, and was recommended for 
udoption throughout tho countrj-. It consisted of fourteen articlea In addition to the non-inter- 
course provisions, it was rceonnncnded to abandon tlie slave-trade, to improve tho breed of sheep, 
to abstain frtun all extravagance in living and ind\dgenco in horse-racing, etc., and the appointment 
of a committee in every town to promote conformity to the reqviirements of tho Associalion. It 
was signed by the titlv-two members present 

• A Bill ofHights; an addrc-is to tho people of Great Britain, -WTitten by John Jay; another to 
tho several Anglo- .Vmerican colonies, written by William Livingston ; another to the inhabitants of 
Quebec, an<l a petition to tho king. In thesso, tho grievances and tho rights of tho colonies were ably 
set forth. 

' He also said, in a letter to Stephen Sayre, on the 24th of December, 1774: "I have not 
words to express my satisfiiotion that tho Congress has conducted this most arduous and delicate 
business, with such manly wisdom and lalm resolution, as do tho highest honor to their deliberation." 

• On tho 8th of October, they unanimously resolved, "That this Congress approve the opposition 



1710.] FIRST YEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 229 

and loyalty ; and when the delegates resolved to adjourn, to meet again at the 
same place on the 10th ot" May followiiii^ [1775], unless the desired rediess of 
grievances should be obtained, tliey did so with an earnest hope that a reconcil- 
iation might speedily take place, and render another national council unneces- 
sary. But they were doomed to bitter disappointment. Great Britain wa* 
blind and stubborn still. 



CHAPTER II. 

FIRST TEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. [1776.] 

Persuaded that war was inevitable, the colonists began to prepare for that 
event, during the summer and autumn of 1774. They practiced daily in mil- 
itary exercises ; the manufacture of arms and gunpowder was encouraged ; and 
tliroughout Massachusetts in particular, where the heel of the oppressor bore 
heaviest, the people were enrolled in companies. Fathers and sons, encouraged 
by the gentler sex, received lessons together in the art of war, and prepared to 
take arms at a moment's warning. From this circumstance, they were called 
minute-men. The Whig' journals grew bolder every hour. Epigrams, para- 
bles, sonnets, dialogues, and every form of literary expression, remarkable for 
point and terseness, filled their cdlunins. We give a single specimen of some 
of the rhymes of the day : 

"THE QUARKKI, WITH AMERICA FAIRLY STATBa). 

" Rudely forced to drink tea, Massachusetts in anfrer 
Spills the tea on Juhn Bull; John falls on to bang her; 
Massachusetts, enraged, calls her neighbors to aid, 
And give Master John a severe bastinado. 
Now, good men of the law I pray, who is in fault, 
The one who began or resents the assault ?" 

The Massachusetts leaders, in the mean while, were laboring, with intense 
zeal, to place the province in a condition to rise in open and united rebellion, 
when necessity should demand. And all over the land, the provincial assem- 
blies, speakers at public gatherings, and from the pulpit, were boldly proclaim- 
ing the right of resistance. These demonstrations alarmed General Gage,' and 
he commenced fortifying Boston Neck." He also seized and conveyed to 

of the inhabitants of Massachusetts Bay, to the execution of the late acts of Parliament, and if ths 
same shall be attempted to be carried into execution by force, in such case all America ought to 
support them in their opposition." This resolution, in letter and spirit, was the embodiment of the 
revolutionary sentiment. ' Note 4, page 22G. 

' Thom:is Gage was a native of England. Ho was governor of Montreal [page 203] in 1760, and 
commander-in-chief of the British army in Americii, in 17G3. lie was appointed governor of 
Ma.ss,".chusctts, in 1774; left America in 1775; ami dinl in 1787. 

° Tlie peninsula of Boston w.ns originally eiinnrctrii willi the main land by a narrow isthmut 
called the Neck. It has been greatly widened by tilling in the marginal morasses; and over it now 
paases the line avenue which connects the city with Roxbury, on the main. 



230 THE UK VOLUTION. [1775. 

the city large quantities of ammunition found in tlio neighboring villages, and 
cmiiloycd stringent measures for preventing intercourse between the patriots in 
the city and in the eounti'j. The exasperated people needed but the electric 
spark of even a slight offense to kindle their suppressed indignation into a 
blaze. They were ready to sound the )iattlc-ci-y, and evoke the sword of rebel- 
lion fi-om its scabbard ; and they were even anxious to attack the soldiers in 
Boston, but they were restrained by prudcpt conselors.' 

A rumor went abroad on the third of Peptetcbcr, that British ships were 
cannonading Boston. From the shores of Long Island Sound to the green 
hills of Berkshire, " To arms ! to arms !" was the universal shout. Instantly, 
on every side, men of all ages were seen cleansing and burnishing their weap- 
ons ; and within two days, full thirty thousand minicle-mcn were under arms, 
and hastening toward that city. They were met by a contradiction of the 
rumor; but the event conveyed such a portentous lcs,son to Gage, that he 
pushed forward his military operations with as much vigor as the ojiposition of 
the jjcople would allow." He thought it expeilient to be more conciliatory ; 
and he summoned the colonial Assembly to meet at Salem on the Sth of Octo- 
ber. Then dreading their presence, he revoked the order. Ninety delegates 
met, however, and organized by the ajipointment of John Ilancock' president. 
They then went to Cambridge, where they formed a Provincial Congress, inde- 
pendent of royal authority (the first in America), and labored earnestly in 
i)rei)arations for that armed resistance, now become a stern necessity. They 
made provisions for an army of twelve thousand men ; solicited other New En- 
gland colonies to augment it to twenty thousand; and appointed Jedediah 
Treble and Artemas AVard' men of experience in the French and Indian war,' 
generals of all the troops that might lie raised. 

The Americans were now fairly aroused to action. Tiiey had counted the 
cost of armed rebellion, and were fully resolved to meet it. The defiant 
position of the colonists arrested the attention of all Europe. When the Brit- 
ish I'arliament assembled early in 1775, that body presented a scene of great 
excitement. Dr. Franklin and others," then in England, had given a wide cir- 
culation to the State papers put forth by the Continental Congress ;' and the 

' Many hundreds of armed men assembled at Cambridge. At Charlestown, the people took 

po.'fse.ssion of the nrseiiiU, after Gapo had carried o(1" tho ])cnvdor. At Port.siiiimth, N. 11., they cap- 
tured the tort, ami carried olVtho aniniunitioii. At Ni'vvport, H. I., tho jieoplo seized the powder, 
and took jiotsession of forty pieces of cannon at the entrance of the harbor. In New York, Phila- 
delphia, AnuaiJdlis, Willianisliur);, Charleston, and Savannah, the people took active defensive 
measures, and tho whole comUrv was in a blaze of indisrnation. 

' Carpenters refused to work on the fortilieations, and nnieh of the material was destroyed by 
fire, at night, in spito of the vigilance of the gnards. Oasresout to New York for timber and work- 
men ; but tho people there would not permit either to leave tlioir port. 

' John Hancock wivs one of the most popular of the New Knpland patriots, throughout tho 
whole war. He was born in Uraintree. Mas.iaehuaett.'*. in 17:n, was edvicated at Harvard College; 
became a counting-rooiu clerk to his uncle, and iidierited that (.'cntleman's great wealth. lie 
entered public life early ; was a re^-esentativc in the Continental Congress, and was its president 
when the Declaration lif lnde]iendence was a<loiited. He was afterward governor of Massachusetts. 
Mr. Hancock died in (October, 1793, at tlie age of lirty-six years. 

* Note 6, page 238. " " » Page 179. 

' Pr. Franklin had then boon agent in England, for several of the colonies, for about ten yeara 

' Note 6, page 228. 



1116.] 



FIRST TEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 



231 



English mind was already favorably influenced in flivor of the Americans. 
Pitt came on crutches' from his retirement, to cast the weight of his mighty 
influence into the scale of justice, by action in the House of Lords. He pro- 
posed [January 7, 1775] conciliatory measures. They were rejected, as well 









•as others offered by Burke, Conway, and Hartly ; and in their stead, Parlia- 
ment, in March, struck another severe blow at the industry of New England, 
by prohibiting fishing on the banks of Newfoundland.' Already Lord North 
had moved, in the House of Conmions [February, 1775], for an address to the 
king, affirming that Massachusetts was in a state of rebellion. The Ministers 
also endeavored to promote dissensions in America, by crippling the trade of 
New England and other colonies, but exempting New York, Delaware, and 
North Carolina. The bait of favor for these three colonies was indignantly 



' Pitt was greatly afflicted witli tlio Roiit. Somotimos lie was confined to his house for weeks 
by it ; and he was sometimes seen on the floor of Parliament leaning upon crutches, and bis legs 
swathed in flannels. In this condition ho made two of his most eloquent speeches in favor of thu 
Americans. 

" At tliat time, there were employed by the Amorioans, in tlio British Newfoundland fisheries, 
four hundred ships, two thousand fisliiiig shnllnps, .nnd twenty thousand men. On account of this 
blow to the fishing tr.ade, a ereat main- inlialiitniifs of Nantucket .and vicinity, chiefly Quakers, went 
to North Carolina, and in Orantrc .'uid ( inilfiird cfumties, became pkanters. Their descendauta are 
yet numerous there. The principal mcetlug-liouso is at New Garden. 



232 ■ THE RKVOLUTION. [IIIR 

spurned — tlio scheme of disunion signally failed. Common dangers and com- 
mon interests drew the ligaments of fraternity closer than ever. When the 
trees budded, and the flowers bloomed in the spring of 1775, all hope of recon- 
ciliation had vanished. It was evident that 

" King, Commons, ami Lords, were uniting amain," 

to destroy the Liberty Tree, planted by faithful hands. The iioojile of the col- 
onies, though weak in military resources, were strong in inirpuse; and, relying 
upon the justice of their cause, and the assistance of the Lord God Omnipotent, 
they resolved to defy the fleets and armies of Great Britain. 

There was great moral sublimity in the rising of the colonies against the 
parent country ; for it was material weakness arrayed against great material 
strength. There were more than three thousand British troops in Boston, on the 
first of April, 1775. Confident in his power, Gage felt certain that he could 
repress insurrections, and keep the people (juiet. Yet he felt uneasy concerning 
the gathering of ammunition and stores," by the patriots, at Concord, sixteen miles 
from Boston. Toward midnight, on the ISth [April], he secretly dispatched 
eight hundred men, under lieutenant-colonel Smith and Major Pitcairn, to 
destroy them. So carefiilly had he arranged the expedition, that he believed 
it to be entirely unknown to the patriots. All his precautions were vain. The 
vigilant Dr. Warren," who was secretly watching all the movements of Gage, 
became aware of the expedition early in the evening ; and when it moved, 
Paul Revere,' one of the most active of the Sons of Liberty in Boston, had 
landed at Charlestown, and was on his way to Concord to arouse the inhabitants 
and minute-men. Soon afterward, church-bells, muskets, and cannons spread 
the alarm over the country ; and when, at dawn, on the 10th of April. 1775 — 
a day memorable in the annals of our Republic — Pitcairn, with the advanceil 
guard, reached Lexington, a few miles from Concord, he found seventy deter- 
mined men drawn up to oppose him. Pitcairn rode forward and shouted, 
"Disperse! disperse, you rebels! Do^vn with your arms, and disperse!'' 
They refused obedience, and he ordered his men to fire. That dreadful order 
was obeyed, and the first blood of the Revolt'tiox flowed upon the tender 
grass on the Green at Lexington. Eight citizens were killed, several were 
wounded, and the remainder were dispersed. The last survivor of that noble 
band* died in March, 1854, at the age of almost ninety-six years. 



'Early in the year, secret orders had been sent by the ministry to the royal governors, to 
remove all ammunition and stores out of the reach of the people, if they made any hostile denion- 
itrations. 

" Afterward killed in tho battle ob Breed's Hill. See page 235. 

" Revere was an engraver, and previous to this time had e.vecuted some creditable specimens 
of his art. lie engraved a picture of tho navnl investment of Boston, in 1708, and of the Boston 
Massm-re, in 1770. As a tirand Master of the Ma.sonic order, he was very iiitluontial ; yet, like 
those of Isaac Sears, of T/lnv York, his eminent services in the cause of freedom have been over- 
looked. Tlieir fime is eclipsed by men of greater minds, but of no stunlier patriotism. 

* .lonatlian Harrington, who played the fife for the minule-mev. on the morning of the battle. 
The writer visited him in 1818. when he was ninety years of age. Ho then had a perfect recollec- 
tion of tho events of that morning. A portrait of him. as he appeared at that time, is published isi. 
Lossing's Pictorial Field Book of the Jievolution, page 554, vol. i. 



1776.) FIRST TEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 23S 

Confident of full success, the British now pressed forward to Concord, v.nd 
destroyed the stores. They were terribly annoyed by the minute-men on their 
way, who fii-ed upon them from behind walls, trees, and buildings. Having accom- 
plished their purpose, and killed several more patriots in a skirmish there, the 
royal troops hastily retreated to Lexington. The country was now thoroughly 
aroused, and minute-men were gathering by scores. Nothing but the timely 
arrival of Lord Percy with. reinforcements,' saved the eight hundred men from 
total destruction. The whole body now retreated. All the way back to 
Bunker's Hill," in Charlestown, the troops were terribly assailed by the patri- 
ots ; and when, the following morning, they crossed over to Boston, they ascer- 
tained their loss to be, in killed and wounded, two hundred and seventy-three. 
The loss of the Americans in killed, wounded, and missing, was one hundred 
and three.' 

The initial blow for freedom had now been struck. It was appalling to 
friend and foe. The news of this tragedy spread over the country like a blaze 
of lightning from a midnight cloud, and like the attendant thunder-peal, it 
aroused all hearts. From the hills and valleys of New England, the patriots 
went forth by hundreds, armed and unarmed ; and before the close of the 
month [April 1775], an army of twenty thousand men were forming camps and 
piUng fortifications around Boston, from Roxbury to the river Mystic, deter- 
mined to confine the fierce tiger of war, which had tasted their blood, upon that 
little peninsula. The provincial Congress,* sitting at Watertown, with Dr. 
Warren at its head, worked day and night in consonance with the gathering 
army. They appointed military officers, organized a commissariat for supplies, 
issued bills of credit for the payment of troops (for which the province was 
pledged), to the amount of three hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars, 
and declared [May 5] General Gage to be an "inveterate enemy " of the peo- 
ple. And as the intelligence went from colony to colony, the people in each 
were equally aroused. Arms and amnuinition were seized by the iSojif: of 
Liberty, provincial Congresses were i'ornied, and before the close of summer, 
the power of every royal governor, from Massachusetts to Georgia, was 
utterly destroyed. Everywhere the inhabitants armed in defense of their 
liberties, and took vigorous measures for future security. 

Some aggressive enterprises were undertaken by volunteers. The most 
important of these was the seizure of the strong fortresses of Ticonderoga° and 
Crown Point," on Lake Champlain, chiefly by Connecticut and Vermont 

' Earl Percy was a son of the Duke of Northumberland. When he was marching out of Bos- 
ton, his band struck up the tune of Yankee Doodle, in derision. He saw a boy at Roxbury making 
himself very merry as he passed. Percy inquired why he was so merry. "To think," said the lad, 
" how you will dance by-and-by to Clievy Ohase." Percy was often much influenced by presenti- 
ments, and the words of the boy made liim momly. Percy was a lineal descendant of the Euvl 
Percy who was slam in the battle of Clievy Chase, and he felt all day as if some great calamity 
might befall him. = Pago 235. 

' Appropriate monuments have been erected to the memory of the slain, at Lexington, Concord, 
and Acton. Davis, the commander of the militia at Concord, was from Acton, and so were mast 
of his men. The estimated value of the property destroyed by the invaders, was as follows : In 
Concord, one thousand three hundred and seventy-five dollars; in Lexington, eight thousand threa 
hundred and five doUars; in Cambridge, six thousand and ten dollars. ' Page 2.30. 

" Page 196. • Page 200. 



I 



234 TlIK IlKVOLUTION. [m». 

militia, under tbo command of Colonels Ethun Allen and Benedict Arnold. 
Ticondoroga and its garrison were taken possession of at dawn, on the 10th of 
Mzy, 1775;' and two days afterward, Colonel Si'tli Warner, of the expedition, 
with a few men, captured Crown I'oint. The spoils of victory taken at these 
two posts, consisting of almost one hundred and fifty pieces of cannon, and a 
largo quantity of aiiiiiiuiiition and stores, were of vast eonse(|uencc to the Amer- 
icans. A few months later [March, 1770J, some of these cannons were hurling 
death-shots into the midst of the British troops in Boston." 

llaviiiu; npudiiited royal authority, the jK'ople of Massachusetts were obe- 
dient to their chosen rulers, and efficient civil government was duly inaugur- 
ated. On the 19th of May [1775], the provincial Congress of Massachusetts 
clothed the Counuittee of Safety, sitting at Cambridge, with full powers to 
regulate tiie operations of the army. Artemas AVard was appointed commander- 
in-chief, Richard Gridley," chief engineer, and Israel Putnam, John Stark, and 
otlier veterans, who had served bravely in the French and Indian war, were 
appointed to important commands. The military genius developed in that old 
conflict, was now brought into requisition. Day by day the position of the 
British army bocanio more perilous. Fortunately for its safety, large reinforce- 
ments, under those throe e.\i)erienced commanders. Generals Howe, Clinton, 
and Burgoyne, arrived on the 25th of May. It was timely : and then tlie 
whole British force in Boston amounted to about twelve thousand men, besides 
several well-manned vessels of war, under Admiral Graves. Gage now resolved 
to attack the Americans and penetrate the country. 

rre(>aratory to an invasion of the province. Gage issued a proclamation 
(June 10, 1775], declaring all Americans inarms to be rebels and traitors, and 
offering a free pardon to all who should return to their allegiance, except those 
arch-oifenders, John Hancock and Sanuu'l Adams.' These he intended to 
seize and send to England to be hanged. The vigilant patriots, aware of Gage's 
hostile intentions, strengthened their intrenchments on Boston Neck,' and on 
the eveniu" of the IGth of June, General AVard sent Colonel Brescott" with a 
detachment of one thousand men, to take possession of, and fortify. Bunker's 
Hill, in Charlestown, which conmianded an important part of Boston and tho 
surrounding water. By mistake they a.'^ccnded Breed's Hill, within cannon 
shot of the city, and laboring with ])ick and si)ade all that night, they had cast 
up a strong redoubt' of earth, on the summit of that eminence, before the Brit- 

' Alton wns in cliiof commamt. ITaviiii; tiikon piis.soswion of tho fiirt nnd p.irrison l\v suq>rise, 
lio nsoomloil to tlio door ol'tlio coiimiaminnl's iiparlmoiit, nml nwoko (';i]>tain Do Liv I^laiv. In- lionvy 
lllo^vs with tho liilt of his swoiit. Tho astonislioil oomnianilor, follinvoil liy his wifo, cnnio to the 
tU)or. Ho know AUon. " What do you want?" lio inquirod. " I want you to surrondor this fort," 
AUon nnsworod. " I5y what authority do you doinaml it?" nskod Do Iji I'laoo. "BythotTroat 
Johovali and tlio Oontinenlftl Conerossl" said Alton, willi tlio voice of a Stontor. T'lo captain 8Ul>- 
niittod, and tlio fortR'.-w liecaniou j«s,sossion of tho patriots. " Pa)^ 241. 

' Noto 1, pn^o nS. • Nolo 1. \v\fc 221. ' Noto :\, impc 229. 

' AiVilhan) Proscotl wns bom nt Groton, Ma'isiiohusotta, in 1126. ITo wns at Louislnirp: [pngo 
137] in n4r>. Aflor tho liattlo of Biinkor'.M Hill, ho sonvd under Gates, until the sum^ndor of 
Bunrnyno. whon ho loll tho army, lio diod in 179.'). 

' A rodoulit is a small fortiHoation ({onerally composed of earth, and imvinfj vety few feature* 
•fa regular fort, except ita nrrangemont for tlio use of cannons and muskets. They are oftea tern- 



mo.] FIRST TEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 



235 



isU were .iwaro of their presence. Giigo atul his officers were greatly astonished 
at the apparition of this militiiry work, at the dawn of the ITth. 

The British generals were not only astonished, but alarmed, and at onco 
perceived tlio necessity for driving the Americans from this commanding 
position, before they should jdant a heavy battery there, for in that event, 
Boston nuist bo evacuated before sunrise. The drums beat 
to arms, and soon the city was in a great tumult. Tht nn- 
minent danger converted many Tories into piofessedly 
warm Whigs, for the days of British rule appealed to be 
closing. Every eminence and roof in Boston 
swarmed with jieople and at about sunrise 
[June 17, 1775J, a 
heavy cannonade was 
opened upon the re- 
doubt, from a. Iiatlery 
on Copp's Hill, in 
Boston,' and from the 
shijiiiing in the har- 
bor, but with very 
little effect. Hour 
after hour the patriots 
toiled on in the com- 
pletion of their work, 
and at noon-day, theii 
task was finished, and they laid aside their implements of labor for knapsacks 
and muskets. General Howe, with General I'igot, and three thousand men, 
crossed the Charles River at the same time, to Morton's Point, at the foot of 
the eastern slope of 13reed's Hill, formed his troops into two columns, and 
marched slowly to attack the redoubt. Although the British commenced firing 
cannons soon after they began to ascen<l the hill, and the great guns of the 
ships, and the battery on Copp's Hill, poured an incessant storm u])on tho 
redoubt, the Americans kept perfect silence until they had approached within 
close musket shot. Hardly an American could bo seen by the slowly a])pr()ach- 
ing enemy, yet behind those rude mounds of earth, lay fifteen hundred deter- 
mined men," ready to pour deadly volleys of musket-balls ujion the foe, when 
their commanders should order them. 




PLAN OF hunker's Hn.L BATTM:. 



MONUMENT. 



porary structures, cast up in tlie profrress of a si(>fco, or a protracted battle. The diagram A, on tho 
map, shows tlio form of the rodoul>t, a is tlio ciitraneo. 

' Tliut portion of Copp's Hill, wliorc tlio British battery was constructed, is a burial-ground, in 
which lie many of the earlier re.sidents of that city. Among them, tho Mather family, distinguished 
in tho early history of the Commonwealth. See pape ll!!i. 

'' During tho forenoon, General Putnam liad been busy in forwarding reinforcements for Pres- 
cott, and when tho battle began, about five hundred had been added to the detachment. Yet ho 
fouud it dirticult to urge many of tho raw recruits forward; and after the war, lie felt it necessary to 
arise in the chun^h of which he was a member, and in tlu> presence of the congregation, aeknowl- 
odgo the sin of swearii\g on that occasion. IT(^ partially justified liimself by saying, "It was almost 
enough to make an angel swear, to soo the cowards refuse to secure a victory so nearly won." 



236 THE REVOLUTION. [1775, 

It was now tlirce o'clock in the afternoon. When the British column was 
within ten rods of the redoubt, Prescott shouted Fire! and instantly whole 
platoons of the assailants were prostrated by well-aimed bullets.' The survivors 
fell back in great confusion, but were soon rallied for a second attack. They 
were again repulsed, with heavy loss, and while scattering in all directions, 
General Clinton arrived with a few followers, and joined Howe, as a volunteer. 
The fugitives were again rallied, and tliey rushed ujj to the redoubt in the face 
of a galling fire. For ten minutes the battle raged fearfully, and, in the mean 
while, Charlcstown, at the foot of tlie eminence, having been fired by a carcass* 
from Copp's IIill,° sent up dense columns of smoke, which completely enveloped 
the belligerents. The firinji in the redoubt soon grew weaker, for the ammu- 
nition of the Americ;tns had become exhausted. It ceased altogether, and then 
the British scaled the bank and compelled the Americans to reti'eat, wliile they 
fgught fiercely with clubbed muskets.' Overpowered, they fled across Charles- 
town Neck,' gallantly cov.ired by Putnam and a few l)rave men, and under that 
commander, they took position on Prospect Hill, and fortified it. The British 
took possession of Bunker's Hill," and erected a fortification there. There was 
absolutely no victory in the case. Completely exhausted, both parties sought 
rest, and hostilities ceased for a time. Tlie Americans had lost, in killed, 
wounded, and prisoners, about four hundred and fifty men. The loss of the 
British from like causes, was almost eleven hundred.' This was the first real 
battle' of the Revolution, and lasted almost two hours. 

Terrible for the people of Boston and vicinity, were the events of that bright 
and cloudless, and truly beautiful June day. All the morning, as we have 
observed, and during the fierce conflict, roofs, steeples, and every high phice, in 
and around the city, were filled with anxious spectators. Almost every family 
had a representative among the combatants ; and in an agony of suspense, 
mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters, gazed upon the scene. Many a loved 



' Prescott ordered his men to aim at the waistbands of tlie British, and to pick off their officers, 
whose fine clotlios would distinguish them. It is said that men, at the first onset in battle, always 
fire too hip;h, hence the order to aim at the waistbands. 

" A carcass is a hollow cxse, formed of ribs of iron covered with cloth or metal, with holes in it. 
Being filled with combustibles and set on fire, it is thrown from a mortar, like a bomb-shell, upon 
the roofs of buildings, and ignites them. A bomb-shell is a hollow ball with an orifice, filled with 
powder (sometimes mixed with slugs of iron), which is ignited by a slow match when fired, explodes, 
and its fragments produce terrible destruction. ' See map on page 2.^5. 

* Most of the American muskets were destitute of b<ayonets, and they used the large end .13 
clubs. This is a K-ust resort. 

* CharlostowM, like Boston, is on a peninsula, .almost surrounded by w.ater and a marsh. The 
Neck was a narrow cjiu.seway, connecting it with the main. Chai'lestown was a nourishing rival of 
Boston, at the time of the biittlc. It wiis then completely destroyed. Six hundred buildings per- 
ished in the fl.ames. Burgoyne, speaking of the battle and conflagration, said, it was the most awful 
.■ind sublime siglit he had ever witnessed. 

' As the battle took place on Breed's, and not on Bunker's Hill, the former name "hould 
have been given to it ; but the name of Bunker's Hill has become too s.iered in the records of patriot- 
ism to bo changed. 

' The provincial Ccmprrcss estimated the loss at about fifteen hundred ; Oencriil Gago reported 
une thousand and fifty-four. Of the Americans, only one hundred and fifteen were killed; the 
remainder were wounded or made prisoners. 

■■ A battle is a confiict carried on by largo bodies of troops, .according to the rules of military 
tactics; a akirynish is a sudden and irregular figlit between a few troops. 




1775.] FIRST TEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 237 

one perished ; and there the country lost one of its mo.st promising children, 
and freedom a devoted champion. Dr. Warren, who 
had just been appointed major-general, had crossed 
Charlestown Neck in the midst of flying balls from the 
British shipping, and reached the redoubt on Breed's 
Hill, at the moment when the enemy scaled its banks. 
He was killed by a musket ball, while retreating. 
Buried where he fell, near the redoubt, the tall Bunker 
Hill monument of to-day, standing on that spot, com- 
memorates his death, as well as the patriotism of his 
countrymen. _ josepT^Trken. 

The storm was not confined to the east. "While 
these events were occurring in New England, the Revolution was making rapid 
progress elsewhere. Even before the tragedy at Lexington and Concord, 
Patrick Henry' had again aroused his countrymen by his eloquence, and in the 
Virginia Assembly, convened at Richmond, on the 23d of March, 1775, he 
concluded a masterly speech with that noted sentiment, which became the war- 
cry of the patriots, "Give me Liberty, or give me Deatu!" When, 
twenty-six days later [April 20], Governor Dunmore, by ministerial command,' 
seized and conveyed on board a British vessel of war, a quantity of gunpowder 
belonging to the colony, that same inflexible patriot went at the head of armed 
citizens, and demanded and received from the royal representative, full restitu- 
tion. And before the battle of Bunker's Hill, the exasperated people had 
driven Dunmore"" from his palace at William.sburg [June], and he was a refugee, 
shorn of political power, on board a British man-of-war in the York River. 

Further south, still bolder steps had been taken. The people in the inte- 
rior of North Carolina, where the Regulator IMovement occurred four years 
earlier, asserted their dignity and their rights as freemen, in a way that aston- 
ished even the most sanguine and determined patriots elsewhere. A convention 
of delegates chosen by the people, assembled at Charlotte, in Mecklenberg 
county, in May, 1775, and by a series of resolutions, they virtually declared 
their constituents absolved from all allegiance to the British crown,' organized 
local government, and made provisions for military defense. In South Carohna 
and Georgia, also, arms and ammunition had been seized by the people, and 
all royal authority was repudiated. 

While the whole country was excited by the rising rebellion, and on the 

' Joseph WajTen was bom in Roxbury, in 1740. He was at the head of his profession as a 
physician, when the events of the approaching revolution brought him into public life. He was 
thirty-live years of age when he died. His remains rest in St. Paul's church, in Boston. 

^ Note 1, page 214. ' Note 1, page 232. 

' Dunmore was strongly suspected of a desire to have the hostile Indians west of the Allegha- 
nies annihilate the Virginia troops sent against them in the summer of 1774. They suffered tiT- 
rible loss in a battle at Point Pleasant on the Ohio, in October of that year, in consequence of the 
failure of promised aid from Dunmore. They subdued the Indians, however. 

' This " Declaration of Independence," as it is called, was made about thirteen months previous 
to the general Declaration put forth by the Continental Congress, and is one of the glories of the 
people of North Carolina. It consisted of a series of twenty resolutions, and was read, from time to 
time, to other gatherings of the people, after the convention at Charlotte. 



238 THE REVOLUTION. [llli. 

very day [May 10] when Allen and Arnold took Ticonderoga, ' the Second 
Continental Congress convened at Philadelphia. Notwithstanding New 
England was in a blaze of war, royal authority had virtually ceased in all the 
colonies, and the conflict for indejiendenco hud actually begun," that august 
body held out to Great Britain a loyal, open hand of reconciliation. Congress 
sent [July, 1775] a most loyal petition to the king, and conciliatory addresses 
to the people of Groat Britain. At the same time they said firmly, " We have 
counted the cost of this contest, and find nothing so dreadful as voluntary 
slavery." They did not foolishly lose present advantages in waiting for a reply, 
but pressed forward in the work of public security. Having resolved on armed 
resistance, they voted to raise an army of twenty thousand men ; and two days 
before the battle of Bunker's Hill [June 15, 1775], they elected George 
AVasiiixgton commander-in-chief of all the forces raised, or to be raised, for 
the defense of the colonies.' That destined Father of his Country, was then 
forty-three years of age. They also adopted the incongruous mass of undis- 
ciplined troops at Boston,* as a Continental Army, and appointed general 
ofiicers' to assist Washington in its organization and future operations. 

General Washington took command of the army at Cambridge, on the 3d 
of July, and with the efficient aid of General Gates, who was doubtless the best 
disciplined soldier then in the field, order was soon brought out of great con- 
fusion, and the Americans were prepared to commence a regular siege of the 
Britisli army in Boston." To the capture or expulsion of those troops, the 
eiforts of Washington were mainly directed during the summer and autumn of 
1775. Fortifications were built, a thorough organization of the army was 
efiected, and all that industry and skill could do, with such material, in perfect- 
ing arrangements for a strong and fatal blow, was accomplished. The army, 



' Tage 234. ' Page 232. 

' ■\Vasliington was a delegate in Congress from Virginia, and his appointment was wliolly unex- 
pected to bini. When the time came to choose a conimander-in-cliiefj John Adams arose, and after 
a brief speech, in which he delineated tlie qualities of the man whom he thought best fitted for the 
important service, he expressed liis intentou to propose a member from Virginia for the office of 
generalissimo. All present understood the allusion, .ind the next day, Thomas Johnson, of Mary- 
land, nominated Colonel Washington, and he was, by miauiraous vote, elected commander-in-chie£ 
At the s;uno time Congress resolved that they would " maint;>in and assist him, and adhere to him, 
with their lives and fortunes, in the cause of American lilierty." When President Hancock 
announced to Washington his appointment, he modestly, and with great dignity, signified his accept- 
ance in the following terms: " ilr. President — Though I am truly sensible of the high honor done 
mo, in this appointment, yet I feel great distress, from a c'ousciousness that my abilities and military 
experience may not be equal fo the extensive and important trust. However, as the Congress 
desire it, I will enter upon the momentous duty, and exert every power I possess in their service, 
and for the support of the glorious cause. I beg they will accept my most cordial thanks for this 
distinguished testimony of their approbation. But lost some unlucky event should happen, unfavor- 
able to my reputation, I beg it may be remembered by every gentleman in this room, that I, this 
day, declare with the utmost sincerity, I do not think myself equal to the command I am honored 
with. As to pay, sir, I beg leave to assure the Congress that, as no pecuniary consideration coiild 
have tempted me to accept the arduous employment, at the expense of my domestic ease and hap- 
piness, I do not wish to make any profit from it. I will keep an exact account of my expenses. 
Those, I doulit not, they will discharge, and that is ;U1 I desire." ' Page 232. 

' Artemas Ward, Charles Lee, Philip .Sclinyler. and Israel Putnam, were appointed major- 
ijentrals; Horatio Gates, adjutant-general; and Seth Pomeroy, Richard Montcromery. David Wooster, 
William Heath, Joseph Spencer, John Thomas, John Suilivan, and Nathaniel Green (all New 
England men), brigadier-generala. ' Pago 232. 



1775; 



FIRST TEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 



23!) 



fourteen thousand strong at the close of the year, extended from Roxb;iry on 
the right, to Prospect Hill, two miles north-west of Breed's Hill, on the left. 
The right was commanded by General Ward, the left by General Lee. The 
centre, at Cambridge, was under the immediate control of the commander-in- 
chief. 




At the close of May, Congress sent an affectionate address to the people of 
Canada. They were cordially invited to join their Anglo-American' neighbors' 
in efforts to obtain redress of grievances, but having very little sympathy in 
language, religion, or social condition with them, they refused, and were neces- 
sarily considered positive supporters of the royal cause. The capture of the 
two fortresses on Lake Champlain' [May, 1775], having opened the way to the 
St. Lawrence, a well-devised plan to take possession of that province and pre- 
vent its becoming a place of rendezvous and supply of invading armies from 
Great Britain, was matured by Congress and the commander-in-chief* To 



' Note 1, page 193. 

'' The Congress of 1774, made an appeal To the inhabitants of Quebec, in which was clearly set 
forth the grievances of the colonists, and an invitation to fraternize with those already in union. 

' Page 23i. 

* A committee of Congress, consisting of Dr. Franklin, Thomas Lynch, and Benjamin Harrison, 
irent to Cambridge, in August, and there the plan of the campaign against Canada was arranged. 



240 TiiK hkv'olution. [n-s. 

uccoiuplish this, a body of Now York und New England troops were placed 
under the command of Generals Schuyler' and Montgomery,^ and ordered to 
proceed by way of Lake Champlain to Montreal and Quel)ec. 

Had Congress listened to the earnest advice of Colonel Ethan Allen, to 
invade Canada immediately after the capture of Ticonderoga and Crown Point, 
the result of the expedition would doubtless have been very different, for at that 
time the British ibrces in the province were few, and they had made no prej)ar- 
ations for hostilities. It was near the close of August before the invading army 
appeared before St. John on the Sorel, the first militaiy post within the Cana- 
dian line. Deceived in regard to the strength of the garrison and the di.>*po- 
sition of the Canadians and the neighboring Indians, Schuyler fell back 
to Isle Au.x Noix,' and after making preparations to fortify it. he hastened to 
Ticondei'oga to urge forward more troops. Sickness compelled him to return 
to Albany, and the whole command devolved upon Montgomery, his second in 
command. That energetic officer did not remain long within his island intreiich- 
ments, and toward the close of Sej)tember, he laid siege to St. John. The gar- 
rison maintained an obstinate resistiince for more than a month, and Montgomery 
twice resolved to abandon it. During the sie";e, small detacliments of brave 
men went out upon daring enterprises. One, of eighty men, under Colonol 
Ethan Allen,* pushed across the St. Lawrence, and attacked Montreal [Sep- 
tember 25, ITT^], then garrisoned by quite a strong force under General 
Prescott." This was done at the sutjirestion of Colonel John Brown, who was 
to cross the river with his party, a little above, and co-operate with Allen. He 
failed to do so, and disaster ensued. Allen and his J^arty were defeated, and 
he was made jirisoner and, with several of his men, was sent to England in irons. 
Another expedition under Colonel Bedell, of New Hampshire, was more suc- 
cessful. They captured the strong fort (but feeble garrison) at Chambly 
[October 30], a few miles north of St. John; and at about the same time, Sir 
Guy Carloton, governor of Canada, with a reinforcement for the garrison of St. 
John, was r(>pulsed [November 1] by a jiarty under Colonel AVarner, at 
Longueil, nearly opposite Montreal. These events alarmed Preston, the com- 
mander of St. John, and ho surrendered that post to Montgomery, on the 3d of 
November. 

When the victory was complete, the Americans pressed on toward Mont- 



' riiilip Soliuvlor waa boni at Albany, New York, in 1733, and was one of tlio wi.'jost and best 
men of his time, lie \viu« a captain under 8ir William .lolinson [pajre 190] in 1755, and was aotivo 
in the pnlilio service, chiefly in civil alTairs, from that time mitil the Uevohitiou. LlnrinK that 
Btrugifle, he was very prominent, ami alter the wiir, wjis almost conlinnally cugjvged in public life, 
vnitil his demli, which occurred in 1SU4. 

' Richard Monlgomery was bom in Iri'Iand, in 1737. IIo was with Wolfe, at Quebec [pat^ 
201], and atlorward married a sister of Chancellor Livinjrston, and settled in the State of New York. 
He ^ave piiiniise of prcat military ability, when death C[ided his career. See portrait on page 242. 

" Note S, paR.' 197. 

* Ktlian .Mien wa.s born in Litihlicld county, Connecticut, IIo went to Vermont at an early 
BRO, and in 1770 was one of the bold leaders there in the op|HXiition of the settlers to the territorial 
claims of New York. He wivs never eni;a;.,Td in ai'tive military service.* after his capture. He died 
in Vermont in February, 1789, and liis reiuaiua lie in u cemetery two miles from Burlington, near 
the Wiaooski ' Page 271. 



1775.] FIRST TEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 241 

real. Governor Carlcton, conscious of bis Avcakncss, immediately retreated on 
board one of the vessels of a small fleet lying in the river, and escaped to Que- 
bec; and on the following day [November 13], Montgomery entered the city 
in triumph. lie treated the people humanely, gained their respect, and with 
the woolen clothing found among the spoils, he commenced preparing his sol- 
diers for the rigors of a Caniulian winter. There was no time to be lost, by 
delays. Although all their important posts in Canada were in possession of the 
patriots, yet, Montgomery truly said, in a letter to Congress, " till Quebec is 
taken. Canada is unconquered." Impressed witli this idea, he determined to 
push forward to the capital, notwithstanding the inclemency of the weather and 
the desertion of his troops. Winter frosts were binding the waters, and blind- 
ing snow was mantling the whole country. 

The spectacle presented by this little army, in the midst of discouragements 
of every kind, was one of great moral grandeur. Yet it was not alone at that 
perilous hour ; for while this expedition, so feeble in number and supplies, was 
on its way to achieve a great purpose, another, consisting of a thousand men, 
under Colonel Benedict Arnold,' had left Cambridge [Sept., 1775], and was 
making its way through the deep wilderness by the Kennebec and Chaudiere' 
Rivers, to join Montgomery before the walls of Quebec. That expedition was 
one of the most wonderful on record. For thirty-two days they traversed a 
gloomy wilderness, without meeting a human being. Frost and snow were 
upon the ground, and ice was upon the surfiicc of the marshes and the streams, 
which they were compelled to traverse and ford, sometimes arm-pit deep in 
water and mud. Yet they murmured not ; and even women followed in their 
ti-ain.' After enduring increilible toils and hardships, exposed to intense cold 
and biting hunger, they arrived at Point Levi,* opposite Quebec, on the 9th of 
November. Four days afterward [Nov. 13], and at about the same time when 
Montgomery entered Montreal, the intrepid Arnold, with only seven hundred 
and fifty half-naked men, not more than four hundred muskets, and no artil- 
lery, crossed the St. Lawrence to Wolfe's Cove,^ ascended to the Plains of 
Abraham,' and boldly demanded a surrender of the city and garrison within the 
massive walls. Soon the icy winds, and intelligence of an intended sortie' from 
the garrison, drove Arnold from his bleak encampment, and he ascended the 
St. Lawrence to Point aii Trembles, twenty miles above Quebec, and there 

' Page 234. ' ' Pronouncod Sho-de-are. 

' Judge Henry, of Pennsylvania, then a young man, accompanied tlie expedition, He wrote 
an account of tlie siego of Quebec, and in it iie mentions tlie wives of Sergeant Grier and of a pri- 
vate soldier, wlio accompanied tliem. "Entering the ponds," he says, "and brealting tlie ice here 
and there with the butts of our guns, and our feet, we were soon waist-deep in mud and water. As 
is generally the case with youtlis, it came to my mind that a bettor path miglit be found than that 
of the more elderly guide. Attempting this, the water in a trice cooUng my arm-pits, made me 
gladly return in the file. Now, Mrs. Grier had got before me. My mind was Innnbled, yet aston- 
ished, at the exertions of this good woman." Like the soldiers, she waded through the deep waters 
and the mud. 

* Page 201. Several men who were afterward prominent .actors in the Revolution, accompanied 
Arnold in this expedition. Among them, also, was Aaron Burr, then a youth of twenty, who was 
afterward Vice-President of the United States. • Page 202. ° Page 202. 

' This is a French term, significant of a sudden sally of troops from a besieged city or fortroa^ 
to attack the besiegers. See page 434. 



242 



THK RKVOLTJTION-. 



[1775. 



awaited the arrival of Jlontgomory. These brave generals met on the 1st of 
December [1775], and woolen clothes which Jlontgomcry brought from Mont- 
real, werQ placcil on the siiivcring limbs of Arnold's troops. The united forces, 
about nine hundred strong, then marched to Quebec. 

It was on the evening of the 5th of December when the Americiins reached 
Quebec, and the next morning early, Montgomery sent a letter to Carleton, by 
a flag,' demanding an immediate surrender. The flag was fired upon, and the 
invaders were defied. With a few light cannons and some mortars, and ex- 
posed to almost daily snow-storms in the open fields, the Americans besieged 
the city for three weeks. Success aj)pearing only in assault, that measure was 
agreed upon, and before dawn, on the morning of the last 
day (";■ the year [Dec. 31, 1775J, while snow was falling 
thickly, the attempt was made. ^lontgomery had formed 
his little army into four columns, to assail the city at difier- 
ent points. One of these, under Arnold, was to attack the 
lower town, and march along the St. Charles to join another 
division, under Montgomery, who Wiis to approach by way 
of Cape Diamond," and the two were to attempt a forced pass- 
age into the city, through Prescott Gate.' At the same 
time, the other two columns, under Majors Livingston and 
Brown, were to make a feigned attack upon t'^o uppe own, from the Plains 
of Abraham. In accordance with this plan, iNlontgoni :y descended Wolfe's 
Ravine, and marched carefully along the ice-strewn beach, toward a pallisade 
and battery at Cape Diamond. At the head of his men, in the fiice of the 
driving snow, he had passed the pallisade unop])osed, 
when a single discharge of a cannon from the battery, 
loaded with grape-shot,^ killed him instantly, and slew 
several of his officers, among whom were his two aids, 
McPhcrson and Cheeseman. His followers instantly re- 
treated. In the mean while, Arnold had been severely 
wounded, wliile attacking a barrier on the St. Charles.^ 
and the command of his division devolved upon Captain 
Morgan," whose expert riflemen, with Lamb's artillery, 
forced their way into the lower town. After a contest 
of several hours, the Americans, under Morgan, were obliged to surrender them- 




WALI.S OF QUEEEa 




QENEUAIv .MOXTOOMEUY. 



' itcssenpers are sent from army to army with a whito flap;, indicating a desire for a peaceful 
intorvii'W. TUeso flags, by common consent, are rcspoutcii, and it is considered an outrage to Are 
ou tlie liearer of ono. The Americans were regarded as reliels, and undeserving the usual courtesy. 

" Tlio higli roclvy promontory on wliicli the citadel stands. 

' Prescott tiato is on tlio St. Lawrence side of tlio town, and there bars Mountain-street in its 
sinuous way from tlio water up into the walU'd city. Tlie above diagram shows the plan of the city 
walls, and relative positions of tho severid pates mentioned. A is the St. Charles Kiver, B the St. 
Lawrt>nce, n Wolfe and Montcalm's monument [pago 202], b the placo where Montgomery fell, c 
the place where Arnolil was wounded. 

' These are small balls conlined in a cluster, and then discharged at once from a cannon. They 
scotter, and do great execution. 

' This was at the foot of the precipice, below the present grand hattei-y, near St. Paul's-street 

' Afterward the famous General Morgan, whose rifle corps l)ecame so renowned, and who gained 
rtio victory at The Cowpens, in tho winter of 17S1. See pago 331. 



FIRST YEAR OF THE V.' A 11 FOR INDEPENDENCE. 



243 



selves prisoners of war. The whole loss of the Americans, under Montgomery 
and Arnold, in this assanlt, was abovit one hundred and sixty. The British 
loss was only abont twenty killed and wounded. 

Colonel Arnold, with the remainder of the troops, retired to Sillery, where 
he formed a camp, and passed a rigorous Canadian winter. He was relieved 
from chief command by General Wooster," on the 1st of April, who came 
down from Montreal with reinforcements, when another ineffectual attempt, 
was made to capture Quebec. When, a month afterward. General Thomas 
took the chief command [May, 1776], Carleton was receiving strong reinforce- 
ments from England, and the patriots were compelled to abandon all hojie of 
conquering Canada. They were obliged to retreat so hastily l^eforo the over- 
whelming forces of Carleton, that they left their stores and sick behind them.^ 
Abandoning one post after another, the Americans were driven entirely out 
of Canada by the middle of June. 

The Virginians were rolling on the car of the Revolution with a firm ami 
steady hand, while the patriots were suffering defeats and disappointments at 
the North. We have already alluded to the fact, that the people of Williams- 
burg, then the capital of Virginia, had driven Lord Dunmore, the royal gov- 
ernor, away from liis palace, to take refuge on board a ship of war.^ He was. 
the first royal rejiresentative who " abdicated government," and he was greatly 
exasperated because he was compelled to do so in a very humiliating manner. 
From that vessel he sent letters, messages, and addresses to the Virginia House' 
of Burgesses,* and received the same in return. Each exhibited much spirit. 
Finally, in the autumn, the governor jiroceeded to Norfolk with the fleet, ami, 
collecting a force of Tories and negroes, commenced depredations in lower Vir- 
ginia. With the aid of some British vessels, he attacked Hampton, near Old 
Point Comfort," on the 24:lh of October, and was repulsed. He then declared 
open war. The Virginia militia flow to arms, and in a severe battle, fought oit 
the 9th of December, at the Great Bridge, near the Dismal Swamp, twelve 
miles from Norfolk, Dunmore was defeated, and compelled to seek safety wiih 
the British shipping in Norfolk harbor. In that battle, the i-egiment of men, 
chiefly from Culpepper county, raised by Patrick Henry, and at the head of 
whom he demanded inxyment for the powder removed from Williamsburg," did 
very important service.' 



Pa™ 237. 



' Pago 270. 

' Gouoral Thomas was seizecl with tho small-pox, ■which had been ra-xing some time in tho 
Americau camj), and died at Chambly on the 30th of May. He was a native of Plymouth, Mass., 
and was one of tho first eight brigadiers appointed by Congress [note 5, page '2',ii<]. Carleton 
treated the prisoners and sick with great humanity. He afterward, on tho death of his father, be- 
came Lord Dorchester. Ho died in 1808, aged eighty-three years. 

s Pago 237. * Page 71. » Pago 64. 

' This regiment had adopted a flag with tho significant dcTice of a coiled 
rattle-snake, seen in tlie engraving. This device was ujidn many flags in the 
ariuy and uavy of the Revolution. The expression, "Don't tread on me,'' 
had a double signification. It might he said in a supplicating tone, " Pmi't 
tread on mo;" or menacingly, "Don't tread on we." The .soldiers were 
dressed in green hunting-shii-ts, with Henry's words. Liberty on Death 
[page 237], in large white letters on their Imsoms. They had bucks' tails 
in their hats, and in their belts tomahawks and scaliiiiig-knives. Their 
fierce appearance alarmed the pco|>U^, as Wiry marched through the country. 




CCTLPEPPEE FLAG. 



244 THE REVOLUTION. [ITTG. 

Five (lays af.cr the battle at the Great Bridge, the Virginians, under 
Colonel W(K>dt'ord, entered Norfolk in triunijih [Dec. 14, 1775], and the next 
morning they were joined by Colonel Robert Howe,' with a North Carolina 
regiment, when the latter assumed the general command. Dunmore was greatly 
exasperated by these I'everses, and, in revenge, he caused Norfolk to be burned 
early on the morning of the 1st of January, 1776. The conflagration raged 
for fifty hours, and while the wretched j)eo[)le were witnessing the destruction 
of their property, the ni<)dern Nero caused a cannonade to be kept up.' When 
the destruction was complete, be proceeded to play the part of a marauder along 
the defenseless coast of Virginia. For a time he made his bead (juarters upon 
Gwyn"s island, in Chesapeake Bay, near the mouth of the I'iankatank River, 
from which be was driven, with bis fleet, by a brigade of Virginia troojis under 
General Andrew Lewis.' After committing other depredations, he went to the 
"West Indies, carrying with him about a thousand negroes which be bad col- 
lected during his marauding campaign, where be sold them, and in the follow- 
ing autumn returned to Enirland. These atrocities kindled an intense flame 
of hatred to royal rule throughout the whole South, and a desire for political 
independence of Great Britain budded spontaneously in a thousand hearts 
where, a few months before, the plant of true loyalty was blooming. 



CHAPTER III. 

SECOND YEAR OF THE AVAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. [1776.] 

There was great anxiety in the public mind throughout the colonies at the 
opening of the year 1776. The events of the few preceding mouths appeared 
unpropitious for the republican cause, and many good and true men were dis- 
posed to pause and consider, before going another step in the path of rebellion. 
But the bolder leaders in the senate and in the camp were undismayed ; and 
the hopeful mind of Washington, in the midst of the most appalling discourage- 
ments, faltered not for a moment. lie found himself strong enough to be the 
eifectual jailor of the British army in Boston, and now be was almost prepared 
to commence those blows which finally drove that army and its Tory abettors to 
the distant shores of Nova Scotia.' He bad partially re-organized the conti- 

' Pape 282. 

' Wlien Dunmnre destroyed Norfolk, its population was six thousnnd ; and so rapidly was it 
increa.>)in(r in busini'ss and wealili. tliat in two years, frnm 177:! to 177,'), the rents in tlie eity in- 
creased from forty tliousand to fifty tliousand dollars a year. The actual loss by tlie cannonade and 
conflagration was estimated at fifteen hundred tliousand dollars. Tlie personal suflering was incon- 
ceival)le. 

' General Lewis was a native of Virginia, and w.is in the battle when Braddoek was killed. 
He was the cointnander of the Vircinia troops in the battle at Point Pleasant [note 4. page 237], 
in the summer of 1774. He left the army, ou account of illness, in 1780, and died not lonp after- 
w.ird, while absent from home. * Note 2, page 80. 



me.] SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 



245 



.■AS?, 



;K 



nenUl forces under his command ; and on the first of January, 1776, he unfurled 
the Union. Flaj, for the first tiur.% over the American camp 
at Cambridge.' His army had then dwindled to less than 
ten thousand effective men, and these were scantily fed and ,;> 
clothed, and imperfectly disciidined. But the camp was well /:- 
Bupplied with provisions, and about ten thousand minute-men,° j ' ;_ •;, j - 
chiefly in Massachusetts, were held in reserve, ready to march \:^o^ flag. 
when called upon. 

During the summer and autumn of 1775, the Continental Congress had put 
forth all its energies in preparations for a severe struggle with British power, 
now evidently near at hand. Articles of war were agreed to on the SOt.j of 
June ; a declaration of the causes for taking up arms was issued on the 6th of 



No ^^ri^t Six JjOCt'^TlS.v^ 







"pHlSBIUcMuUMK. 



,. be". 



'^i^X ^lfe <5\ ^I^ SPANISH MILLED 

■T5«ier-\ \\ Valuethiren/ inffOLD 
1 orSILVERdto.rd.^rto 




, SEC DOLL ARS '~^ c/i<X, 





A lilLL OF clltnil', Olt ciJ.NTiXE.NTAL MO.NEY. 



July; and befoi'e the close of the year, bills of credit, known as "continental 
money," representing the value of six millions of Spanish dollars, had been 
issued.'' A naval establishment had also been commenced;' and at the openino- 



' The hoisting of that ensign was hailed by General Howe, the British commander in Boston, with 
great joy, for he regarded it as a token that a gracious speech of the king on American aflairs, lately 
communicated to ParUament, was well received by the army, and tliat submission would speedily 
follow. That flag was composed of thirteen stripes, alternate red and wliite, symbolizing the thir- 
teen revolted colonies. In one corner was tho device of tlic British Union Fla'j, namely, the cross of 
St. George, composed of a horizontal and perpendicular bar, and the cross of St. Andrew (represent- 
ing Scotland), which is in the form of x . It was the appearance of tliat symbol of tlie British 
union that misled Howe. This flag is represented in tho above little sketch. Ontlie 14th of June, 
1777, Congress ordered ''thirteen stars, white, in a blue field," to bo put in the pl.ioe of the British 
union device. Such is tlie design of our flag at the present day. A star lias been added for every 
new State admitted into tho Union, while the original number of stripes is retained. 

^ Page 229. 

° Tho resolution of the Continental Congress, providing for the emission of bills, was adopted on 
the 22d of June, 1775. The bills were printed and issued soon after, and other emissions were 
authorized, from time to time, during aljout four years. At the begiiming of 1780, Congress had 
issued two hundred millions of dollars in paper money. After the second year, these bills'began to 
depreciate; and in 1780, forty paper dollars were worth only one in specie. At the close of"l7Sl, 
they were worthless. They had performed a temporary good, but were finally productive of great 
pubhc evU, and much individual suflering. Some of these bills are yet in existence, and arc con- 
sidered great curiosities. They were rudely engraved, and printed on thick pa])cr, wiiieli caused 
the British to call it ''the paste-board money of the rebels," • Note 1, page 307. 



i4G THE REVOLUTION. [I77G. 

»f 177G, many expert privateersincn' were liovering along our coasts, to the 
^reat terror and anuuyaiice of British merchant vessels. 

There had been, up to this time, a strange apathy concerning American 
affairs, in tlio British Parliament, owing, chiefly, to the confidence reposed in 
the puiss;uice of the imperial government, and a want of knowledge relative to 
the real strength of the colonies. Events had now opened the eyes of British 
statesmen to a truer appreciation of tlie relative position of the contestants, and 
the importance of vigorous action; and at the close of 1775, Parliament had 
made extensive arrangements for crushing the rebellion. An act was passed 
[Nov., 1775], which declared the revolted colonists to be rebels ; forbade all 
intercourse with them ; authorized the seizure and destruction or confiscation 
of all American vessels ; and placed the colonies under martial law." An ag- 
gregate land and naval force of fifty-five thousand men was voted for the 
American service, and more than a million of dollars were appropriated for their 
pay and sustenance. In addition to these, seventeen thousand troops were hired 
by the British government from the Landgrave of Ilesse-C'assel, and other 
petty German rulers,^ to come hither to butcher loyal subjects who had peti- 
tioned for their rights for ten long years, and now, even with arms in their 
hands, were praying for justice, and begging for reconciliation. This last act 
filled the cup of government iniquity to the brim. It was denounced in Par- 
liament by the true friends of England, as "disgraceful to the British name," 
and it extinguished the last hope of reconciliation. The sword was now drawn, 
and the scabbard was thrown aw^ay. 

Intelligence of the proceedings in Parliament reached America in January, 
1770, and Congress jierceived the necessity of putting forth innnediate and effi- 
cient cffortS'for the defense of the extensive sea-co;ist of the colonies. Washing- 
ton was also urged to attack the British in Boston, immediately; and, by great 
•efforts, the re<'ular army was auy;meiited to about fourteen thousand men to- 
■Avard the close of February. In the mean while, the provincial Congress of 
ilassachusetts organized the militia of the province anew, and ten regiments, 
making about three thousand men, arrived in camp early in February. The 
entire army now numbered about seventeen thousand effective men, while the 
British force did not exceed five thousand fit for duty. Reinforcements were 
daily expected from Halifax, New York, and Ireland, and the jjrcsent seemed 
a proper moment to strike. Bills of credit,' representing four millions of dol- 
lars more, wei'C issued ; Congress promised energetic co-operation ; and on the 

' PrivatG intUvichials, liavinp; a lioonso from frovomment to arm and equip a vessel, and with it 
to depredate upon llie commerce a" a nation witli wliicli tliat people are tlien at war, are called 
privateersincn, ami tlieir vessels are known as prioatecrs. Durinj; the Revolution, a vast number 
of EnglLsli vessels v-ero captured liy American privateeramen. It is, after all, only legalized piracy, 
and enlightened nations be);in to view it so. ' Note 8, pape 170. 

" The Lnndprave (or petty prince) of Ilesse-Ca-ssel, havinp fiirnished the moat considerable por- 
tion of tlicso troojis, they were called by the peneral name of Ifefsian-i. Ipnorant, brutal, and 
bloodthirsty, they were hated by the patriots, and despised even by the rocn'.ar EnRlish army. They 
•were always employed in posts ofiireatest danirer, or in expeditions least creditable. These troops 
cost the Uritish ^rovernment almost eiirht hundred thousand dollars, besides the necessity, according 
to the t'(mtract, of defending the little i)riucipalitiea thus stripped, against theii foes. 

• Page 2-15 



1776.] SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 247 

1st of March, Washington felt strong enough to attempt a dislodgment of the 
enemy from the crushed city.' 

On the evening of the 2d of March [1776 J, a heavy cannonade was opened 
upon Boston, from all the American batteries, and was continued, with brief 
intermissions, until the 4th. On the evening of that day. General Thomas,' 
with twelve hundred men with intrenching tools, and a guard of eight hundred, 
proceeded secretly to a high hill, near Dorchester, on the south side of Boston, 
and before morning, they cast up a line of strong intrenchments, and planted 
heavy cannons there, which completely commanded the city and harbor. It 
was the anniversary of the memorable Boston Massacre,' and many patriots felt 
the blood coursing more swiftly through their veins, as the recollection of that 
event gave birth to vengeful feelings. It had nerved their arms while toiling 
all that long night, and they felt a great satisfaction in knowing that they had 
prepared works which not only greatly astonished and alarmed the British, hnt 
which would be instrumental in achieving a great victory. The enemy felt the 
danger, and tried to avert it. 

Perceiving the imminent peril of both fleet and army. General Howe pre- 
pared an expedition to drive the Americans from their vantage-ground on Dor- 
chester heights. A storm suddenly arose, and made the harbor impassable.'' 
The delay allowed the patriots time to make their works almost impregnable, 
and the British were soon compelled to surrender as prisoners of war, or to 
evacuate the city immediately, to avoid destruction. As prisoners, they would 
have been excessively burdensome to the colonies ; so, having formally agreed 
to allow them to depart without injury, Washington had the inexpressible 
pleasure of saying, in a letter written to the President of Congress, on Sunday, 
the 17tli of March, "that this morning the ministerial troops evacuated the 
town of Boston, without destroying it, and that we are now in full possession." 
Seven thousand soldiers, four thousand seamen, and fifteen hundred families of 
loyalists," sailed for Halifax on that day. 

The gates on Boston Neck were now unbaiTed ; and General Ward, with 
five thousand of the troops at Roxbury, entered the city, with drums beating, 
and banners waving, greeted on every side with demonstrations of joy by the 
redeemed people. General Putnam soon afterward [March 18] entered with 
another division, and, in command of the whole, he took possession of the city 
and all the forts, in the name of the Tlurteen United Colonies. 

■ Page 226. ' Page 243. . ' Page 221. 

* A similar event occurred to frustrate the designs of the British at Torktown, several years 
afterward. See page 341. 

' It must be remembered that the Americans were by no means unanimous in their opposition 
to Great Britain. From the beginning tliere were many who supported the crown ; and as the 
colonists became more and more rebellio\is, these increased. Some because they beheved their 
brethren to be wrong ; others through timidity ; and a greater number because they thought it 
their intenst to adhere to the king. The loyalists, or Tories, were the worst and most efficient en- 
emies of the \Vldgs [note 4, page 226] during the whole war. Those who left Boston at this time, 
were afraid to encounter the exasperated patriots, when they should retinn to their desolati'd home.s 
in the city, from which they had been driven by military persecution. The churches had been 
stripped oi" their pulpits and pews, for fuel, fine shade trees had been burned, aud many houses had 
been pillaged and damaged by the soldiery. 




248 THE REVOLUTION. [177(x 

AVashington had btrii informed, early in January, 
that General Sir Henry Clinton had sailed from Bos- 
ton, with a consideralilo hody of troops, on a secret ex- 
pedition. Apprehending that the city of New York 
was his destination, he immediately dispatched General 
Charles Lee to Connecticut to raise troops, and to pro- 
ceed to that city to watch and oppose Clinton wherever 
he might attempt to land. Six weeks before the evacu- 
ation of Boston [March 17, ITTGJ. Lee had encam])ed 
near New York with twelve hundred militia. Already 
the Sons of Libert if had been busy, and overt acts of 
rebellion had been committed by them. They had seized the cannons at Fort 
George,' and driven Tryon,^ the royal governor, on board the Asia, a British 
armed vessel in the harbor. In March, Clinton arrived at Sandy Hook, just 
outside New York harbor, and on the same day, the watchful Lee' jirovidcn- 
tially entered the city. The movement, although without a knowledge of Clin- 
ton's position, was timely, for it kept him at bay. Foiled in his attempt upon 
New Y'ork, that commander sailed southward, where we chall meet him pres- 
ently. 

The destination of Howe, when ho left Boston, was also unknown to Wash- 
ington. Supposing ho, too, would proceed to New York, he put the main body 
of his army in motion toward that city, as soon as he had placed Boston in a 
state of security. Ho arrived in New Y'ork about the middle of April [April 
14], and proceeded at once to fortify the town and vicinity, and also the passes 
of the Hudson Highlands, fifty miles above. In the mean while. General Lee, 
who had been apjwinted to command the American forces in the South, had 
\3ft his troops in the charge of General Lord Stirling' [INIarch 7], and was 
hastenintr toward the Carolinas to watch the movements of Clinton, arouse the 
Whigs, and gather an army there. 

Li the spring of 1770, a considerable fleet, under Admiral Sir Peter Parker, 
was sent from England, to operate against the sea-coast towns of the southern 
colonies. Parker was joined by Clinton, at Cape Fetu', in May, when the latte^ 
took the chief command of all the land forces. The fleet arrived oft' (Charleston 
bar on the 4th of June, and on the same day, Clinton, with several hundred 
men, landed on Long Island, which lies eastward of Sullivan's Island. Apprised 
of these hostile designs, and elated by a victory obtained by North Carolina 
militia, under Colonel Caswell, over fifteen hundred loyalists'' [February 1*7, 

' Note 1, papo 215. 

* This lort stood at tho foot of Brondwav, on a portion of tlio site of the present "Battery." 

' Pasie 223. 

' Charles Lee w.is born m ^Valp.'! in 1731. He wa.s a brave officer in tho British army during 
the Frencli and Indian War. He settled in Vir};iiiia in 177:i, and was one ol'tlie lirst bripidiere of 
tho Continental army appoiutod Vn- Consrross. His ambition and perversity of temper, liniUly caused 
his ruin, lie died in Philaddpliia in 1782. See paji^' 288. ' Page 254. 

° These were chicHy Seoldi lliirhlanders, and were led by Donald SIcPonali. an inliuential 
Scotchman then residiiii,' at Cross Creek, now Fayettoville. The husband of Flora Mel>otiiUd. so 
celebrated in connoelion with the tliirlit of the younj; Preteniier from Scotland, at tho close of tho 
rebolliou in 1745, was in the battle. Flora was then living at Cross Creek, 




177G.] SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 249 

1T7G], on Moore's Creek, in the present Hanover county, the southern patriots 
had cheerfully responded to the call of Governor Rutledge, and about six thou- 
sand armed men had collected in and near Charleston, 
when the enemy appeared.' The city and eligible i;«^~ ^ 

posts near it, had been fortified, and quite a strong ^l'"^ ^ 

fort, composed of i)alnietto logs and sand, and armed 
witli twenty-six mounted cannons, had been erected 
upon Sullivan's Island, to command the channel :i^^ 
leading to the town. This fort was garrisoned by 
about five hundred men, chiefly militia, under Colo- 
nel William iloultrie.' 

A combined atUick, by land and water, upon ue.neuvl iinuLTRiE 

Sullivan's Island, was commenced by the British, on 

the morning of the 28th of June, 1770. While the fleet was pouring a terrible 
storm of iron balls upon Fort Sullivan, Clinton endeavored, but in vain, to 
force a passage across a narrow creek which divided the two islands, in order to 
attack the yet unfinished fortress in the rear. But Colonel Thompson, with a 
small battery on the east end of Sullivan's Island, repelled every forward 
movement of Clinton, ivhile the cannons of the fort were spreading havoc among 
the British vessels.^ The conflict raged for almost ton hours, and ordy ceased 
when night fell upon the scene. Then the British fleet, almost shattered into frag- 
ments, withdrew, and abandoned the entcrjn-ise.,'' The slaughter of the British 
had been frightful. Two hundred and twenty-five had been killed or wounded, 
while only two of the garrison were killed, and twenty-two were wounded.' The 
British departed for New York three days afterward" [June 31, 17 76 J, and for 
more than two years, the din of war was not heard below the Roanoke. This 
J'ictory had a most inspiriting eifect upon the patriots throughout the land. 

' General Armstronf!: of Pennsylvania [page 103], had arrived iu Soutli Carolina in April, .and 
toolv tlie pr?ncral command. Lee arrived on the same day when the British, under Clinton, landed 
on Lou!>; Islam t. 

'' Born in South Carolina, in 17:iO. He was in the Clierokeowar [page 20-t], in 1701. lie was 
iin active olliccr until mailo prisoner, in 17S0, wlion for two years lie was not allowed to bear arms. 
He died in 1S05. General Moultrie wrote a very iuteresting memoir ol the war iu the South. 

' At one time, every man but Admiral Parker was swept from tlie deck of his vessel. Among 
those who were badly woundeil, was Lord '■William Campbell, the roj-al governor of South Carolina, 
who at^erw.ard died of his wounds. 

* The Acfeon, a large vessel, grounded on a shoal between Fort Sullivan and tl\o city, whoro 
slie was burned by tlie Americans. 

' Tile strength of the fort consisted in tlie capacity of the spongy palmetto logs, upon whicli can- 
non-balls would make very little impression. It .appeared to bo a very insecure defense, and Leo 
advised Moultrie to abandon it when tlie British approached. But tliat bravo oflicer would not 
desert it, and was rewarded witii victory. Tliu ladies of Cliarlestou presented liis I'cgunent with n 
pair of elegant colora, and tlie ''slaughter pen," as Lee ironically called Fort Sullivan, was named 
Fort Moultrie. During the action, tlie stall", bearing a large flag, was cut down by a cannon-ball 
from the (leet. The colors fell outside the fort. A sergeant named Jasper, leaped "down from one 
of the b;vstion3, and in tlie midst of tlie iron hail that was pouring from the fort, coolly picked up 
the flag, ascended to the bastion, and calling for a spongo-stalV, tied the colors to it. stuck it in tlio 
sand, .and then took his place among liis companions in the fort. A few days afterward. Governor 
Rutledge took his own sword from his side, and presented it to the brave .tasper; he also oflered 
him a lieutenant's commission, which the young man modestly declined, because he could neither 
»ead nor write, saying, "I am not fit to keep officers' company — I am but a sergeant." 

" Page 252. 



250 



THE REVOLUTION. 



[1776. 




Important events in tho progress of the war were now thickening. Re- 
bellion liad become revolution. While the stirring events at the South, just 

mentioned, were transpiring, anil wliile AVash- 
ington was augmenting and strengthening the 
continental army in New York, and British 
troops and German hirelings' were approach- 
ing by thousands, the Continental Congress, 
now in permanent session in the State House 
at riiiUuU'lphia, had a question of vast im- 
portance under consideration. A few men, look- 
siMi: ihisE. ing beyond the storm-clouds of the present, 

beheld bright visions of glory for their country, 
when tlie people, now declared to be rebels,' and out of the protection of the 
British king, should organize themselves into a sovereign nation. '■ The light- 
ning of the Crusades was in the people's liearts, and it needed but a single 
electric touch, to make it blaze forth upon the world," says James, in writing 
of an earlier disruption of political systems.' So it was now, in the American 
colonies. The noble figure of an independent nation stood forth with a beauty 
that almost demanded worship. The grand idea began to flash thi-ough the 
popular mind at the close of 1775; and when, early in 1776, it was tangibly 
spoken by Thomas Paine, in a pampiilet entitled Common Sense* (said to have 
been suggested by Dr. Rush),'' and wiiose vigorous thouglits were borne by the 
press to every community, a desire for independence filled the hearts of the 
people. In less than eighty days after tlie evacuation of Boston [INIarch 17, 
1776], almost every provincial Assembly had spoken in favor of independence; 
and on the 7th of June, in the midst of the doubt, and dread, and hesitation, which 
for twenty days had brooded over the Continentiil Congress, Richard Henry Lee,* 

' Tas^e 246. " P.nge 246. ° History of the Crusadts, hy G. P. R. James. 

* Tlio cliiof topic of this roiiiarkablo pampiilet, \va.g tlio right and expediency of colonial inde- 
pendence. Paino also wrote a. series of ec^ually powerful papere, called llie Crisis. The fir.<t num- 
ber was written iu Kort Lee, ou the Hudson, in iJeeeinber, 1776, and published while Wafshinplon 
was on the banks of tlie Delaware. See page 192. These had a powerful eftcct in stimulating' the 
people to cflbrts for independence. They were highly valued by the commander-in-ohief, and he pro- 
moted their cirouhition. Writing to a friend soon alter the apjiearance of Cim>7iion Sense, Washington 
said, " By private letters whicli I have lately received from Virginia, I fmd that Common Sense is 
■working a powerful cliango tlicro in the minds of many men." 

' licnjaniin Rush wa.s one of the most eminent men of his time, as a physician, a man of science, 
and an active patriot during the whole Revolution. He w.as born twelve miles I'rom Philadelphia, 
in 1745. He was educated at Princeton, completed his scientific studies in Edinbnrg, and after 
his return, ho soon rose to the highest eminence iu his profrssion. He was the reeijiient of many 
honors, and as a member of the Continental Congress, in 1776, he advocated and signed the Pcclar- 
ation of Independence. His lators during the prevalence of yellow fever in Pliiladeljjiia. in 1793, 
gave him the imperishable crown of a true philanthropist He founded the Philadi'lpliia Pispensary 
in 1786; and he was also one of the principal foimders of Dickinson College, at Carlisle, Pennsyl- 
Tania. Ho was president of the American .Society for the abolition of slavery ; of the Philadelphia 
Medical Society ; vice-president of the Philadelpliia Bible Society ; and one of the vice-president.s 
of the American Philosophical Society. He died in April, 1813, at the age of almost sixty-eight 
years. A portrait of Dr. Ru.sh may be found on the next page. 

' Richard Henrj' I,eo was born in ■Westmoreland county. Virginia, in 1732. He was edncate<l 
in England, and was in pnblie li(e most of the time after reaching his majority. He w.is one of tlie 
earliest opposers of the Stamp Act: was a member of the first Continental Congress, and signed that 
Declaration of Independence which he so nobly advoc.ited. He was afterward a member of the 
United States Senate; and soon after liis retirement to private life, in 1794, he died, when in the 



1776.] 



SECOND TEAR OF THE WAR FOR iN P E TEND ENCE. 



251 



of Virginia, arose in his place, and with his clear, musical voice, read aloud 
the Resolution, "That these united colonies are, and, of right, ought to be, 
free and independent States ; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the 
British cro'iva, and that all political connection between them and the State of 
Great Britain, is, and ought to be totally dissolved." ' 




/j^^t^/:i^'^^^L^>i^, 




This was an exceedingly bold step, and the resolution did not meet with 
general favor in Congress, at first. Many yet hoped, even against hope, for 
reconciliation, and thought it premature, and there were some timid ones who 
trembled while standing so near the borders of high treason. After debating 
the subject for three days, the further consideration of it was postponed until 
the first of July. A committee' was appointed [June 11], however, to draw 



sixty-third year of his age. A characteristic anecdota is told of his son, who was at school, in 
England, at the time the Declaration of Independence was promulgated. One day a gentleman 
asked his tutor, "What boy is tliis?" "He is the son of Richard Henry Lee, of America," the 
tutor replied. The gentleman put his hand on the boy's head, and said, "We shall yet see your 
lather's head upon Tower Hill." Tiie boy instantly answered, " Tou may have it when you can get 
it." That boy was the late LudweU Lee, Esq. 

' On the 10th of May, Congress had, by resolution, recommended the estaWishment of independ- 
ent State governments in all the colonies. Tliis, however, was not sufficiently national to suit the 
bolder and wiser members of that body, and the people at large. Lee's resolution more fully 
expressed the popular ^t11. 

" Thomas Jefferson, of Virginia ; John Adams, of Massachusetts ; Benjamin Franklin, of Penn- 
sylvania ; Roger Sherman, of Connecticut ; and Robert R. Livingston, of New York. Mr. Lee was 
summoned home to the bedside of a sick wife, on the day before the appointment of the committed 
or he would doubtless have been its chairman. 



252 THE REVOLUTION. [1776, 

up a declaration in accordance with the resolution, and were instructed to report 
on the same day wlieu the latter should be called up. Thomas Jefferson, of 
Virijiuia, the youuiiest member of the committee, was chosen its chairman, and 
to him was assigned tlie task of preparing the Declaration. Adams and Frank- 
lin made a few alterations in his draft, and it wiis submitted to Congress at the 
same hour when Mr. Lee's resolution was taken up for consideration. On the 
following day [July 2], the resolution was adopted by a large majority. The 
Declaration was debated almost two days longer ; and finally, at about mid-day, 
on the 4th of July, 1776, the representatives of thirteen colonies unanimously 
declared them free and independent States, under the name of The United 
States of America. The Declaration was signed, but witli the name of 
John ITnneock only, and thus it first -went forth to the -world. It ■n'as 
ordered to be M-rltten on parchment, and on the 2d of August following, 
tlie names of all but two of the fifty-six signers* were placed upon it. 
These two were added afterward. It had then been read to the army f 
at public meetings; from a hundred pulpits, and in all legislative halls in 
tlie land, and everywhere awakened the warmest responses of approval. 

Pursuant to instructions. General Howe proceeded toward New York, to 
meet General Clinton and Parker's fleet, lie left Halifax on the 11th of June, 
[1770], and arrived at Sandy Hook' on the 29th. On the 2d of July he took 
possession of Staten Island, where he w^as joined by Sir Henry Clinton [July 
11], from the South,* and his brother. Admiral Lord Howe [July 12], with a 
fleet and a large land force, from England. Before the first of August, other 
vessels arrived with a part of the Hessian troops,'' and on that day. almost thirty 
tliousand soldiers, many of them tried veterans, stood ready to fall upon the 
republicnn army of seventeen thousand men," mostly militia, which lay 
intrenched in New York and \icinity, less than a dozen miles distant.' The 

' This (locument, containing tlie autograplis of tliose venerated fathers of our republic, is care- 
fully preserved in a srlass ease, in the rooms of the Xational Institute at Washington city. Not one 
of iill that band of patriots now survives. Cliarles Carrol was the last to leave us. He departed in 
1S;12, at the age of ninety years. See Supplement. It is worthy of remembrance that not me of all 
those signers of tlie Declaration of Indipendenc-c, died with a taniiahed nputatiou. The memory 
of aU. is sweet 

' Washington eaiised it tn bo read at the head of each brigade of the army, then in New York 
city, on the !Hh of July. That night, citizen? and soldiers pulled down the leaden equestrian statue 
ofGeorge 111., which stood in the Bowling Green, and it was soon afterward converted into bullets 
for the use of the Continental army. The statue wns gilded. The head of the horse was toward 
the Hudson River. The Rev. Zaehariah Greene, who died at Hempstead. Long l.sland, in .Unie, 
1858, at the age of 99 years, heard tlie Declaration read to the soldiers. He was in the army. 

' Sandy Hook is a low ridge of s,and, extending sevenil miles down the New Jersey shore, from 
the entrance to Raritiin or Amboy Bay. Between it and the shore, the water is navigable; and 
near the mouth of Shrewsburv River, the ridge is broken by an inlet. * Pago 249. 

' rage 246. 

• There were about twenty-seven thous,and men enrolled, but not more than seventeen thousand 
men were fit for duty. A great many were sick, and a large number were without arms. 

' Many of the .sliips p.issed tlirouirh tlie Narrows, and ancliored in New York Bay. Howe's 
flag-ship, the EagU. lay near (^.overnor's Island. While in that position, a bold soldier went in a 
submarine vessel, witli a machine for blowing up a ship, and endeavored to fasten it to the bottom 
of the FAtijk, but foiled. He was discovered, and bar-ly escapeil. An explosion of the machine 
took place near the F/vik. and the commander was so aj irnvii, that she was hastily moved further 
down the Bay. This maclune was coustrueted by David Bushuell, of Connecticut, and was called a 
torpedo. See Note 2, page 285. 



1770]. SECOND TEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 253 

grand object in view was the seizure of New York and the country along 
the Hudson, so as to keep open a communication with Canada, separate the 
patriots of New England from \hosc of the other Stati'.s, and to overrun the most 
populous portion of the revolted colonies. This was the military plan, arranged 
by ministers. They had also prepared instructions to their commanding generals, 
to b? pacific, if the Americans appeared disposed to submit. Lord Howe' and 
his brother, the general, were commissioned to " grant pardon to all who deserved 
mercy," and to treat for peace, but only on terms of absolute submission on the 
part of the colonies, to the will of the king and parliament. After making a 
foolish display of arrogance and weakness, in addressing General Washington 
as a private gentleman,^ and being assured that the Americans had been guilty 
of no offense requiring a "pardon"' at their hands, they prepared to strike an 
immediate and effective blow. The British army was accordingly put in motion 
on the morning of the 22d of August [177G], and during that day, ten 
thousand effective men, and forty pieces of cannon, were landed ou the west- 
ern end of Long Island, between the present Fort Hamilton and Gravesend 
village. 

Already detachments of Americans under Genei'al 
Sullivan, occupied a fortified camp at Brooklyn, 
opposite New York, r.n<l ga:irdcd seven passes on a 
range of hills which extend from the Narrows to the 
village of Jamaica.^ When intellif;ence of the landing 
of the invading army reached Washington, he sent 
General Putnam,* with large reinforcements, to take 
the chief command on Long Island, and to prepare to 
meet the enemy. The American troops on the island 
now [August 2G], numbered about five thousand. 
The British moved in three divisions. The left, 
under General Grant, marched along the shore toward Gowanus ; the right, 
under Clinton and Cornwallis, toward the interior of the island ; and the cen- 
ter, composed chiefly of Hessians,^ under Do Ileister, marched up the Flatbush 
road, south of the hills. 

Clinton moved under cover of night, and before dawn on the morning of 




GENER.iL PUTNAM. 



' Richard, Earl Howe, was brother of the young Lord Howe [page 197], killed at Ticonderoga, 
He was born in 1725, and died in 1799. 

^ The letters of Lord Howe to tlie American commander-in-chiefl were addressed, " George 
■Wasliington, Esq." Aa that did not express the public character of tlie cliiefj and as he would not 
confer with the enemies of his country in a private capacity, Washington refused to receive tlio 
letters. Howe was instructed not to acknowledge the autliority of Congress in any way, and as 
Washington had received his commission from that body, to address liim as " general," would have 
been a recognition of its authority. He meant no disrespect to Washington. Congress, by resolu- 
tion, expressed its approbation of Wa.shiugton's dignifled course. 

' General Nathaniel Green had been placed in command of this division, but having been pros- 
trated by biUous fever, about a week before the landing of the British at the Narrows, Sullivan was 
placed at the head of the troops. 

* Israel Putnam was bom in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1718. He was a very useful officer 
during the French and Indian war, and was in active service in the continental army, until 1779, 
when bodily infirmity compelled him to retire. He died in 1790, at the ago of seventy-two yeara. 

• Page 246. 



264 



THE REVO LOTION. 



[177(5 




rATTLTi 01? LONa lEi-Ain). 



the 27tli, be had gained possession of the Jamaica 
pass, near the present East New York. At the 
samo time, Grant was pressing forward along the 
shore of New York Buy, and at day-break, he 
encountered Lord Stirhng,' where the monuments 
of Greenwood cemetery now dot the hills. De 
Hcister advanced from Flatbush at the same hour, 
and attacked Sullivan, who, having no suspicions 
of the movements of Clinton, was watchmg the 
Flatbush Pass. A bloody coullict ensued, and while it was progressing, 
Clinton descended from the wooded hills, by the way of Beilford, to gain Sul- 
livan's rear. As soon as the latter perceived his peril, he ordered a retreat 
to the American lines at Brooklyn. It was too late; Clinton drove him back 
apon the Hessian bayonets, and after fighting despenitely, hand to hand, with 
the foe in front and rear, and losing a greater portion of his men, SuUivan waa 
compeUod to surrender. 

As usual, misfortunes did not come single. Wtile these disasters were 
occuning on the left, Cornwallis descended the port-road to Gowanus, and 
attacked Stirling. They fought desperately, untO StirUng was made prisoner.* 
Many of hia troops wore drowned whUo endeavoring to escape aci-oss the Gow- 
anus Creek, as the tide was rising; and a large number were captured. At 
noon the victory for the British was complete. About five hundred Americans 
were killed or wounded, and eleven humlred were made prisoners. These wore 
soon suffering di-eadful horrors in prisons and prison-ships, at New York. 
The British loss in killed, wounded, and prisoners, was three hundred and sisty- 
seven. 

It was with the deepest anguish that Washington had viewed, from Now 
York, the dosti-uction of his troops, yet ho dared not weaken his power in the 
city, by sending reinforcements to aid them. He crossed over on the following 
morning [August 28], with Mifflin,' who had come down fi-om the upper end 
of York island with a thousand troops, and was gratified to find the enemy 
encamped in front of Putnam's hues, and delaying an attack until the British 
fleet should co-operate with him. This delay allowed Washington time to form 
and execute a plan for the salvation of the remainder of the army, now too 
weak to resist an assault with auy hope of success. Under cover of a heavy 
fog, which fell upon the hostile camps at midnight of the '29th, and continued 
until the morning of the 30th, ho sUeutly withdrew them from the camp,' and, 



•William Alexander, Lortl Slirliiif;, was a (lesceiidRul of the Scotch earl of Slirlinp, niBntioned 
in note 2, page 80. Ho whk hoiu in llif city ul New York, lu 17'2('). He became allacheii to the 
patriot cnime, and was an active officer dining the war. He liied in 17fC!, aged tifty-Beveu jearg. 

* Stirling wa« sent inunediateiy on l)ii;ird u( llie Eagle, Lord Howe's Hagaliip. 

' Among the prisoners was General Nailnmiel \V<iodh«ll [Note 1, page IDS], late president of 
the provincial Congress of New York. He wiis taken prisoner ou ilie SOtli, and after being severely 
wounded at the time, he was so negleclrd. llnit liis injuries proved fatal in the course of a few daf s. 
His age waa fifty three. See Onilerdoiik's lUwlutionary IncititnU uf Lonij hlimU. ' Page 3o'2. 

•During the night, a woman living near the present Fulton Kerry, where the Americans 
embalmed, having ^eooma uQ'ended at some of the palriula, seul her negro aer'^aul to inform liii 




Betbeat Of TBH Amwa^s raou LoNa Islaihx 



1776.] SECOND YEAR OF T II K WAR I'^OK INDEPENDENCE. 257 

unperceivcd by the British, they all crossed over to New York in safety, carry- 
ing every tiling with them Ijut tlieir licavy cannons. When the fog rolled away, 
and the sunlight burst upon Brooklyn and New York, the last boat-load of 
patriots had reached the city shore. Mifflin, with his Pennsylvania battalion, 
and the remains of two broken Maryland regiments, formed the covering party. 
Washington and his staff, who had been in the saddle all night, remained until 
the last company had embarked. Surely, if " the stars in their courses ibught 
against Sisera," in the time of Deborah,' the wings of the Cherubim of Mercy 
and Hope were over the Americans on this occasion. Howe, who felt sure of 
his prey, was greatly mortified, and prepared to make an immediate attack 
upon New York, before the Americans should become reinforced, or should 
escape from it." 

Unfortunately for the cause of freedom, at that time, the troops under 
Washington lacked that unity of feeling and moral stamina, so necessary for 
the accomplishment of success in any struggle. Had jiatriotism prevailed in 
every heart in the American army, it might have maintained its position in the 
«ity, and kept the British at bay. But there were a great many of merely 
selfish men in the camp. Sectional diflerences" weakened the bond of union, and 
immorality of every kind prevailed.* There was also a general spirit of insub- 
ordination, and the disasters on Long Island disheartened the timid. Hundreds 
deserted the cause, and went home. Never, during the long struggle of after 
years, was tlie hopeful mind of Washington more clouded by doubts, than 
during the month of September, 1776. In the midst of the gloom and perplex- 
ity, he called a council of war [Sept. 12th], and it was determined to send the 
military stores to Dobbs' Ferry, a secure place twenty-two miles up the Hud- 
son, and to retreat to and fortify Harlem Heights,' near the upper end of York 

British of tho movement. The negro foil into tho hands of tho Hossiana. They could not under- 
stniid a word of his language, and detained him until so late in the morning tliat his information waa 
of no avail. ' Judges, cliapter v., verso 20. 

' Ho ordered several vessels of war to sail around Long Island, and come down tlio Sound to 
Flushing Bay, so as to cover tlie intended landing of tlio troops upon the main [page 258], in 
Westclie.ster county. In tlie mean wliilc, Howe m.ido an overture lor peace, supposing tlie late dis- 
aster would dispose tlio Americans to listen eagerly to almost any proposition for reconciliation. 
He parollcd General Sullivan, and by him sent a verbal coniniunio.-ition to Congress, sugge.'iting a 
committee for conference. It was u]>poiiited, and consisted ol' Dr Franl<lin, Jolin Adams, and 
Edward Rutlodge. On tho lltli of September, they met Lord Howe at tlie house of Captain ISillop, 
on Staton Island, opposite Pertii Anilioy. Tlie committee would tr.at only fiir independnnce, and 
tho conference had no practical result, except to widen the breach. "VVheu Howe spoke patron- 
izingly of protection for tlio Americans, Dr. Franklin told him courteously, that tlio Americans were 
not in need of British protection, for they were fully able to protect themselves. 

' The army, wliich at first consisted chiefly of New England people, had been reinforced by 
olhers from New York, Now .Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia, all of tliea 
jealous of their respective claims to precedeneo, and materially ilill'ering in their social lialjits. 

' (Jotemporary writers give a sad picture of the army at this lime. Among many of the sub- 
ordinate officers, greed usurped tho place of ]):itriotism. Officers were elected on condition that liicy 
should throw tlieir pay and r.ations into a joiut stock for the benefit of a company; suri^ooiis soW 
recommendations for furloughs, for able-bodied men, at sixpence each ; and a ciptain was cisliiored 
for .stealing blankets from hi.s soldiers. Men went out iu squads to plunder from friend and foe, to 
the disgrace of tho army. Its appointments, too, were in a wretched condition. Tho surgeons' 
department lacked instruments. According to a general return of fifteen regiments, there were not 
more than sufficient instruments for one battalion. [See Washington's Letter to Congress, Sept. 
24, 1776.] 

' These extend from the plain on which tho village of Harlem stands, about seven and a half 

i1 



258 TIIK REVOLUTION. [1776. 

Island.' This was speedily accomplisiied ; and when, on the 15th, a strong 
detachment of the British army crossed the East River from Long Island, and 
landed three miles above tlie town, at Kipps' Bay (now foot of Thirty-foiirtli- 
street, East River), witliout niiieii opposition,' the greater portion of the Amer- 
icans wore busy in fortifying their new camp on Harlem Heights. 

The invading Britons formed a. line almost across the island to Bloomingilale, 
within two miles of the American intrenehmeiits, just beyond tlie present Man- 
liattanville, while the main army on Long Island was stivtioned at different 
points from Brooklyn to Flushing.' On the IGth, detachments of the belliger- 
ents met on Harlem plains, and a severe skirmish ensued. The Americans 
were victorious, but their triumph cost the lives of two brave officers — Colonel 
Knowlt()n of Connecticut, and Major Leitch of Virginia. Yet tlie effect of the 
\ictory was inspiriting; and so faithfully did the patriots ply muscle and im- 
plement, that before Howe could make resuly to attack them, they had con- 
structed doul)le lines of intrenehmeiits, and were prepared to defy him. At 
once perceiving the inutility of attacking the Americans in front, he ne.\t en- 
deavored to gain their rear. Leaving tjuite a strong force to keep possession 
of the city' [Sept. 20 1, he sent three armed vessels up the Hudson to cut off 
the communications of the Americans with New Jersey, while the great bulk 
of his army (now reinforced by an arrival of fresh troops from England)" made 
their way [Oct. 12] to a jwint in Westchester county," beyond the Harlem 
River. When Washington perceived the designs of his en- 
emy, he placed a garrison of almost three thousand men, 
under (Vdonel INIagaw, in Fort Washington,' and withdrew 
the remainder of his army" to a position on the Bron.x River, 
\if...V:^5 A- in Westclicster county, to oppose Howe, or retreat in safety 
"'"^v.^ ^ ^^ I to the Hudson Higlilauds, if necessary. He established hia 
FouT wASMiNQTON. hcad-quartcrs at Whito Plains village, and there, ou the 28th 

miles from tlio City Hull, Now York to Two Hundred nnd Pixtli-strpct, near Kinp's Bricipo, nt tlio 
lippiT I'liJ of IIki island. ' Also ciilk'd MaiiliMtliin. 8w nolo 1, jiiip' -18. 

' SdTiio Coniici-tli'ut troops, frightcnod by tlio nunilior mid iiiailiul appoanini-o of llir Uritisli, 
flod nt llii'ir approaoh. Wasliinpton, lliyn nt Harlpin, lieard llu> nninoimdo, lenju'd into liis saddle, 
and approacluHl Ivipp's Bay in tiiiio to moot tlio llyinjf lii(;itivos. Mortilicd by tliis oxiiiiiilion of 
cowai'dioo lH>li)ro llio onoiiiy, tlio coinniandi'i'-in-oliiof trioii to rally tlioiii, oud in tlint cllbrt, ho was 
80 uniiiindfiil of liinisoll' tliat ho caino near hoiii^; oapturod. 

' Wisliiiip; to a.soortain tho oxaot oondition of tlio Uritisli nrniy, 'Wasliinpton onpnpod Oaptmn 
Natlian Halo, of Knowlton's roninient, to soorotly visit tlioir camps on l.on^r Island, and niiike 
obsorvatioii.s. Ho \va.s caiigUt, takon to llowo's hoad-iiuartors, Tiirtlo Hay, Now York, iind oxo- 
ciitod a.s a spy liy tlio brutal pro\H)sl-inarslial, t'linninirhani. Ho wn.s not allowed to have a Bible 
nor clorftyiiian during liis last hours, nor to send letters to his friends. His liito ami Andr«'s [page 
321)] have boon compared. For partienlars of this nfl'nir, sec Ondordouk's Jievolutiouiiry fncidmUi 
of Lonij Island^ etc., and I.ossing's Piilorial FirUl-hmk of the litvolution. 

* At ono o'clook on tho niorning of tlio 'Jlst, a lire broke out in a sninll proppery near the foot 
of Brond-stroot, and before it was cxtinpiiished, about live himdivd IniiMinps ivore destroyed. Tlio 
British eharpod tlio llro upon tho Ainorioans. .\lllioiii;li snoli iiioendiarisin had boon eontonipliilod 
when (ho .\iiiorionns Ibimd tliomsolvi's ooinpoUiil to ovaenato tho city, this wns purely aevideutuL 

' Tho whole liritish army now iinniberod about 35,000 men. 

° Throp's Nook, sixteen miles ft-om the city. 

' Fort Wasliinpton was erected early in 1776, upon the highest ground on York Island, ten 
miles fixiiii the city, between Ono Hundred and Kighty-llrst-street and Ono Hundred and Kiglity- 
Bixtli-streots, and overlooking both tho Hudson and Harlem Rivers. There wore a few traces oi 
its eiiilvanknients yet visible so late as ISfili. 

" Xomiually, niuetoeu thousand men, but actually elfoctive, not more thiin half that number. 



V 




■WAsmnsrcE-'S'Ois' Aif ]F,]tip°s ib^^?; 



1110.] SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 259 

of October, a severe engagement took place.' The Americans were driven from 
their position, and throe days afterward [Nov. 1, 1770], formed a strong camp 
on the hills of North Castle, five miles further north. The British general 
was afraid to pursue them ; and after strengthening the post at Peekskill, at 
the lower entrance to the Highlands, and securing the vantage-ground at North 
Castle," Washington crossed the Hudson [Nov. 12] with the main body of his 
array, and joined General Greene at Fort Lee, on the Jersey shore, about two 
miles south of Fort Washington. This movement was made on account of an 
apparent preparation by the British to invade New Jersey and march upon 
Philadelphia, where the Congress was in session.' 

General Knyphausan and a large body of Hessians' had arrived at New 
York, and joined the British army at Westchester, previous to the engagement 
at White Plains. After Washington had crossed the Hudson, these German 
troops and a part of the English aimy, five thousand strong, proceeded to attack 
Fort Washington. They were successful, but at a cost to the victors of full one 
thousand brave men." More than two thousand Americans were made prison- 
ers of war [Nov. 16], and like their fellow-captives on Long Island," they were 
crowded into loathsome prisons and prison-ships.' Two days afterward [Nov. 
18], Lord Cornwallis, with si.\ thousand men, crossed the Hudson at Dobbs' 
Ferry, and took possession of Fort Lee, wiiich the Americans had abandoned 
on his approach, leaving all the baggage and military stores behind them. 
During the siege. General Washington, with Putnam, Greene, an<l Mercer, 
ascended the heights, and from the abandoned mansion of Roger Morris," sur- 
veyed the scene of operations. Within fifteen minutes after they had left that 
mansion, Colonel Stirling, of the British army, who had just repulsed an 

' The combatants lost abovit an equal numlier of men — not more than throe hinulreil eadi in 
killed, w»uiiileJ, and prisoners. 

" General Heath was left in command in the Hi{;Iilands, and Goneml Leo at Norlh Casilo. 

' Page 250. That body afterward adjourned to Baltimore, in Maryland. See page 202 

* Page 246. 

° The loss of the Americans, in killed and wounded, did uot exceed one hundred. 

' Page 254. 

' Nothing could exceed the horrors of these 
crowded prisons, an described by an eye-witness. 
The sugar-houses of New York being large, were 
used for the i)urpo30, and therein scores sull'ered and 
died. But tlio most torrililo scones occurred on 
board several old hulks, which were anchored in the 
waters around New York, and used for ])risoncr3. Of 
thoin the Jersey was tho most notorious for the suf- 
ferings it contained, and tlio l.irutality of its ofEcors. 
From these vessels, anchored near the present Navy tub jersey pbison-SUIP. 

Yard, at Brooklyn, almost eleven thousand victims 

wore carried ashoro during tho war, and buried in shallow graves in tho sand. Their remains wore 
gathered in 1808, and put in a vault situated near the termination of Front-street and Hudson- 
avenue, Brooklyn. See Onderdonk's Revolutionary Incidents of Long Island. Lossing'a Field Book, 
supplement. 

' That mansion, elegant even now [188:!], is standing on tlio high bank of tho Harlem River, 
at One Hundred and Si.xty-nintli-strcet. Roger Morris was W.-vshington's companion-in-arms on 
the field where Braddoek was defeated, and he had m/irrird Mary Phillipso, a young lady whoso 
charms had captivated tho heart of Washington when ho was a young Virginia colonel. It was 
the propc-Tty of Madame Jnrnel (widow of Aaron Burr, who was Vico-1'rosident of Uie United 
States, under Jefferson), at the time of her death in 18GJ. Uuow [1883] belongs to Nelson Chaso. 




200 THE REVOLUTION. [1776. 

American party, came with his victorious troops, uiiJ took possession of it. It 
was a narrow escape lor those chief coinnianilers. 

A melancholy and a brilliant chapter in the history of the war for Inde- 
pendence, was now opened. For three weeks \Vashi11j5ton, with his shattered 
*nd daily diminishing army, was flying before an overwlielming force of Brit- 
ons. Scarcely three thousand troops now remained in the American army. 
Newark, New Brunswick, Princeton, and Trenton, successively fall into the 
power of Cornwallis. So close were the British vanguards upon the rear of the 
Americans, sometimes, that each could hear the music of the other. Day after 
day, the militia left the army as tFicir terms of enlistment expired, for late 
reverses had sadly dispirited them, and many of the regulars' deserted. Loyalists' 
were swarming all over the country through wljich they passed,' and when, on 
the Ttli of December, Washington reached the frozen banks of the Delaware, at 
Trenton, ho had less than three thousand men, most of them wretchedly clad, 
half famished, and without tents to shelter them from the biting w^inter air. 
On the 8tli that remnant of an army crossed the Delaware in boats, just as one 
division of Cornwallis's pursuing army marched into Trenton with all the pomp 
of victors, and sat down, almost in despair, upon the Pennsylvania shore. 

AVashington had hoped to make a stand at New Brunswick, but was disap- 
pointed. The services of the Jersey and Maryland brigades expired on the day 
wlion he left that place, and neither of them would renjain any longer in the 
army. During his flight, Washington had sent repeated messages to General 
Lee,^ urging him to leave North Castle,* and reinforce him. That oflicer, am- 
bitious as he was impetuous and bravo, hoping to strike a blow against the 
British tliat might give himself personal renown, was so tardy in his obedience, 
that he did not enter New Jersey until tlie Americans had crossed the Dela- 
ware. Ho had repeatedly, but in vain, importuned General Heath, who waa 
left in command at Peekskill, to let him have a dctiichment of one or two thou- 
Band men, with which to operate. His tardiness in obedience, cost him his 
liberty. Soon after entering New Jersey, he was made a prisoner [December 



' Note G, yiago 1 85. 

' lloiionil Howe lind soiit out proclamations through the country, ofTerinp pardon and protection 
to all who might aslv for niorcy. Perceiving tlio disasters to tlio American anus during the summer 
and autumn, groat numbers took advantage of tliese promises, and signed petitions. They soon 
found that protection did not follow pardon, for tlio Hessian troops, in their march through New 
Jersey, committed great excesses, without iiKiuiring whether tlioir victims were Whiijs or Tories. 
Note 4, page 226. Among the prominent men wlio espoused the repubhcan cause, and now aban- 
doned it. was Tueker, president of the New .Jersey Convention, wliicli liad ,s,anctioned the Declara- 
tion of I ndei>endenoo, and Joseph lialloway, a member of tlie first Contineut.!] Congress. These, 
Mid otiior prominent recusants, received some hard hits in the public prints. A writer iu the Penrt- 
lylvania Journal, of February 5, 1777, thus castigated Galloway: 

"GaU'way has fled, nnd jnln'd tbo vonal Howe, 
To prove tiis Imseness, »t*e tiini crlnire rtiiil bow; 
A traitor to hlH country ami its tiws, 
A frieml to tyrants anil tlleir cnrded cause. 
Unhapj)y wretcti I thy interest must l)o Bold 
For ('ontinentjil, not for polish'd jrold. 
To sink the money tlion thyself cried down. 
And stubbed thy country to support tbu crown.'* 

• Note 4, page 185. * Page 259 



5776.] SECOND TEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 261 

13, 1776], and his command devolved upon General Sullivan.' At aljout the 
same time intelligence reached the chief that a British squadron, under Sir 
Peter Parker (who, as we have seen [page 247], was defeated at Charleston), 
had sailed into Narraganset Bay [December 8th], taken possession of Rhode 
Island, and blockaded the little American fleet, under Commodore Hopkins,' 
then lying near Providence. This intelligence, and a knowledge of the failure 
of operations on Lake Champlain," coupled with the sad condition of the main 
army of patriots, made the future appear gloomy indeed.' 

It was fortunate for the patriot cause that General Howe was excessively 
cautious and indolent. Instead of allowing Cornwallis to construct boats,'' cross 
the Delaware at once, overwhelm the patriots, and push on to Philadelphia, as 
he might have done, he ordered him to await the freezing of the waters, so as 
to cross on the ice. He was also directed to place four thousand German troops 
in cantonments along the Jersey shore of the river, from Trenton to Burling- 
ton, and to occupy Princeton and New Brunswick with strong British detach- 
ments. Both Congress and Washington profited by this delay. Measures for 
re-organizing the army, already planned, were put in operation. A loan of five 
millions of dollars, in hard money, with which to pay the troops, was author- 
ized. By the offer of liberal bounties," and the influence of a stirring appeal 
put forth by Congress, recruits immediately flocked to Washington's standard 
at Newtown.' Almost simultaneously, Lee's detachment under Sullivan, and 
another from Ticonderoga," joined him ; and on the 24th of December he found 
himself in command of almost five thousand effective troops, many of them fresh 
and hopeful." And the increased pay of officers, the proffered bounties to the 

' Both Sullivan and Stirling, who were made prisoners on Lon<i; Island [page 254], had been 
exchanged, and were now again with the army. Lee was captured at Baskiugridge, where Lord 
Stirling resided, and remained a prisoner until May, 1778, when he was exchanged for General 
Prescott, who was captured on Rhode Island. See page 271. " Note 1, page 307. 

' General Gates was appointed to the command of the army at the north, after the death of 
General Thomas [note 2, page 243]; and during the summer and autumn of 177G, Colonel Arnold 
became a sort of commodore, and commanded flotillas of small vessels in warfare with others pre- 
pared by General Carleton (the British commander in Canada), on Lake Champlain. He had two 
severe engagements (11th and 13th of October), in which he lost about ninety men; the British 
about forty. These operations were disastrous, yet they resulted in preventing the Britisli forces in 
Canada uniting with those in New York, and were thus of vast importance. 

* Although the Americans had generally suffered defeats, tlie^' had been quite successful in 
making captives. The number of Americans taken by the Britisli, up to the close of 1776, was 
four thousand, eight hundred and fifty-four; tho number of Brititih taken by the Americans, was 
two thousand, eight hundred and sixty. In addition to men, tho Americans had lost twelve brass 
cannons and mortars, and two hundred and thirty-five made of iron ; twenty-three thousand, nine 
hundred and seventy-nine empty sliells, and seventeen thousand, one hundred and twenty-two 
filled; two thousand six hundred and eighty-four double-headed shot : a large quantity of grape- 
shot ; two thousand eight hundred muskets : four hundred thousand cartridges ; sixteen barrels of 
powder ; five hundred intrenching tools ; two hundred barrows and other instruments, and a large 
quantity of provig'ons and stores. 

° The Americans took every boat they could find at Trenton, and cautiously moved them out 
of the river after they had crossed. 

° Each soldier was to have a bounty of twenty dollars, besides an allotment of land at the close 
of the war. A common soldier was to liave one I'lundred acres, and a colonel five hundred. These 
were given to those only who enlisted to sen'e " during the war." 

' A small village north of Bristol, about two miles fi-om tlie Delaware. ' Pago 234. 

' According to the adjutant's return to Washington on the 22d of December, the American 
■irmy numbered ten thousand one hundred and six men, of whom five thousand three hundred and 
ninety-nine were sick, on command elsewhere, or on furlough, leaving an effective force of four 
thouaafd fevn hundred and seven. 



262 TllK RK VOLUTION. [1776. 

(soldiers, and tlio great personal influence of the coniniander-in-cliief. liad the 
effect to retain in the service, for a few weeks at least, more than one half of the 
old soldier.*. 

There were a))Out fifteen hundred Hessians.' and a troop of Britisli light 
horse, at Trenton, and these Washington determined to surprise. The British 
commanders looked with such contempt upon the American troops — the mere 
ghost of an army — and were so certain of an easy victory beyond the Delaware, 
where, rumor affirmed, the peojile were almost unanimous in favor of the 
king, that vigilance was neglected. So confident were they that the contest 
would be ended by taking possession of Philadelphia, that Cornwallis actually 
returned to New York, to prepare to sail for England ! And when Kail, the 
commander of the Hessians at Trenton, applied to General Grant for a rein- 
forcement, that officer said to the messenger, "Tell the colonel he is very safe. 
I will undertake to keep the peace in New Jersey, with a corporal's guard." 
How they mistook the character of Washington ! During all the gloom of the 
past month, hope had beamed brightly upon the heart of the commander-in- 
ehief Although Congress had adjourned to Baltimore" [December 12, 177t5], 
and the public mind was filled with despoiidency, his reliance upon Providence 
in a cause so just, was never shaken ; and his great soul conceived, and his 
ready hand planned a bold stroke for deliverance. The Christmas holiday w:i3 
at hand — a day when Germans, especially, indulge inconviviai pleasures. Not 
doubting the Ilossians would pass the day in sports and driidcing, he resolved 
(0 profit by their condition, by falling suddenly upon them while they were in 
deep slumber after a day and night of carousal. Ilis plan was to cross the 
Delaware in three divisions, one a few miles above Trenton, another a few miles 
below, and a third at Bristol to attack Count Donop'' at Burlington. Small 
parties were also to attack the British posts at Mount Holly, Black Horse, and 
Bordentown, at the same time. 

On the evening of Christmas day [1776], Washington gathered twenty- 
four hundred men, with some heavy artillery, at McConkey's Ferry, 
eight or nine miles above Trenton.' They expected to cross, reach Trenton 
rtt midnight, and take the Hessians by surprise. But the river was filled 
with floating ice, and sleet and snow were falling fast. The passage was 
made in flat-lioats ; and so difficult was the navigation, that it was almost four 
o'clock in the morning [December 20] when the troops were mustered on 
the Jersey shore. They were arranged in two divisions, commanded respec- 
tively by Greene and Sullivan, and approached Trenton by separate roads. 
The enterprise was eminently successful. Colonel Rail, the Hessian com- 
mander, was yet indulging in ivmo at the end of a night spent in card- 



' Papo 21 G. 

" Alaniied at the approach of tlie Britisli, Conpress thought it prudent to adjourn to Baltimore. 
A. eoiumitteo to reprosout tlint body was loft in Philadelphia, to co-operate with the army. Conffrcss 
aasemhlcd at BiJtimore on the 20th. ' Pajre 276. 

' Taylorsvillo is the n;inie of the little villiuri^ at that place. The river there, now spanned b7 
a oovcrod bridge, is about eix hundred I'oet in width, and haa a considerable current. 



1776.] SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 263 




BATTLE AT TRENTON. 



playing, when the Americans approached, a little after sunrise;' ami while 
endeavoring to rally his affrighted troops, he fell, mortally wounded, in the 
streets of Trenton. Between forty and fifty of 
the Hessians were killed and fiitally wounded, 
and more than a thousand were made prisoners, 
together with arms, ammunition, and stores. 
Five hundred British cavalry barely escaped, 
and fled to Bordentown. Generals Ewing and 
Cadwalader, who commanded the other two 
divisions, destined to attack the enemy below 
Trenton, were unable to cross the river on account of the ice, to co-operate with 
Washington. With a strong enemy so near as Burlington and Princeton, the com- 
mander-in-chief thought it imprudent to remain on the Jersey shore, so with his 
prisoners and booty he re-crossed the Delaware on the evening after his victory. 

This was indeed a victory in more aspects than that of a skillful militiiry 
operation. The Germans under Dunop, on the river below, thoroughly 
alarmed, fled into the interior. The Tories an<l pliant Whigs' were abashed ; 
the friends of liberty, rising from the depths of despondency, stood erect in the 
pride and strength of their principles ; the prestige of the Hessian name, lately 
80 terril)le, was broken, and the faltering militia, anxious for bounties and 
honors, flocked to the victorious standard of Washington., Fourteen hundred 
soldiers, chiefly of the eastern militia, whoso terms of enlistment would expire 
with the year, agreed to remain six weeks longer, on a promise to each of a 
bounty of ten dollars. The military chest was not in a condition to permit him 
to fulfill his promise, and he wrote to Robert Morris, the eminent financier of 
the Revolution, for aid, and it was given. Fifty thousand dollars, in hard 
money, wei'e sent to the banks of the Delaware, in time to allow Washington 
to fulfill his engagement." 

The victory was also productive of more vigilant efforts on the part of the 



' Ral) spent the night at the house of a loyalist, named Hunt. Jnst at dawn, a messenger, sent 
bv a Tory on the line of march of the patriots, came in hot haste to the colonel . Excited by wine, 
and intent upon liis iranie, that officer thrust tlienoteinto liis pocket. Like theTheban polemarch, 
who, wlien he received dispatches rehilive t() a conspiracy, refnseil to open them, saying, ** Busi* 
ness lo-niorr()W," Rail did not look at the tnessai^e, but continued his amusement until the roll ol 
the American's drum, and the crack of his rille, fell upon his dull ears, and called him to duty. 

- Note 4, page 2'2ll. 

' Thfn it was that Robert Morris not only evince{l his faith in the success of tlie patriot cause, 
and his own love of country, but he tested the strength of his credit and mercantile honor. The 
sum was large, anil the reijuirement seemed almost imp<tssible to meet. Goverment credit wa« 
low, but confidence in Robert Morris was unbounded. On leaving his office, musing upon how he 
slnnild obtain the money, he met a wealthy Quaker, and said," I want money for the use of the 
army." " Robert, what security canst thou give t " asked theQuaker. " My note and my honor." 
promptly replied Morris. "Thou slialt have it," as promptly responded the lender, who offered him 
a cou.-!ideruble sum, and the next morning it was on its way to the camp of Washington. Robert 
Morris was a native of England, where he was born in 1733. lie camo to America in 1744, and 
became a mcrch.ant's clerk in Philadelphia. By the Ejreo of industry, energy, and a good character, 
he arose to the station of one of the tirst merchants of Iiis time. TI(> was a signer of the Declaration 
of Independence, and was active as a public tinaneier, tlirouplioiit the war. Toward its close 
[1781], ho was instrumental in establishing a national bank. After tlie war, he was a state legis- 
lator, and Washington wished hira to be his first Secretary of the Treasury, but he declined it. By 
land speeidations he lost his fortune, and died in comparative poverty, in May, 1806, when a little 
more than seventy years of age. See hia portrait on next page. 



264 



TIIK UEVOLUTION. 



[n7& 



invaders. Believing the rebellion to bo at an end, and the American army 
hopelessly annihilated, when Wasliinj^ton, with his shivering, half-starved 
troops, fled across the Delaware, Cornwallis, as wo have observed, had returneii 
to Now York to embark for England. The contempt of the liritish for the 




'^^^A 



Vt^^^^"-^-^^ 



"rebels," was changed to respect and fear, and when intelligence of the afiFair 
at Trenton reached Howe, he ordered Cornwallis back with reinforcementa, to 
gain the advantage lost. Congress, in tlie mean while, jiereeiviiig the necessity 
of giving more power to the commander-in-chief, wisely clothed him [December 
27J with all the puissance of a milibiry dictator, for si.x months, and gave him 
absolute control of all the operations of war, for that period.' This act was 
accomplished before that body could jiossibly have heard of the victory at Tren- 
ton, for they were then in session in Baltimore. 

Inspirited by his success at Trenton, the panic of the enemy, and their 
retirement from the Delaware, AVashington determined to recross that river, 
and act on the offensive. He ordered General Heath, who was with quite a 



' When ConRrcss adjourned on tho 12tli, to meet at 'Raltiniore, almost equal powers were given 
to Wa.'ihinpton, but tliey were not then defined. Now they were po. by resolution. They wrote to 
Wasliinpton, when they forwnrdod tlie resolution, " Happy is it for this country, that the peneral; 
of tlieir forces can be safely intrusted with inilimited power, and neither personal security, liberty, 
nor property, be in tlie least detrree endanireriHl Ihereby." .\t that time, Con^tress had piven Gen- 
eral rutiiani almost luilimited command in Philadelphia. All munitions of war there, were placed 
under his control. Ho was also authorized to employ all private armed vessels in Uie Delaware, in 
the defense of Philadelphia. See note 1, page 246. 



im.] THIRD YEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. ■265' 

large body of New England troops at Peekskill," to move into New Jersey 
with his main force ; and the new militia levies were directed to anuoy the liank 
and rear of the British detachments, and make frequent attacks upon their 
outposts. In the mean while, he again crossed the Delawai'o [Decemlier SOtii], 
with his whole army, and took post at Trenton, while the British and German 
troops were concentrating at Princeton, only ten miles distant. Such was the- 
position and the condition of the two armies at the close of the second year of 
the War for Independence — the memorable year when this great Republic of 
the West was born. 



CHAPTER TV 

THIRD TEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. [17Ti.] 

The strange apathy of nations, like individuals, in times of great danger, or 
frhen dearest interests depend upon the utmost vigilance and care, is a remark- 
able phase in human character, and the records thereof appear as monstrous 
anomalies upon the pages of history. Such was the case with the executive 
and legislative power of the Britisli nation during the momentous year of 1776, 
when the eye of ordinary forecast could not fail to perceive that the integrity 
of the realm was in imminent danger, and that the American colonies, the fair- 
est jewels in the British crown, were likely to be lost forever. Such an apatliy, 
strange and profound, seemed to pervade the councils of the British Govern- 
ment, even while the ipublic mind of England was filled with the subject of the 
American rebellion. NotwithsUmding an army had been driven from one city' 
[March, 1776], a fleet expelled from another" [June], their colonies declared 
independent' [Jnlj 4], and almost thirty thousand of their choice troops and 
fierce hirelings had been defied and combatted" [August], Parliament did not 
assemble until the last day of October, to deliberate on these important mat- 
ters. Then the king, in his speech, congratulated them upon the success of the 
royal troops in America, and assured them (but without the shadow of good 
reason for the belief) that most of the continental powers entertained friendly 
feelings toward Great Britain. During a dull session of six weeks, new sup- 
plies for the American service were voted, while every conciliatory proposition 
was rejected ; and when Parliament adjourned, in December, to keep the 
Christmas holidays, the members appeared to feel that their votes had crushed 
the rebellion, and tliat, on their re-assembling in January, they would lie in- 
vited to join in a Te Deitni' at St. Paul's, because of submission and peace in 

' On the east bank of the Hmlson, at the entrance to the Highlands, forty-five miles from tli» 
city of New York. See page 270. 

' Page 247. = Page 249. * Pago 251. ' Page 253. 

• The Te Deum Laudamus (We praise thee, Gnd) is always chanted in churches in Englami, 
and on the continent, after a great victory, great deliverance, etc. There is something revolting in. 




t>66 THE REVOLUTION. [1777. 

America. At that very moment, Washington was planning his brilliant 
achievement on the banks of the Delaware' 

In contrast with this apathy of the British Government, was the vigilance 
and activity of the Continental Congress. Their perpetual session was one of 
, :'" — ^ , perpetual labor. Early in the year [March, 1776], the 

Secret Committee of that body had appointed Silas Deane,' 
a delegate from Connecticut, to proceed to France, as their 
agent, with general powers to solicit the co-operation of 
other governments. Even these remote colonists knew 
that the claims of the king of England to the friendship 
of the continental powers, was fallacious, and that France, 
Spain, and Holland, the Prince of Orange, and even Cath- 
siLAs iiKANE. arlnc of Russia, and Pope Clement the Fourteenth (Gan- 

ganelli), all of whom feared and hated England, instead of being friendly to 
her, were anxious for a pretense to strike her fiercely, and humble her pride, 
because of her potency in arms, her commerce, her diplomacy, and her strong 
Protestantism. All of these spoke kindly to the American agent, and Dcane 
■was successful in his embassy. He talked confidently, and by skillful manage- 
ment, during the summer of 1776, he obtained fifteen thousand muskets from 
the French arsenals, and abundant promises of men and money. And when the 
Declaration of Independence had been made [July 4], Congress appointed a reg- 
ular embassy' [Sept. 22, 1776], to the court of France, and finally sent agenta 
toother foreign courts.'' They also planned, and finally executed measures for 
strengthening the bond of union between the several colonies, already made 
powerfully cohesive by common dangers and common hopes. A?-( teles of Con- 
federation, which formed the organic laws of the nation until the adoption of 

this to the tnie Cliristian mind and heart. War, except strictly defensive a.s a last extremity, is 
alw.ays a monstrous injustice; and for its success in soddenin)!; God's fair cartli with human blood, 
men in ep.iulettes, their hands literally dripping with gore, will go into the temple dedio.-ited to tho 
Prince of Peace, and there sing a Te Bi'uiiil ' Page 261. 

' Silas Deane w.is bom at Groton, in Connecticut, and was educated at Tale College. lie was 
elected to the first Congress [page 22S] in 1774, and after being some time abroad, as agent for the 
Secret Committee, he was recalled, on account of alleged bad conduct. IIo published a defense of 
his character in 1778, but he failed to reinstate himself in tho public opinion. He went to England 
tow.ard tho close of 1784, where he died in extreme poverty, in 1789. 

' The embassy consisted of Dr. Franklin, Silas Deane, and Arthur Lee. Franklin and Leo 
joined Deane at Paris?, at tho middle of December, 177G. Lee had tlion been in Kurope for some 
time, as a sort of private agent of the Secret Committee. He made nn arrangement witli tlie French 
king to send a largo amount of arms, ammunition, and specie, to the colonists, but in such a way 
that it wo\ild appear as a commercial trans;ietion. Tho agent on tlie part of the French waa 
Beaumarchais, who assumed tho commercial title of Rodoriquo Hortales & Co., and Lee took the 
name of Mary Johnson. This arrangement witli the false and avaricious Beaumarchais, was a source 
of great annoyance and actual loss to Congress in after years. Wliat was a gratuity on tho part of 
tho French government,, in tlio name of Hortales & Co., Beaumarchais afterward presented a claim 
for, and actually received from Congress four hundred thousjind dollars. Benjamin Franklin was 
bom in Boston, in 1706. IIo was a printer; worked at his trade in Ix)ndon ; became eminent in 
liis business in Pliiladelphia; obtained a high position as a philosoplicr and statesman ; w.is agent 
in England for several colonies; was chief embas.sador for tlio United States in Europe during the 
Revolution, and tilled various official stations in the scientific and political world. He w.as one of 
the most remarkable men that ever lived; and, next to Wasliington, is the be.st known and most 
revered of all Amerinvns. IIo died in 1790, at the age of more tlian eiglity-four years Arthur 
iee was a brotlu-r of Richard Heury Lee fpago 250], and was born in Virginia, in 1740. He was 
a fine scholar, and elegant writer. IIo died in 1782. ' Holland, Spain, and Prussia. 



1111.] 



THIRD TEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 



267 



the Federal Constitution, were, after more than two years' consideration, ap- 
proved by Congress, and produced vastly beneficial results during the remain- 
der of the struggle.' 




Such, in brief, were the chief operations of the civil power of the revolted 
colonies. Let us now turn to the military operations at the opening of a new 

' In July, 1775, Dr. Franklin submitted a plan of union to Congress. On tho llth of June, 
1776, a committee \va3 appointed to draw up a jilan. Their report was laid aside, and not ealled 
up until April, 1777. From the 2d of October until the 15th of November following, tho subject 
was regularly debated two or three times a week, wlien thirteen Articles of Confederation were 
adopted. Tlie substance was that the thirteen confederated States should be known as the United 
States of America ; that all engage in a reciprocal treaty of alliance and friendship, for m\itual ad- 
vantage, each to assist the other when help slioidd bo needed ; that each State should ha^e th^ 
right to regulate its own internal affairs; that no State should separately send or receive emlmssies, 
begin any negotiations, contract engagcmonta or alliances, or conclude treaties with any foreign 
power, without the consent of the general Congress ; that no public officer sliould bo allowed to 
accept any presents, emoluments, office, or title, from any foreign power, and that neither Con- 
gress nor State governments should possess the power to confer any title of nobility ; tliat nouo 
of the States should have tlie right to form alliances among themselves, without tho consent of 
Congress; that they should not have the power to levy duties contrary to the enactments of Con- 
gress; that no State should keep up a standing army or ships of war, in time of peace, beyond 
the amount stipulated by Congress ; that when any of the States should raise troops for tho com- 
mon defense, all the officers of the rank of colonel and under, should be appointed by tho Legis- 
lature of the State, and the superior officers by Congress; that all expenses of tlie war sliould bo 
paid out of the public treasury ; that Congress alone should have the power to coin money ; and 
that Canada might at any time be admitted into the confederacy when she felt disposed. The last 
clauses were explanatory of the power of certain governmertal operations, and contained details 
of the s»me. Such was the form of government which existed for several years. See Supplement. 



268 ' THE RK VOLUTION. [I777, 

year. Congress, we have observed,' delegated all military power to Washing- 
ton, and lie used it with energy and discretion. We left Jiim at Trenton, pre- 
pared to act ottbnsivoly or (lefctisivcly, as eircum.'^tancos should rcijuirc. There 
he was joined by sonic troops under Generals Milllin and C'adwalader, who 
came from Borileiitown and Crosswicks, on the night of the 1st of January. 
Yet with these, his effective force did not exceed five thousand men. Toward 
the evening of the '2d of January, 1777, Cornwallis, with a strong force, ap- 
proached from Princeton, and after some skirmishing, the two armies encamped 
on cither side of a small stream which runs through the town, within ]>istol- 
shot of each other. Wa-shinglon eoinmcnccd intrcncliiiig his eaiiij), and Corn- 
wallis, expecting reinforcements in the morning, felt sure of his prey, and 
deferred an attack for the night. 

The situation of Wiushiiigtoii and his little army was now perilous in the 
extreme. A conflict with such an overwhelming force as was gathering, 
appeared ho])eless, and the Delaware becoming more ob.structed by ice every 
hour, rendered a retreat across it, in the event of a surprise, almost imj)ossiblo. 
A retreat down the stream was equally perilous. An escape under cover of the 
night, was the only chance of safety, but the grouiul Avas too soft to allow tho 
patriots to drag their heavy cannons with them ; and could they withdraw unob- 
served by the British sentinels, whose hourly cry could bo heard from tho 
camp ? This wa,s a (luestion of deep moment, and there was no time for long 
deliberation. A higher will than man's determined the matter. The Protector 
of the righteous put forth his hand. While a council of war was in session, 
toward midnight, the wind changed, and the ground was soon so hard frozen, 
that there could be no dilliculty iu conveying away the cannons. Instantly all 
was in activity in the American camp, while Cornwallis and his army were 
soundly sleeping — pcrhiips dreiiming of the expected sure victory in the morn- 
ing. Leaving a f(!W to keep watcli and feed the camp-fires, to allay suspicion, 
Washington silently withdrew, with all his army, artillery, and baggage; and 
at dawn [January 8, 1777], he was in sight of Princeton, prepared to fall upon 
Cornwallis's reserve there.' The ]$ritisli general had scarcely recovered from 
his surprise and mortification, on seeing tho deserted camp of the Americans, 
when the distant booming of cannons, borne ujion the keen winter air, fell 
ominously upcm his ears. Although it was miil-winter, be thought it was the 
rumbling of distant thunder. The (juick ear of Ceneral Erskine decided other- 
wise, and he exclaimed, "To arms, general! AVashington has out-generaled 
us. Let us fly to the rescue at Princeton !" Erskine was right, for, at that 
moment, Washington and the British reserve were combating. 

Owing to the extreme roughness of the ronds, AVasliington did not reach 
Princeton as early as he expected, and instead of surprising the British, and 
then pushing forward to capture or destroy the enemy's stores at New Bruns- 
wick, he found a portion of the troops already on their march to join Corn- 

' Paifo 2G1. 

' A brigiuic, urwlor I.ioutciuint-oolonel Mawhood, consisting of three regiments and three troops 
of dragoons, were quartered there. 



mi; 



THIRD YEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 



2Gy 




wallis at Trenton. A severe encounter occurred, when the American militia 
giving way, the British, with a victorious shout, rushed forward, expecting to 

produce a general rout. At that moment Washington 

advanced with a select corps, brought order out of con- 
fusion, and leading on his troops with waving sword and 
cheerinji voice, turned the tide of battle and achieved a 
victory. The brave General Mercer,' while fighting at 
the head of his men, was killed, and many other be- 
loved oflicers were lost on th-at snowy battle-field." Nor 
was the conflict of that morning yet ended. When Corn- 
wallis perceived the desertion of the American camp, 
and heard the firing at Princeton, he hastened with a 
greatei' portion of his troops, to the aid of his reserve, 
and to secure his stores at New Brunswick. The Ameri- 
cans, who had not slept, nor sc^arcely tiiste<l food for 
thirty-si.x hours, were conipeliiul, just as the heat of the first battle was over, to 
contest with fresh troops, or Hy witli the speed of strong men. Washington 
chose the latter alternative, and when Cornwallis entered Princeton, not a 
" rebel" was to be found." History has no parallel to offer to these events of 
a few days. Frederic the Great of Prussia, one of the most renowned com- 
mand(;i-s of modern times, declared that the achievements of Washington and 
his little band of compatriots, between the 25th of December and the 4th of 
January following, were the most brilliant of any recorded in the annals of 
military performances. 

The Americans were too weak to attempt the capture of the British stores 
at New Brunswick, so, with his fatigued troops Washington retreated rajjitlly 
toward the hill country of East Jersey.* Allowing time only to refresh his 
little army at Pluckemin, he pressed forward to Morristown, and there estab- 
lished his winter quarters. But he did not sit down in idleness. After plant- 
ing small cantonments'' at different points from Princeton to the Hudson 
Highlands, he sent out detachments to harass the thoroughly perplexed British. 
These expeditions were conducted with so much skill and spirit, that on the first 



BATTLE AT PlllNCETON. 



' Meroor's horse had been shot under him, and he was on foot at the head of his men, when a 
British soldier felloci liim with a c-lubbod nmaltet [noto 4, page 236]. At first, the British boliovod 
it to bo WiisliinRton, and, witli n, sliout, tliuy uriod, " The rel)L>l gouoral is talfen." IIiikIi Morcor 
was a native of Scotland, lie was a surgeon on tlio fifld of ('uUodon, and was praeticin^' modieirio 
in KredorieltslMirft Virf^'inia, when the Revolution broke out. Ho was with WiusliinKton in tho 
JYoneh and Indian War. llo was m.ado eoniTnander of the llyinpf camp in 1770, and at the time of 
his death was about lilty-si.K years of aj^'O. Tlio picture of a house in the corner of the map of llio 
battle at Princotou, is a ropro.sontation of tho house in which General Mercer died. It is yet [18C7] 
BtandiiiK. 

" Tho chief of those were Colonels Ilaslett and Potter, Major Morris, and Captains Shippen, 
Fleming and Noal. Tho loss of the Americans in this engagement, was about thirty, including tho 
oBic(!rs above named. 

' We have mentioned, on page 210, the planetarium, at Princeton, constructed by David Ritton- 
housc. This excited tlie admiration of Cornwallis, and ho intended to carry it away with him. It 
is also said that Silas Deane [page 2ii.l] proiioaed to present this work of art to the French govern- 
ment, as a bonus lor its good will. Cornwallis was kept too busy in providing for his own safety, 
while in Princeton, to allow him to roll the college of so great a treasure. * Page IGO. 

• Permanent stations lor small bodies of troops. 



270 TIIK RKVOLUTION. [n7t 

of March, 1777, not a British nor a Hessian soldier could be found ia 
New Jersey, except at New JJrunswick and Amboy.' Those dreaded bat- 
talions which, sixty days before, were all-powerful in New Jersey, and had 
frightened the Continental Congress from Philadelphia, were now hemmed in 
upon the Iliiritjin, and able to act only on the defensive. Considering the 
attending circumstances, this was a great triumph for the Americans. It 
revived the martial spirit of tiie people, and the hopes of all good patriots; and 
hundreds in New Jersey, who had been deceived by Howe's proclamation, and 
had suffered Hessian brutality, openly csiwuscd the Whig cause. Congress 
had returned to riiiladeljjhia,' and connnenced its labors with renewed vigor. 

It was almost the first of June before the main body of the two armies com- 
menced the summer campaign. In the mean while, smaller detachments were 
in motion at various points. A strong armament was sent up the Hudson, in 
March, to destroy American stores at Peckskill, at the southern entrance to the 
Hiffhlands. The Americans there, under the command of General McDougal, 
perceiving a defense of the projierty to be futile, set fire to the stores and 
retreated to the hills in the rear. The British returned to New York the same 
evening f^Iarch 28, 1777]. Almost a month afterward [April 13], Corn- 
wallis went up the Raritan from New Brunswick, to surprise the Americans 
under General Lincoln, at Boundbrook. The latter escaped, with difficulty, 
after losing about sixty men and a part of his baggage. Toward the close of 
April [Aj)ril 25], Governor Tryon," at the head of two thousand British and 
Tories, went up Long Island Sound, landed at Conipo [April 26], between 
Norwalk and Fairfield, marched to Danliury, destroyed a large ipiantity of 
stores belonging to the Americans, burned the town, and cruelly treated the 
inhabitants. Perceiving the militia to be gathering in great numbers, he 
retreated rapidly the next morning, by way of Ridgefield. Near that village, 
he had some severe skirmishing with the militia under (Jenerals Wooster, 
Arnold,' and Silliman. Wooster w;i3 killed,' Arnold narrowly escaped, but 
Sillinian, keeping the field, harassed the British all the way to the coast. At 
Compo, and while embarking, they were terribly galled by artillery under 
Lamb." Tryon lost almost three hundred men during this expedition, and 
killed or wounded about half that number of Americans. His atrocities on that 

' Tlio Amprioans wont out in small conipiinios, nmilo RUitilon attaclc! npon pickets, o\it-posts, 
and foraginj,' parties, and in tlii.s way iVigliteneii the detacliniont-s of the enemy and drove tliein in 
to the main hody on the Raritan. At t^printitield, a tow miles from Eli/.alietlitown, they 
attacked a party "of Hessians who were penetrating the country from Elizabetlipurt [.lamiary 7, 
1777], killed between furty and tifly of them, and drove the remainder in great eunrusion hack to 
Staten l.Mland. A larger foraging party W!us dcleateii near Somerset com't house [.lanuary 20] by 
about five Imndrod New .lersey militia \mder tJencral Dickiusen; and Newark, Elizabethtowu and 
■yVoodbridge, were taken pos-session of by the patriots. ^ Page 2G2. ' Page 223. 

* Pagt' 2:! 1. For his giillanlry at Ridgelield, Congress ordered a horse, richly caparisoned, to 
bo presented to him. 

' David Wooster was born in Stratford, Connecticut, in 1710. He was nt Louisburg in 1746 
[page 1:!"], became a captain in the British army, and was in the French and Indian War. He was 
in Canada in the spring of 177(! [page 243], and" gave promise of being one of the most efficient of 
the American oHii-ers in the war tor 1 ndependeiico. 1 1 is loss, at sui'li a critical period of the contliot, 
woamuch deplored. Tho Slate of Couneoticut erected u mouumeut to his memory, iu 1854 

• Pugo 240. 



imi.] THIRD TEAR OF THK WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 271 

occasion were never forgotten nor forgiven. The name of Tryon will ever be 
held in detestation by all lovers of justice and humanity. He had already, 
while governor of North Carolina, been named by the Indians, T/ie Great 
Wolf, and in his marauding expeditions during the earlier years of the war 
for Independence, his conduct confirmed the judgment of the Red Men. We 
shall meet him again. 

The Americans did not always act upon the defensive : they were some- 
times the aggressors. Toward the close of May [May 22, 1777J, Colonel 
Meigs, with one hundred and seventy men, crossed Long Island Sound in whale- 
boats, from Guilford, Connecticut, and at two o'clock in the morning of the 23d 
of that month, attacked a British provision post at Sagg Harbor, near the 
eastern extremity of Long Island. They burned a dozen vessels, and the store- 
houses and contents, secured ninety prisoners, and reached Guilford at two 
o'clock the next day, without losing a man of their own party. For this exploit, 
Congress voted thanks to Colonel Meigs and his men, and a sword to the com- 
mander. A little later in the season, an equally bold exploit was performed 
on Rhode Island. On a dark night in July [July lOJ, Colonel William Bar- 
ton, with a company of picked men, crossed Narraganset Bay in whale-boats, 
in the midst of the British fleet, stole cautiously to the quarters of General 
Prescott,' the British commander on Rhode Island, seized him while in bed, 
and carried him in triumph across the bay to Warwick. There a carriage was 
in waiting for him, and at sunrise he was under a strong guard at Providence. 
From thence he was sent to the headquarters of Washington, at ]\Iiddlebrook, 
on the Raritan,' and was exchanged, in April, the next year, for General 
Charles Lee.^ For Colonel Barton's bravery, on that occasion, Congress voted 
him an elegant sword, and he was promoted to the rank and pay of a colonel 
in the continental army. 

The American commander-in-chief continued his head quarters at Morris- 
town until near the last of May. During the spring ho had inoculated a large 
portion of his troops for the small-pox ;' and when the leaves put forth,-^ fair 
degree of health prevailed in his camp, and his army had increased 1iy recruits, 
to almost ten thousand men. lie was prepared for action, offensive and defens- 
ive ; but the movements of the British perplexed him. Burgoyne was assem- 
bling an army at St. John, on the Sorel," and vicinity, preparatory to an 
invasion of New York, by way of Lake Chamjjlain, to achieve that darling 
object of the British ministry, the occupation of the country on the Hudson." 

• Page 240. PreseotfB quarters were at a house yet standing In 1870, K short dutance ahc ■ 

Newport, and about a mile from the bay. i 

^ While on bis way, his escort stopped at Lebanon, Connecticut, to dine. Prescott was a 

morose, haughty, and violent-tempered man. At tlie table, a dish of succotash (lieans and com) 

was brought to him. Not being accustomed to such food, he regarded it as an insult, and talcing 

tlie dish from the hands of the hostess, he strewed its contents upon the floor. Her husband being 

informed of it, flogged the general severely, with a horsewhip. 
^ Note 4, page 248 ; also page 288. 
* The common practice of vaccination at the present day was then tmknown in this country. 

Indeed, the attention of Jenner, the father of the practice, had then just been turned to the subject. 

It was practiced here a year after the close of the war. ' Pago 240. ' Page 283. 



■272 T"K UKVOLUTION. [1777. 

lint wlit'tlicr IIowo was preparing to co-opcrato with Burgoyiic, or to make 
aiiotlicr attempt to seize l*hiladelpliia,' Washington could not determine. Ho 
prepared fnr l«itii oveiitH liy stationing Arnold with a strong detachment on the 
west siilc of tiio Delaware, concentrating a large force on the Hudson, and 
moving the main hody of his army to Middlebrook, within ton miles of tho 
Brilisli camp at New Brunswick. 

Wasiiington was not kept in suspense a great while. On the 12th of Juno 
(17771, llowo passed over from New York, where ho made his head quarters 
during the winter, concentrated the main hody of his army at New Brunswick, 
and tried to draw AVashington into an engagement l>y a feigned movement (June 
14] toward tho Delaware. The chief, perceiving the meaning of this movement, 
and aware of his comparative strength, wisely remained in his strong position 
at Middlebrook until Howe suddenly retreated [Juno 19], sent some of his 
troops over to Staten Island (Juno 22], and appeared to bo evacuating New 
Jersey. Tliis movement pi^rplexed Washington. He was fairly deceived; and 
ordering strong detachments in pursuit, he advanced several miles in the same 
direction, with his whole army. Howe suddenly changed front (June 25], and 
attempted to gain the rear of the Americans ; but, after Stirling's brigade had 
maintained a severe skirmish with a corps under Cornwallis [June 20], tho 
Americans regained their camp without much loss. Five days afterward (Juno 
oOJ, the whole British army crossed over to Staten Island, and left New Jersey 
in tho complete jiossession of the patriots. 

Washington now watched tho movements of his enemy with great anxiety 
and the utmost vigilance. It was evident that some bold stroke was about to bo 
attempted by the British. On tho 12th of July, Burgoyne, who had been 
moving steadily up Lake Champlain, with a powerful army, consisting of about 
seven thous;ind British and German troops, and a large body of Canadians and 
Indians, took possession of Crown Point and Ticonderoga," and spread terror 
over the whole North. At tho same time the British fleet at New York took 
such a position as induced the belief that it was about to pass up the Hudson 
and co-operate with tho victorious invader. Finally, Howe left Cieneral Clinton 
in command at New York, and embarking on board tho fleet with eighteen 
thousand troops (July 2fl], he sailed for tho Delaware. When Washington 
comprehended this movement, ho left a strong force on the Hudson, and with 
tho main body of his troops pushed forward to Philadelphia. There he was 
saluted by a powerful ally, in the person of a stripling, less than twenty years 
of age. He was a wealthy French nobleman, who, several months before, while 
at a dinner with tho Duke of Gloucester,' first hoard of the struggle of tho 
Americans, their Declaration of Independence, and the preparations made to 
crush them. His young soul was fired with aspirations to give them his aid ; 
and quitting the army, ho hurried to Paris. Although ho had just married 
a young and beautiful girl, and a bright career was opened for him in his own 

' Tnpo 2f.l. ' rnpri' 2.f4. 

" Tho duko was tlio brotlior of tho kiiiR of England, ami at tlio tiino iu question, wuB dining with 
aome French oQlcors, in tho old town of Montz, iu Oermauy. 



1777.] 



THIRD YEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 



273 



country, lie left all, and hastened to America in a vessel fitted out at Lis 

own expense. He offered his services to the Continental 

Congress, and that hodj gave him the connnission [July 

31] oF a major-general. Three days afterward [Aug. 3] 

ho was introduced to Washington at a public dinner ; and 

within less than forty days he was gallantly fighting 

(September 11 J, as a volunteer, for freedom in America, 

on the banks of the Brandy wine. That young general was 

the Marquis de La Fayette,' whose name is forever 

linked with that of Washington and Liberty. 

The British fleet, with the army under Sir William Howe," did not go up 
the Delaware, as was anticipated, but ascended Chesapeake Bay and at its 
liead, near the village of Elkton, in Maryland, the land forces disembarked 
[Aug. 25], and marched toward Philadelphia. Washington had advanced be- 
yond the Brandy wine Creek, and took post a few miles from Wilmington. 
Howe's superior force compelled him to fall back to the cast side of the Brandy- 
wine ; and at Chad's Ford, several 




OENEUAL LA FAYETTE. 




miles above Wilmington, ho made 
a stand for the defense of Phila- 
delphia. At that point, the Iles- 
ians under Knypliaiisen' attacked 
the left wing of the Americans 
[Sept. 11, 1777], commanded by 
Washington in person ; while Howa 
and Cornwallis, crossing the stream 
several miles above, fell upon the 
American right, under General 
Sullivan, near the Birmingham 
meeting-house.' The contest raged 
fearfully during the whole day. 
At night the shattered and defeated battalions of patriots retreated to 
Chester, and the following day [Sept. 12] to Philadelphia. Many brave men 
were killed or disabled on that sanguinary field. La Fayette was severely 
wounded f and the patriots lost full twelve hundred men, killed, wounded, and 



BATTLE AT THE BKANDYWINE. 



' He was horn on the 6th of Septembpr, 1757. He marriod tho daupfhtor of tho Duko do 
Noailles, a beautiful lu-'ire-ss, at the ap;e of eiRhtoen years. Ho lirat landed on the eoa.st of South 
Carolina, in Winyaw Bay, near Goorgotown, and made a laud journey to I'liiladelphia. His appli- 
cation was not received at first, by tho Continental Congress; but when his true character and 
designs were known, thoy gave liim a major-general's commission. Ho was afterward an active 
patriot in his own country in many perilous scones. Ho visited America in 1 82-I-.5 [page 453], 
and died in IS'M, at the age of sovonty-sovon years. The Baron de Kalb [page 316] and cloven 
other French and Polish officer.s, came to America in La Fayette's vessel. 

' After tho battle near Brooklyn [jiago 2ri4], the king <u)nferred tiio honor of knighthood upon 
General William Howe, the commander-in-chief of the British forces in America. Tho ceremony 
was performed by several of his officers, at his quarters in the Beekman House, Turtle Bay, East 
River. > Pago 259. 

' This was a substantial Quaker meeting-house, situated a few miles from Chad's Ford, on the 
road from .Tefl'eris's Ford (where Howe and Cornwallis crossed) to Wilmington 

' A bullet passed through his log. Ho was conveyed to Betlduhem, in Pennsylvania, when 

19 



274 THK RK VOLUTION. [1717. 

made prisoners. The Britisli lost almost eight hundred. Washington failed 
of suecess more on account of false intelligence, by which he was kept in igno- 
rance of the a]iproach of the British on liis left, than liy want of skill or force.' 

Washingtt)U did not remain idle in the Federal capital, hut as soon as the 
troops were rested, he crossed the Schuylkill, and proceeded to confront Howe, 
who was making slow marches toward Philadelpliia. They met [Sept. 16] 
twenty miles west of that city, and some skirmishing ensued ; but a heavy rain 
prevented a general battle, and the Americans withdrew toward Heading. 
General Wayne, in the mean while, was hanging upon the rear of the enemy 
with about fifteen hundred men. On the night of the 2Uth, he was surprised 
by a party of British and Hessians, under General Grey, near the Paoli Tav- 
ern, and lost about three hundred of his party." W^ith the remainder ho joined 
Washington, then near A'alley Forge, and vigilantly watching the movements 
of Howe. As these indicated the intention of the British commander to attempt 
the seizure of a largo quantity of annnunition and military stores which the 
Americans had collected at Beading, Washington abandoned Philadelphia, and 
took position at Pottsgrovc, thirty-five miles distant, to protect those indispens- 
able materials for his army. Howe crossed the Schuylkill [Sept. 23, 1777], 
near Norristown, and marched to the Federal city' [Sept. 2U], without oppo- 
sition. Congress fled at his approach, first to Lancaster [Sept. 27], and then to 
York, where it assembled on the 30th, and continued its session until the fol- 
lowing summer. The main body of the British army was encamped at Ger- 
mantown, four miles from Philadelphia, and Howe prepared to make the latter 
place his winter quarters. ' 

Upon opposite sides of the Delaware, a few miles below Philadelphia, were- 
two forts of considerable strength (Mifilin and Mercer), garrisoned by the 
Americans. Wiiilo tiio British army was marching from the Chesapeake' to 
Philadi^lphia, the fleet had sailed around to tiie Delaware, and had approached 
to the head of that bay. The forts commanded the river ; and chevmtx-de- 
frisc just below them, completely olistructed it, so that the army in Pliiladel- 
phia could obtain no supplies from the fleet. The possession of these forts was- 

the Mor.ivian siators nursed liim durinp; liis oonflnemont. Count rula.ski bopan liis niilitnrv career 
ill tlio Aniorieun array, on tlio field of Brandywinc, wlioro he commanded a troop of horse, and 
after tlie battle he waa appointed to the rank of Brigadier. Ho was slain at Savannah. See nolo 
3, pa)»e 350. 

' Tlie building scon in the comer of the map, is a view of the head quarters of Washington, yet 
[1881] slandinj;, a sliort distance from Cliad's Ford. 

" The bodies of lilVy-lhreo Americans, found on the field the next morning, were 
interred in one broad ijravo; and forty years afterward, the " I!e]>ublic'uu Artillerists" 
of Chester county, erected a neat nioi'ble nioiuiment over them. It stands in the 
center of an inclosuro which contains the ground consecrated by the burial of these 
patriots. 

" riiiladelphia, Now York, and ■Washington, liavo been, rcspeetively, federal 
citiofi, or cities where the Federal Congress of the United States assembled. 

* Note 2, page 285. " Page 273. 

• Clievmuc-de-frise are obstnictions placed in river channels to prevent the pass- 
age of vessels. They are generally made of a series of heavy timbers, pointed with 
iron, and secured at an angle in a strong frame tilled witli stones, as seen in tlio 
engraving, Figure A shows the position under wator; ligure B shows how the tim- 
bers are arranged and the stones placed in thoui. 





11-n.] THIRD YEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 275 

important, and on the 22d of October, they were attached by detachments sent 
by Howe. Fort Mercer was assailed by two thousand Hessian grenudiois under 
Count Donop.' They were repulsed by the garrison of less than five hundred 
men, under Lieutenant- Colonel Christopher Greene, of Rhode Isknd, after los- 
in'^ their commander,' and almost four hundred soldiers. The garrison of Fort 
Mifflin, under Lieutenant- Colonel Samuel Smith, also made a gallant defense, 
but after a series of assaults by land and water, it was abandoned [Nov. 16, 
1777]. Two days afterward, Fort Mercer was also abandoned, and several 
British ships sailed up to Philadelphia.' 

When Washington was informed of the weakened 
condition of the British army, by the detachment of 
these forces to attack the Delaware forts, he resolved 
to assail the camp at Gcrmantown. He had moved 
down the Schuylkill to Skippack Creek [Sept. 25], 
and from that point he marched, silently, on the even- 
ing of the 3d of October [1777], toward the camp 
of the enemy. He reached Chestnut Hill, beyond 
Gcrmantown, at dawn the following morning, and the 

' 1 4 /• BATTLE AT GERIIANTOWN. 

attack soon commenced near there. After a severe 

battle, which continued almost three hours, the patriots were repulsed, with a 
loss, in killed, wounded, and prisoners, about equal to that at Brandywinc* 
The British lost only about six hundred. On the 19th, Howe broke up his 
encampment at Gcrmantown, and three weeks afterward, he proceeded to place 
his whole army in winter quarters in Philadelphia. W^ashington retired to 
his camp on Skippack Creek ; and on the 29th of November, he prepared to 
go into winter quarters at AVhite Marsh, fourteen miles from Philadelphia. 

Let us now turn for a while from these scenes of conflict and disaster in 
which the beloved commander-in-chief was personally engaged, to the consider- 
ation of important events which were transpiring on the waters and banks of 
Lake Champlain and the Hudson River. Burgoyne, with more than teu 
thousand men, invested Ticonderoga on the 2d of July. The fortress was gar- 
risoned by General St. Clair, with only aljout three thousand men. Upon 



' Page 263. 

' Donop was terribly wounded, and taken to the house of a Quaker near by, where he expired 
three days afterward. He was buried witliin the fort. A few years ago his bones were disinterred, 
and his skull was taken possession of by a New Jersey physician. 

' In the defense of these forts, the Americans lost about three hundred men, and the enemy 
almost double that number. 

' Washington felt certain of victory at the beginning of .the battle. Just as it commenced, a 
dense fog overspread the country; and through the inexperience of his troops, great confusion, in 
their movements, was produced. A false rumor caused a panic among tlie Americans, just as 
tho British were about to fall back, and a general retreat and loss of victory was the result. I n 
Gcrmantown, a strong stone house is yet [188;J] standing, which belonged to Judge Chow. This 
a part of the enemy occupied, and from the windows lired with deadly effect upon the Amei i- 
caus. No blame was attached to AVashington for this defeat, when victory seemed easy and certain. 
On the contrary, Congress, on the receipt of Washington's letter, describing the battle, passed a vote 
of thanks to him for his " wise and well-concerted attack upon the enemy's army near German- 
town ;" and " to tho officers and aoldierg of tho army, for their br.ave exertions on that occasion." A 
medal was also ordered to be struck, and presented to Washington. 




27G THE REVOLUTION. [1177. 

Mount Independence, on the opposite side of the lake, was a small fortifica- 
tion and a weak garrison.' These composed the entire 
force, except some feeble detachments of militia, to op- 
pose the invaders. On the approach of Burgoyne, St. 
Clair" left his outworks, gathered his forces near the 
fortress, and jirepared for an assault ; but when, on the 
evening of the 5th, he saw the scarlet uniforms of the 
British on the top of Mount Defiance," and a battery of 
heavy guns jdanlcd there,' more than five hundred feet 
above the fort, he knew resistance would be vain. That 

QENEK.\L ST. CLAIIt. . , , . . . , i i , 

evenmg ho sent his ammunition and stores up the lake 
to Skenesborougli,' and under cover of the darkness, silently crossed over to 
Mount IndeiK'iidence, and commenced a retreat to Fort Edward," the head- 
quarters of General Schuyler, who was then in command of the northern army. 
The retreating army would have been beyond the reach of pursuers by 
dawn, had not their e.xit been discovered. Contrary to express orders, a build- 
ing was fired on Mount Independence, and by its light their flight was discov- 
ered by the enemy, and a strong party, consisting of the brigade of General 
Fraser, and two Hessian corps under Riedesel, was immediately sent in pursuit. 
At dawn, the British flag was waving over Ticonderoga ; and a little after sun- 
rise ['Tuly 7, 1777], the rear division of the flying Americans, under Colonel 
Seth Warner,' were overtaken in Ilubliardton, Vermont, and a severe engage- 
ment followed. The patriots were defeated and dispersed, and the victors 
returned to Ticonderoga.' Before sunset the same eveninfr, a flotilla of British 
vessels had overtaken and destroyed the Americans' stores wiiich St. Clair had 
sent up the lake, and also a large ciuantity at Skenesborough. The fragments 
of St. Clair's army reached Fort Edward on the 12th. thoroughly dispirited. 
Disaster had followed disaster in quick succession. Within a week, the Amer- 
icans had lost almost two hundred pieces of artillery, and a large amount of 
provisions and military stores. 

' During tlie previous years, the Americans constructed a picketed fort, or stockade [noto 2, 
page is:i], on iliat eminence, built about tlirce luuuircd huts or barracks, dug several well.'), and 
placed liatterics at diU'creut points. Tlio remains ol' tliese are now [1883] evcrywliere visible on 
Mount ludojieudonce. Tliat eminence received this name because the troops took possession of it 
on the 4th of July, mc. Pago 250. 

' Arthur St. Clair was a native of Scotland, and came to America with Admiral Bascawen, early 
in M.\v, 1155. lie served under Wolfe [page 201]; and when the Revolution bi-oke out, he en- 
tered the American army. He served during tlie war, and nllerward conmianded an expedition 
against the Indians in Ohio, where ho wsis unsuccessful. He died in 1818, at the age of eighty-four 
yeai's. 

' This is a liill about 750 feet in height, situated on the soutli-west side of the outlet of Lake 
George, opposite Ticonderoga. 

* With immense labor, Burgoyne opened a road up the northern dope of Mount Defiance, and 
dragged heavy artillery to the summit. From that point, every ball might bo hurled within the 
fort bolow without dilliculty. The position of that road may yet [1883] be traced by the second 
growth of trees on its line up the mount^iin. 

' Now Whitihall. It was named after Philip Skene, who settled there in 1764. The narrow 
part of LakeChiimplain, from Ticonderoga to Whitehall, was formerly called Wood Greek (the nams 
of the stream that enters tlie lake at Whitehall), and also South liiver. ' Pago 188. ^ Pago 232. 

' The Americans lost, in killed, wounded, and missing, a little more than three hundred; th6 
British reported their loas at one hundred and eighty-three. 



1777.] THIRD TEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. £77 

The force under General Schuyler was very small, and even Mitli this rein- 
forcement by the fugitives from the lake, he had only about four thousand effect- 
ive men — a number totally inadocjuate to combat with tiiosc of Burgoyne. lie 
tlievefore sent a strong party toward Skcnesborough to fell huge trees across 
the roads, and to destroy all the bridges, so as to obstruct the march of the 
invaders, wliile he slowly retreated down the Hudson valley to the mouth of tiie 
Muhiiwk, and there established a fortified camp.' His call for aid was nobly 
responded to, for the whole country was thoroughly aroused to a sense of peril. 
Detachments were sent from the regular army to strengthen him ; and soon 
General Lincoln came with a large- body of New England militia. When 
General Gates arrived, to take the chief command," he found an army of thir- 
teen thousand men, ready to meet the invader. 

The progress of Burgoyne was slow, and he did not rcacli Fort Edward 
until the 30th of July.' The obstructions ordered by Schuyler, and tlu^ de- 
struction of the bridges, were great hindcrances.'' His army was also worn down 
by fatigue, and his provisions were almost exhausted. To rejjlenish his stores, 
he sent five hundred Germans, Canadians, and Tories, and one hundred Indians, 
under Colonel Baume, to seize provisions and cattle which the Americans had 
collected at Buiniington, thirty-five miles distant. Colonel John Stark had 
called out the New Hampshire militia ; and near Iloosick, within five miles of 
Bennington, they met [Aug. 16 J and defeated the marauders. And toward 
evening, wlien another German party, under Colonel Brc^yman, approached, 
they also wei'O defeated by a continental force under Colonel Seth Warner." 
Many of the enemy were killed, and a large number were made prisoners. Bur- 
goyne's entire loss, in this expedition, was almost a thousand men. The Amer- 
icans had one hundred killed, and as many wounded. This defeat was flxtal to 
Burgoyne' s future operations'" — this victory was a day-star of hope to the 

' Thaddeua Kosciuszko, a Polish refugee, who came wifli Lafay- 
ette [pai;o 273J, WiW now attached to Schuylor'.s aniiy, as pnf.'iiK'cr. 
Under his direction, the iiitreucliments at the moutli of the Mohawlc 
River, were constructed ; also, those at Stillwater and Saratofia. The 
camp at the mouth of the Mohawk was upon islands just below tlie 
Great, or Cohoos' Falls. 

' General Schuyler had superseded Gates in June, and had been 
skillfully confrontiujj; Burgoyne. But Gates, seeing a cliance for gain- 
ing laurels, and having a strong party of friends in Congress, sought 
the eiiief command of tho northern army. It was ungenerously taken 
from Schuyler at the moment when, by great exertions and through 
great hardships, ho had a force prepared to confront Burgoyne, with 
some prospect of success. 

" It was while Burgoyne was approaching that point, that Jane kosciuszko. 

M'Creii, the betrothed of a young Tory in the British army, wi;s shot, 

wliile being conveyed by a party of Indians from Fort Edward to the British camp. Her death was 
untruly charged upon tho Indians, and it w:vs made the subject of the most bitter denunciations of tho 
British miuistLM-s, for employing such cruel instrumentalities. Tho place of her deatli is a short dis- 
tuieo from tlie village of Fort Edward. Tho pine-tree which marked the spot, decayed a few yeara 
since, .and in 1S53, it was cut down, and converted into canes and boxes for tho curious. 

Burgoyne was obliged to construct forty bridges on tho way, nnd to remove the many trees 
which lay across tlio roads. To estimate the amount of fatigue whicli the troo[)s must have endured 
during that hot month, it must bo remembered that each .soldier bore a weight of sixty jiounds, iu 
arms, accoutrements, and .supplies. ' Pages 234 and 210. 

° It dispirited his troops, who were worn down with tho fatigue of the obstructed marcli from 
Skenesborough to Port Edward. It also caused a delay of a month at that place, and iu tho mean 




2:s 



THE KEVOLUTION. 



[1777. 



Americ;ms. Ajiplauso of the New Ilanijisliire militia rang through the land, 

and Stark was made a brigadier iu the coiitiueiital army. 

During Eurgoyne's approach, the Mohawk valley had become a scene of 
great confusion and alarm. Colonel St. Leger and his 
savages, joined by the Mohawk Indians, under Brant,' 
and a body of Tories, under Johnson' and Butler, had 
arrived from Oswego, and invested Fort Stanwix, on 
the 3d of August [1777J. The garrison was com- 
manded by Colonel (Jansevoort, and made a spirited 
defense. General Herkimer rallied the militia of his 
neighborhood ; and while marching to the assistance of 
Gansevoort, he fell into an Indian ambuscade [Aug. 6] 
at Oriskany.^ ]lis jarty was totally defeated, after a 
bloody conflict, and himself was mortally wounded. On 
the same day, a corps of the garrison, under Colonel 

Willet, made a successful sortie,* and broke the power of the besiegers. 

Arnold, will) hail lieen sent by Schuyler to the relief of the fort, soon afterward 

approached, when the besiegers fled [Aug. 22], and ([uict was restored to thb 

Mohawk valley. 

Tlie disastrous events at Bennington and Fort Stan- 

wi.\, and the straitened condition of his commissariat, 

greatly perplexed Burgoyno. To retreat, advance, or 

remain inactive, seemed eijually perilous. With little 

hope of reaching Albany, where lie had boasted he would 

eat his Christmas dinner, ho crossed the Hudson and 

formed a fortified camp on the hills and plains of Sara- 
toga, now the site of Schuylerville. General Gates 




.TOSEPII BIIANT. 



t 



--^ 



\ 



advanced to Bemis's Heights, about four miles north of 



OKNEEAL BDRGOYNB. 



Tvliilo tlioir provisions worn rapidly lUminisliin!;. "Wliilo at Fort Edward, Burgoyne reooivod intol- 
Mgenco of tln' doli'at of St. Lojior at Fort Stanwix. 

' Joaoph Uraiit was a Moliawlv Iiniian, and a ftrcat favorite of Sir William John.son. lie ad- 
hered to tlio Brilisli, and wont to Canada alter tlio war, where he died in 1807, aged sixty-fivo 
years. 

' Sir 'William Johnson [pnKO 190] (then dead) had been a sort of auto- 
crat amonj; the Indian.s and Tories in tho Mohawk viUley. Ho llatlerod 
tlie eliiefs in various ways, and throu(;h Iheni he olitainod almost un- 
bounded inlluenee over the triliea, e.speeially that of the Mohawks. lie 
was in tlie habit of (rivinjr those ehiels who plea.sed liim, a diploma, eerti- 
fyiu);; their (jood eharaeter, and faithfulness to liis majesty. These con- 
tained a picture, representing a treaty council, of which the annexed 
engraving is a copy. His family were tho worst enemies of tho Ameri- 
A TUKATY. cans iluring tho war, in that region. His son, John, raised a regiment of 

Tories, called tho Johnson Grirns (those who joined St. Leger); and Jolm 
Hntler. a i«rui>l leader, was at the head of another baT\d, called liiitler's Ii'arKjrrg. These co-openited 
with l?nint. the (.'real Mohawk sachem, ami for years they made the Mohawk valley and vicinity 
tridy a "dark ami bloody ground." Those mou were the allies of St. Legor on the occasion in 
question. 

' Tho place of the battle is about half way between Utioa and Rome. Tlie latter village is upon 
the site of Fort Stnnwix, built by Bradstreot and his troops in ITfiS [page 197], It was repaired 
and garrisoned in n7(i, and its name was chansred to Fort Schuyler. Another Fort Schuyler was 
built during the French and Indian War, where Utiea now sUiuds. 
* Note 7, page SJl. 




1 




BuRGOYNE Surrendering his Sword to Gates. 



1777.] 



THIRD YEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 



281 



Stillwater (and twenty-five from Albany), and also formed a fortified camp.' 
Burgoyne perceived the necessity for immediate operations, and advancing to war A 
■ the American camp, a severe but indecisive action 
ensued, on the 19th of September [1777]. Night 
terminated the conflict, and both parties claimed the 
victory.' Burgoyne fell back to his camp, where he 
resolved to await the arrival of expected detach- 
ments from General Clinton, who was to attack the 
posts on the Hudson Highlands, and force his way to 
Albany.'' But after waiting a few days, and hearing 
nothing from Clinton, he prepared for another at- 
tempt upon the Americans, for the mihtia were flock- 
ing to Gates's camp, and Indian warriors of the Six 

„" 1-1 TT. f BEMIS S HEIGHTS. 

Si ATIONS^ were gathermg there. His own lorce, on 

the contrary, was hourly diminishing. As his star, which arose so brightly at 
Ticonderoga,^ began to decline upon the Hudson, the Canadians and his Indian 
allies deserted him in great numbers." He was compelled to fight or flee. 
Again he advanced ; and after a severe battle of several hours, on the 7th of 
October, and almost on the same ground occupied on the 19th of September, he 
was compelled to fall back to the heights of Saratoga, and leave the patriots in 
the possession of the field. Ten days afterward [October 17], finding only 
three days' provisions in his camp, hearing nothing of Clinton, and perceivinj^ 
retreat impossible, he was compelled to surrender his whole army prisoners of 
war.' Of necessity, the forts upon Lake Champlain now fell into the hands of 
the patriots. 




' The remains of some of the intrenchments were yet visible in 1850, when the writer visited 
the locality. 

' The number of Americans engaged in this action, was about two thousand five hundred ; that 
of the British was about tliree tliousand. The former lost, in killed, wounded, and missing, three 
hundred and nineteen ; the British loss was rather less than live hundred. ' Page 283. 

' Page 25. ' Page 276. 

• The Indians had been disappointed in their expectations of blood and plunder ; and now was 
their hunting season, when provisions must be secured for winter use. The Canadians saw nothing 
but defeat in the future, and left the army in wliole companies. 

' The whole number surrendered was five tliousand seven hundred and nhiety-one, of whom 
two thousand four hundred and twelve were Germans or Hessians [page 183], under the chief com- 
mand of the Baron Riedesel, whose wife accompanied him, and afterward wrote a very interesting 
account of her experience in America. Burgoyne did dine at Albany, but as a prisoner, though a 
guest at the table of General Schuyler. That noble patriot, though smarting under the injustice of 
Cfingress and the pride of Gates, did not abate his zeal for the good cause wlieu he had surrendered 
his command into the hands of his successor, but, as a private citizen, gave his time, his labor, and 
his money freely, until he saw the invafler humbled ; and then, notwithstanding Burgoyne, without 
the show of a just excuse, had destroyed Schuyler's fine mansion, liis milts, and mucli other prop- 
erty, at Saratoga, he made the vanquished general a guest at his own table. When Burgorae said, 
" You are voiy kind to one who lias done you .so much injury," the generous patriot replied, "That 
w;i3 the fate of war ; let us say no more about it." Burgoyne's troops laid down tlieir arms upon 
the plain in front of Schuylerville ; and the meeting of tlie conqueror and the conquered, for tlie 
latter to surrender his sword, was a very significant scene. Tlie two came out of Gates's marquee 
together. Without exchanging a word, JSurgovne, according to previous arrangement, stepped 
back, drew his sword, and, in the presence of the two armies, presented it to General Gates. The 
latter received it with a courteous incUnation of the liead, and instantly returned it to the vanquished 
general. They then returned to the marquee together. The British filed off, and took up their lina 
of march for Boston: and thus ended this important act in the great drama, upon the heights of 
Saratoga. Burgoyne's troops were marched to Cambridge, Massachusetts, with the Tiew at'sendinjf 



282 THE REVOLUTION. [1777. 

Glorious, indeed, was this victory for the Americans. It gave them a fine 
train of brass artillery, five thousand muskets, and a vast amount of munitions 
of war. Its moral eifect was of greater importance. All eyes had been 
anxiously turned to the army of the North, and Congress and the people 
listened eagerly for every breath of rumor from Saratoga. How electric was 
the effect when a shout of victory came from the camp of Gates !' It rolled 
over the land, and was echoed from furrows, -workshops, marts of commerce, 
the balls of legislation, and from the shattered army of Washington at White- 
marsh.' Toryism stood abiished ; the bills of Congress rose twenty per cent, in 
value ;° private capital came from its hiding-places for public employment ; the 
militia flocked to the standards of leaders, and the great patriot heart of Amer- 
ica beat with strong pulsations of hope. The effect in Europe was also favor- 
able to the Americans. The highest hopes of the British ministry rested on 
this expedition, and the generalship of Eurgoyne justified their expectations. 
It was a most severe blow, and gave the opposition in Parliament the keenest 
weapons. Pitt, leaning upon his crutclies,* poured forth elotjuent denunciations 
[December, 1T77] of the mode of warfare pursued — the employment of German 
hirelings' and brutal savages." "If I were an American, as I am an English- 
man," he exclaimed, " while a foreign troop was landed in my country, I never 
would lay down my arms — never, never, never !" In the Lower House,' 
Burke, Fox, and Barro were equally severe upon the government. When, on 
the 3d of December, the news of Burgoyne's defeat reached London, the latter 
arose in his place in the Commons,' and with a serene and solemn countenance, 
asked Lord George Germain, the Secretary of War, what news he had received 
by his last expresses from Quebec, and to say, upon his word of honor, what 
had become of Burgoyne and his brave army. The haughty secretary was 
irritated by the cool irony of the question, but was compelled to acknowledge 
that the unhappy intelligence of Burgoyne's surrender had reached liim. He 
added, " The intelligence needs confirmation." That confirmation was not 
slow in reaching the ministry. 

Mightily did this victory weigh in favor of the Americans, at the French 



them to Europe, but Congress thought it proper to retain them, and they were marclied to tho 
interior of Virginia. John Burgoyne was a natural son of Lord Bingley, and was quite eminent as 
a dramatic autlior. On his return to England, he resumed his seat as a member of Parliament, and 
opposed the war. He died in 1792. 

' GencRil (iates was so elated with the victory, which had been prepared for him by ficneral 
Schuyler, and won chiefly by the valor of Arnold and Morgan [page 331], that ho ncglcctod the 
courtesy duo to the commander-iu-cliief, and instead of sendi:ig his dispatches to him, lie sent his 
aid, Coionel Wilkinson, with a verbal message to Congress. That body also forgot its dignity in 
the hour of its joy. and the young officer was .allowed to announce the victory himself, on the floor 
of Congress. In his subsequent dispatches, Gates did not even mention the names of Arnold and 
Morgan. History has vindicated their claims to the honor of the victory, and placed a just estimate 
upon the ungenerous conduct of their commander. Congress voted a gold medal to Gates. 

" Page 275. ' Note 3, p.age 246. * Note 1, page 231. ' Note 3, page 246. 

' A member justifiod tho employment of the Indians, by saying that the British had a right to 
use the moans " which God and n.iture had given them." Pitt scornfidly repeated the passage, and 
said, "These abominable principles and this most abominalile avowal of them, demands most 
decisive indignation. I call upon that right reverend bench (pointing to the liisliops), those holy 
ministers of the gospel, and pious pa,stors of tho church — I conjure them to join in the holy wor!^ 
and to vindicate the religion of their God." ' Note 2, page 218. " Note 2, page 218. 



n77.J THIRD TEAR OP THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 283 

court. Unaided by any foreign power, the Americans had defeated and cap- 
tured a well-trained army of about six thousand men, led by experienced com- 
manders. " Surely such a people possess the elements of success, and will achieve 
it. We may now safely strike England a severe blow,' by acknowledging the 
independence, and forming an alliance with her revolted colonies," argued the 
French government. And so it did. Intelligence of the surrender of Bur- 
goyne reached Paris on the 4th of December, 1777. King Louis then cast off all 
disguise, and informed the American commissioners that the treaty of alliance 
and commerce, already negotiated, would be ratified, and "that it was decided 
to acknowledge the independence of the United States." Within a little more 
than a hundred days after Burgoyne laid down his arms at Saratoga, France 
had formed an alliance with the confederated States [Feb. 6, 1778], and pub- 
licly avowed it. The French king, in the mean while, wrote to his uncle, the 
king of Spain, urging his co-operation ; for, according to the family compact 
of the Bourbons, made in 1761, the king of Spain was to be consulted before 
such a treaty could be ratified. 

While these events were in progress at Saratoga, General Clinton was 
making hostile demonstrations upon the banks of the lower Hudson. He 
attempted the concerted co-operation with Burgoyne, but he was too late for 
success. He ascended the Hudson with a strong force, captured Forts Clinton 
and Montgomery, in the Highlands' [October G, 1777], and sent a marauding 
expedition above these mountain barriers, to devastate the country [October 
13], and endeavor to draw off some of the patriot troops from Saratoga.' These 
marauders burned Kingston," and penetrated as far r^s Livingston's Manor, in 
Columbia county. Informed of the surrender of Burgoyne, they hastily 
retreated, and Clinton and his army returned to New York. Some of Gates' 
troops now joined Washington at White Marsh,* and Howe made several 
attempts to entice the chief from his encampment, but without success.'' Finally 

' France rejoiced at the embarrassments of England, on account of her revolted colonies, and 
from the beginning secretly favored the latter. She thought it inexpedient to aid the colonies 
openly, until tliere appeared some chance for their success, yet arms and money were secretly pro- 
vided [note 3, page 26G], for a long time previous to the alliance. Her motives were not the 
benevolent ones to aid the patriots, so much as a selfish desire to injure England for her own bene- 
fit. The French king, in a letter to his uncle, of Spain, avowed the objects to be to " prevent the 
union of the colonies with the mother country," and to " form a beneficial alhanco with them." A 
Bourbon (the family of French kings) was never known to be an honest advocate of free principles. 

" These forts were situated on opposite sides of a stream which forms the dividing line 
between Orange and Rockland counties. Fort Indpendence, near Peekskill, and Fort Con.stitution, 
opposite West Point, were abandoned on his approach. Fort Putnam, at West Point, was not yet 
erected. 

' While the garrison of the two forts (who escaped) were re-gathering, back of New Windsor, a 
man from the British army was arrested on suspicion of being a spy. He was seen to swallow 
something. An emetic brought it up, and it was discovered to be a hollow silver bullet, containing 
a dispatch fhom Clinton to Burgoyne, written on thin paper. That bullet is yet in the family of 
George Clinton, who was the first republican governor of New York. The dispatch was as 
follows: "A'oJM y void [Here we are], and nothing between us and Gates. I sincerely hope this 
little success of ours will facilitate your operations. In answer to your letter of the 28th of Sep- 
tember, by C. C, I shall only say, I can not presume to order, or even advise, for reasons obvious. 
I heartily wish you success. Faithfully yours, H. Clinton." The prisoner was taken to Kingston, 
and there hanged as a spy. * Page 275. 

' Howe marched out to attack Washington on the 4th of December, expecting to take him by 
surprise. A Quaker lady of Philadelphia, at whose house some British officers were quartered, had 



284 



THE REVOLUTION. 



[1778. 



Washington moveil from that position [December 11], and went into winter 
quarters at Valley Forge, where he might easier afford protection to Congress 
at York, and his stores at Reading.' The events of that encampment at Valley 
Forire afford some of the gloomiest as well as some of the most brilliant scenes 
in the records of American patriotism. 



CHAPTER V. 

FOURTH TEAR OF THE "WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. [1778.] 

If there is a spot on the face of our broad land wherein patriotism should 
delight to pile its highest and most venerated monument, it should be in the 
bosom of that rugged gorge on the bank of the Schuylkill, twenty miles north- 




't;^^^^!^ 



west from Philadelphia, known as Valley Forge, where the American army 
was encamped during the terrible winter of 1777-'78.' In all the world's his- 



overheard them talkin); about this enterprise, gave ■Washington timely information, and he was too 
well prepared for Howe, to fear his menaces. After some skirmishes, in which several .Vmericans 
were lost, Howe returned to Philadelphia. ' Pa)te 274. 

' Tliat wa.s a winter of severe and prot^-U'tcii n>\i\. The waters of New York Bay were BO 
firmly frozen, that the British took heavy camions from the city to Staton Island, on the ice. 



i 



1718.] 



FOURTH TEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 



285 



tory, we have no record of purer devotion, holier sincerity, or more pious self- 
immolation, than was then and there exhibited in the camp of Washington. 
Many of the soldiers had marched thither from Whitemarsh, bare-footed, and 
left bloody foot-prints in the snow on their drc;iry 
journey.' There, in the midst of frost and snow, half- 
clad and scantily fed, they shivered in rude huts, 
while the British army was indulging in comforts and 
luxuries within a large city." Yet that freezing and 
starving army did not despair ; nor did the com- 
mander-in-chief, who shared their privations and suf- 
fered injury at the hands of intriguing men,° lose con- 
fidence in the patriotism of the people or his troops, 
or doubt the wisdom of Providence.* The winter wore 
away, and when the buda began to burst, a clieering 
ray of glad tidings came from Europe. The intelli- 
gence of the treaty of alliance with France," was a 
hopeful assurance of success, and when the news 
spread through the camp, on the 1st of May [1778], 
shouts loud and long shook the forests which shrouded tlio hills around Valley 
Forge.' 

Nor was that a solitary gleam of hope. Light also emanated from the 




ENCAMPMENT AT VALLEY FOBOS* 



' Gordon, the historian, says, that while at Washinfrton's table in 1184, tho chief informed hira 
that bloody foot-prints were everywhere visible in the course of their march of nineteen miles, from 
Whitemarsh to Valley Forge. 

' The power of t' e British army was much weakened by indulgence, during that winter. Prof- 
ligacy begat disease, ;rime. and insubordination. Tlie evil elVects produced upon the army led Dr. 
Franklin to gay, " Howe did not take PliiladelpMa — Pliiladelphia took Howe." General Howe took 
leave of the army in May, and the officers gave him a splendid farewell file, which was called a 
Mischianza, signifying a medley. For a full description, see Lossing's Fidd Iluok of the Remlution. 
During then- occupation of the city, the enemy were annoyed by tlie patriots in various ways. In 
January, some Whigs at Bordentown, where Francis Hopkinson, one of tlio signers of the Declara^ 
tion of Independence, resided, sent a number of kegs down the Delaware, which were filled with 
powder, and furnished with machinery, in such a manner, that on rubbing against any object in tho 
stream, they would explode. These were the torpedoes iuventrd by Bushnell of Connecticut, 
already mentioned on page 252. The British vessels, hauled into tho docks to keep clear of the ico, 
escaped receiving any injury from these missiles. One of tliem exploded near tho city, and pro- 
duced intense alarm. Not a stick or a chip was seen floating, for twenty-four hours afterward, but 
it was fired at by tho Britisli. This circumstance aflbrded the theme for that remarkable poem from 
the pen of Hopkinson, entitled The Bailie of tlie Kegs. Hopkinson [see page 284] was a native of 
Philadelpliia and married and settled in Bordentown, New Jersey. He was an elegant writer, a 
great wit, a good musician, and a thorough-bred gentleman. He was a warm and active patriot, 
became eminent as a jurist after the war, and died in 1791, at the age of forty-seven years. His 
son, Joseph Hopkinson, was the author of our national song, Ilail Columbia. 

' During this season a scheme was formed among a few officers of the army, and members of 
Congress, for depriving Wasliingtoa of his command, and giving it to Gates or Lee. Both of these 
ambitious men sought the honor, and the former was fully identified with the clandestine move- 
ments toward that end. One of the chief actors in the plot, who was more the instrument of others 
than a voluntary and independent schemer, was General Conway, an Irishman, who belonged to tho 
continental army. The plot was discovered and defeated, and Conway was led to make a most 
humble apology to Washington, for his conduct. 

* On one occasion, Isaac Potts, whose house was Washington's head-quarters at Valley Forge, 
discovered the chief in a retired place, pouring out his soul in prayer to his God. Potts went home 
to his wife, and said, with tears in his eyes, " If there is any one on tliis earth to whom the Lord 
will listen, it is George Washington " '• Page 283. 

° On the 7 th day of May the army fired salutes in honor of the event, and by direction of the 
chief; they all shouted, " Huzza for the king of France I" 



•286 THE RKVOLUTION. [1778. 

British tlirono and rarliamcnt. The capture of Burgoyne, and the general 
failure of the campaign of 1777, had made the English people, and a powerful 
minority in Parliament, clamorous for pe:ice and reconciliation. Lord North, 
the prime-minister,' -was compelled to listen. To the astonishment of every 
hody, ho proposed [Feb. 17] a repeal of all the acts of Parliament obno.xious to 
the Americans, ■which had been enacted since 17C3 ; and in the course of his 
speech in favor of his conciliatory plan, he actually proposed to treat the Con- 
tinental Congress as a legal body." Two bills, expressing these conciliatory 
measures, were passed after much opposition, ° and received the signature of the 
king, on the 11th of March. Commissioners' were appointed to proceed to 
America to negotiate for peace with Congress, and the British government 
seemed really an.xious to offer the olive branch, without qualification. But the 
Americans had been too often deceived to accept any thing confidingly from that 
source, and as soon as these bills reached Congress [April 15], and it was found 
that they made no mention of the independence of the colonies, that body at 
once rejected tliem as deceptive. When the commissioners came [June 4], 
Congress refused to negotiate with them until Great Britain should withdraw 
her fleets and armies, or unequivocally acknowledge the independence of the 
United States. After unsuccessfully appealing to the American people, and 
one of them endeavoring to bribe members of Congress," the commissioners 
returned to England, and the war went on. 

The alliance with France gave the patriots greater confidence in their ulti- 
mate success. It was immediately productive of action. The first movement 
of the French government, in compliance with the requirements of that treaty, 
was to dispatch a squadron, consisting of twelve ships of the line, and four 
large frigates, under Count D'Estaing, to blockade the British fleet in the Del- 
aware. When, a month before he sailed, the British ministry was oSicially 
informed [March 17, 1778] of the treaty, and it was considered equivalent to a 
declaration of war, a vessel was dispatched with a message to the British com- 
manders, ordering them to evacuate Philadelphia and the Delaware, and to con- 
centrate their forces at New York. Fortunately for Lord Howe, he had left 



' Pago 224. " N'ote 2, page 253. 

' Pitt was favorable to these bills, but when a proposition was made to acknowledge the independ- 
ence of the colonies, and thus dismember the Hritish empire, ho opposed the mea.sure with all his 
might, lie was iti favor of recoimliation, not of stparaUon. It was during liis speech on this sub- 
ject, that ho was seized [."Vpril 7] with tlie illness which tt>rmiuated his life a month afterward. 
Pitt wag born in November, 1708, and died on the 11th of May, 1778, whou almost seventy years 
of age. 

* The Earl of Carlisle, George John.stone, formerly governor of Florida, and 'William Eden, 
a brother of Sir Roljert Eden, the last royal governor of Maryland. Adam Ferguson, the eminent 
professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Edinburg, accompanied them as secretary. 

' Among those who were approaclied was General Joseph Reed, a delegate from Pennsyl- 
vania. Mrs. Ferguson, wife of a relative to the secretary of tho commissioners, then residing in 
Philadelphia, and wlio was intimate ^\ith Mr. Reed, wa.s employed to sound him. Mr. Reed had 
been suspected by some of his compatriot's of rather easy virtue as a republican, and the fact that 
ho was approachable in this way, contirmed tlieir suspicions. Mrs. Ferguson was authorized to 
ofler him high offici;U statii>u and" a large sum of money, if he would use his influence in favor of 
peace, according to tlie submissive terms olVered by the commissioners. Her mission became 
known, and General Reed allogeil that he said to lier, " I am not worth purchasing; but such aa I 
am, tho king of England ia not rich enough to do it." 




1778.] FOURTn TEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 28T 

the Delaware a few days before the arrival of D'Estaing' [July 8, 1778], and 
found safety in the waters of Amboy or Raritan Bay, into which the heavy 
French vessels could not enter over the bar that stretches northward from 
Sandy Hook toward the Narrows. A little earlier than this, there had been a 
chance in the command of the British army. Sir Henry Clinton,' a more effi- 
cient officer than Howe, had succeeded him as gcneral- 
in-chief, toward the close of May, and on the 18th of 
June, he withdrew his whole army from Philadelphia. 
With eleven thousand men, and an immense baggage 
and provision train, he started for New York, by the 
way of New Brunswick and Amlioy. Washington, sus- 
pecting some important movement, was on the alert, and 
breaking up his encampment at Valley Forge, he pur- 
sued Clinton with more than equal force. ^ By adroit 

- , , . "^ . GENERAL CLINTON. 

movements, detachments ot the American army so inter- 
cepted Clinton's march, as to compel him to change his course in the direction 
of Sandy Hook, while New Jersey militia continually harassed his flanks and 
rear.' Finally, a general engagement took place [June 28, 1778] on the 
plains of Monmouth, in the present village of Freehold, in New Jersey. 

The 28th of June, 1778, a day memorable in the annals of Freedom, was 
the Christian Sabbath. The sky was cloudless over the plains of Monmouth,'' 
when the morning dawned, and tiie sun came up with all the fervor of the sum- 
mer solstice. It was the sultriest day of the year — one of the warmest ever 
known. On that calm Sa'ibath morning, in the midst of paradisal beauty, 
twenty thousand men girded on the implements of hellish war, to maim and 
destroy each other — to sully the green grass and the fragrant flowers with 
human blood. Nature was smiling in her summer garments, and in earth and 
air there was fullness of love and harmony. Man, alone, was the discordant 
note in the universal melody. Ho, alone, the proud " lord of creation," dis- 
turbed the chaste worship of the hour, which ascended audibly from the groves, 
the streams, the meadows, and the woodlands. 

The two armies began to prepare for action at about one o'clock in the 
morning, and at day-break they were in motion. Before nine, detachments met 

' Silas Deano [page 266] returned to America in D'Estaing's flag-ship, and Gerard, the first 
French minister to the United States, camo In the same vessel. Congress was now in session in 
Philadelphia, having returned Q'om Yorlj [page 274] on the 30th of June, twelve days after tho 
British had left for New York. 

" Henry Clinton was a son of George Clinton, governor of the province of New York in 1743, 
and a grandson of the Earl of Lincoln. After tho war he was made governor of Gibraltar [1795], 
and died there the same year 

' Arnold was yet quite lame from the effects of a severe wound in the leg, which he received in 
the battle on Bemis's Heiglits [page 278], and at his solicitation, 'Washington left him in command of 
a corps at Pliiladelphia, with tho powers of a military governor. Washington crossed tho Delaware 
in pursuit of CUnton, with a Uttle more than 12,000 men. 

* Washington was anxious to attack Clinton when he was in the vicinity of Allentown, but Lee 
and others overruled his opinions, in a council of war. Greene, La Fayette, and Wayne agreed 
witli the chief and supported by these able ofticers, he resolved on a general engagemeut. 

° The battle of Monmoatli was fought in the immediate vicinity of the present village of Free- 
hold, New Jersey, chiefly within the space of two miles north-west of the town. 



288 



THK REVOLUTION. 



[ms. 




MONMOUTH 



DATTLB AT MONMOUTH. 



in deadlj conflict, and from tliat liour until dark, on that long summer day, the 

terrible contest raged. It was 

' ''" " commenced liy the advanced division 

of the American army, under Gen- 
eral Cliark'S Tjce.' His apparent 
want of skill or courage, and a mis- 
understanding of orders on the 
part of some of his officers, pro 
duccd a general and tumultuous 
retreat of his division. The fugitives were met by the approaching main body, 
under Washington,'' and being speedily clieckcd and restored to order by the 
chief, they were led to action, and the battle became general. ^lany fell under 
the excessive heat of the day, and when night came, both parties were glad to 
rest. The Americans slejit on their arms' during the night, with the intention 
of renewing tlie battle at dawn, but when light appeared, the British camp was 
deserted. Clinton had silently withdrawn [June 29J, and was far on his way 
toward Sandy Hook.* Wasliingtor. did not follow, but marching to New 
Brunswick, and thence to tiie Hudson lliver, he proceeded to White Plains,' 
where he remained until late in autumn. Then ho crossed into New Jersey, 
and made his winter quarters at Middlebrook, on the Raritan, where he was 



' Pago 248. This conininiid was first pivon to La Fnyetto, but wlicti Li>c, wlio lind opposed tho 
measuro in council, siguilicd Ids readiness to lead it, it was given to Lim, us lio was tlio senior 
ofBcor. 

' Wasliington was Rroatly irritated when lie met the fupitives, and riding up to Lee, ho 
addressed liiin wHh nuicli warmth of language, and directed him to assist in restoring order. Leo 
proni|)tly obeyed, but the sling of Washington's words rankled in his bosom, and on that day, alter 
tho buttle, ho addressed an ollensivo letter to the chief. Loo was arrested and tried by a court- 
martial, on tho charges of <lis»bcdieneo of orders, misbehavior before tho enemy, and disrespect to 
tho comniandor-iu-chiof. lie was found guilty, anil was su.spendcd from command lor one year. 
He never entered tho army again, and died in obscurity, in I'hiladelphia, in October, 1782. Ho 
was brave, but bad in maiuiors and morals, profane in language, and a contemner of religion. It ia 
believed tliat lie was willing to liavo Washington lose tho battlo of Monmouih, because ho (Lee), 
was op)iosod to it, and at llio same time was seeking to rise to the chief connnand upon the mine 
of Wasidiiglon's reputation. Wo have already alluded to tho conspiracy lowaiil tliat end, on page 
285. The hottest of tho battle occurred a sliort dislanco from tho Freehold rresbyterian Church 
yet [ISS;!] slaiicling. Near it is a board, with an inscription, showing the burial-spot of Colonel 
Monckton, of tho liritish army, who wa,s killed in tho battle. 

' Tliis expression is used r(*poctiiig troops wlio sloop with all their accoutrements on, and 
tlioir woajions by their side, ready lor action in a niomoiit. Tho Urilish left about three hundred 
killed on tho tieid of battle. They also left a largo number of tho sick and wounded to the mercy 
of tho Americans. Tho Americans lost in killed, wounded, and missing, two hundred and twenty- 
eight. Many of tho missing afterward rejoined tho army. They had less than seventy killed. 

* In his iiispateh to the Socretjiry of War, General Clinton s:iid, "I took advantage of the moon- 
light to rejoin (b-neral Knyphausen." !li: As, according to an almanac of that year, the moon was 
quite new, and sot two hours before Clinton's march, this boost of leaving in tho moonlight occa- 
sioned much merriment. Trumbull, in hi3 iTFiivjal, alluding to this, says, 



'Mil' forms Ills rninp with KTcat psmdo, 
Whil,' fvniunj: N|ir,^iiilK Mil- wttiiil in shtido, 
Tlion still, like soiim fiidiuiKiTM Hpiirk, 
Stotils olT on (l)il,)t> In tht< tlitrk; 
S't't wrltt'S Ills kliic In bnnstliiK tonii, 
llow grnnd ho iiiHrch'il by light of moon! 



Oo on, pi\>ftl Riniertil, nor roRnrd 
Tho scoffs of overy sorlbblLug bard. 



" Who slngn how crodB, that ffftrfnl olgfai, 
Altlftl hy miniclo your Hlsht ; 
As nnco they nsod, In Ilonuir's day. 
To lu'lji wojik liiToi's rnu iiwiiy ; 
Tolls how Uw hours, at tliLs sad trial, 
Wi'iit hark, as erst on Ahaz' dial, 
Whilo Hrltish .Toslinu stayt-d tho moon 
On Moiintouth's )iLitn for JJiilon. 
Hood not their siunirs or glbi>s so arth, 
Beoause she Mt beforo yoor muofa.** 



* Page 306. 




1778.] FOURTH TEAR OP THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 289 

■ encamped in the spring and summer of the previous year.' Clinton's shattered 
forces went on board tlic Britisli fleet at Sandy Hook, and proceeded to New- 
York, where the head (juarters of the royal army continued until the closo of 
the war." And when D'Estaing appeared off Sandy Hook, the British fleet was 
safe in Raritan Bay. As we Imvo already mentioned, 
the bar from Sandy Hook to Staten Island would not 
allow the heavy French vessels to pass, and D'Estaing 
therefore relin{juislie<l his design of attacking Howe's 
fleet, and on the solicitation of Washington, he proceeded 
to Newport, to assist the Americans in an attempt to 
drive the British from Rhode Island.^ General Sullivan 
had been sent to supersede General Spencer in command 
there ; and Washington also dispatched La Fayette, with 
two continental regiments (accompanied by General count d'estaino. 
Greene, then quartermaster general), to aid in the expe- 
dition. John Hancock' came at the head of Massachusetts militia, and similar 
troops gathered at Tiverton, from Connecticut and Rhode Island.' On the 9th 
of August, [1778], the whole American force crossed from Tiverton to the north 
end of Rhode Island, and the British guards fled to the camp of General Pigot, 
at Newport. 

Several ships of war came from England at about this time, to reinforce the 
British fleet at New York, and a few days after D'Estaing sailed for Newport, 
a large squadron under Howe, proceeded to the relief of Pigot. It appeared 
off Rhode Island on the same day [Aug. 9J when the Americans landed on the 
northern end of it. D'Estaing, who was then within the harbor, went out to 
meet Howe, but before they came to an engagement, a terrible storm arose 
[Aug. 12], and scattered and disabled both fleets." The French squadron 
returned to Newport [August 20], and immediately sailed for Boston to be 
repaired. The Americans had then advanced almost to Newport, with every 
prospect of making a successful siege. They had been promised four thousand 
land troops from the French fleet. These viere denied them ; and refusing to 
listen to entreaties or remonstrances, D'Estaing sailed for Boston and aliandoncd 
the Americans.' The latter hastily withdrew to the north end of the island 

' Page 272. ' Page 350. * Page 261. * Pago 231. 

° The people of Rliodo Talaml had suflcroil dreadfully from tho brutality of tlui Tiritixli troops. 
There had teen some amelioration of llicir condition sinoo tho capture of Prescott [pa^e 271], and 
under tho rule of Pigot, tlie present coinnmrider. Wlien success seemed possible, tliousands o( 
volunteers Hocked to the standards of Sullivan and Ija Fayette. Jolm Hancoelf was appointed a 
general of some oftlieso volunteers. But his term of .service was short. Lilce Dr. Franklin [pag« 
1931, Hancock was better fitted for a statesman than a soldier. 

Very old people on Rhode Island, wlio remembered tins gale, spoko of it to tho writer in 
1850, as "tlio great storm." So violi-nt was tho wind, that it brought spr.ay from tho ocean a milo 
distant, and encrusted the windows ol tlio town witli salt. 

' Tliis conduct was warmly censured by the American commanders, because it had no v.alid 
excuse. It deprived them of a victory j\ist within tlieir grasp. Congress, however, afraid to offoiid 
the French, uttered not a word of blame. Tho matter was passed over, but not forgotten. Once 
again [page 305], tho san)o admiral aliandonod tlie Americans, D'Estamg was a native of 
Auvergne, France, He became involved in the French Revolution, in 1792, and in tlie spring of 
1793, he was guillotined. The guillotine w.is an iiistrunient for cutting off the head, invented by 
M. Guillotine, who was eventually beheaded by it himself. 

ly 



290 THE IlK VOLUTION. [1778. 

[August 28], pursued by the British, and a severe engagement took place' 
[August 29] at Quaker Hill. Sullivan repulsed the British, and on the uight 
of the 30th, withdrew his whole army to the main, near Bristol, in time to 
avoid an interception by Sir Henry Clinton, who had just arrived with four 
thousand troops, in light vessels." The Americans lost in this expedition, thirty 
killed, and one hundred and seventy-two wounded and missing. The British 
loss was about two hundred and twenty. 

While these events were transpiring on the sea-board, a dreadful tragedy 
was enacted in the interior, when the Wyoming, Mohawk, Schoharie, and 
Cherry Valleys, were made the theaters of terrible scenes of blood and devasta- 
tion. Tories from distant Niagara,'^ and savages upon the head waters of the 
Susquehanna, gathered at Tioga early in June ; and at the beginning of July, 
eleven hundred of these white and dusky savages, under the general command 
of Colonel John Butler,' entered [July 2, 1778] the lovely valley of Wyoming, 
in northern Pennsylvania. Most of the strong men were then away on distant 
duty, and families and homes found defenders only in aged men, tender youths, 
resolute women, and a few trained soldiers. Those, about four hundred strong, 
under Colonel Zebulon Butler,* marched up the valley [July 4], to drive back 
the invaders. But they were terribly smitten by the foe, and a large portion 
of them were slain or made prisoners. A few escaped to Forty Fort, near 
Wilkesbarre, wherein families, for miles around, had sought safety. Uncertaia 
of their fate — for the invaders were sweeping like a dark storm down the Sus- 
quehanna — the night of the battle-day was a terrible one for the people in the 
fort. But their agony of suspense was ended the following morning, when the 
leader of the invaders, contrary to the expectations of those who knew him, 
agreed upon humane terms of surrender.' The gates of the fort were thrown 
open, and most of the families returned to their homes in fancied security. They 
were doomed to terrible disappointment and woe. Brant, the great Indian 

' When Clinton was assured of tlio security of Rliodo Island, he detached General Grey on a 
mara\Kiing expedition upon the southern shores of Massachusetts, and among the adjacent Islands, 
and then returned to New York. Grey buruod about seventy vessels in Buzzard's Bay, near New 
Bedford, and iu that vicinity destroyed property valued at more than three hundred and twenty- 
three thousand dollars. Ho tlien went to Martha's Vineyard [page 57], and carried away, for the 
army In New York, about three hundred oxen, and ten thousand sheep. On the tirst of October, 
Clinton sent a successful expedition to capture American stores at Littlo Egg Harbor, on the New 
Jersey coast. " Page 200. ' Note 2, page 278. 

* Zebulon Butler was a native of Connecticut, and was bom in 1731. He was in the French 
and Indian War, and was ono of the earlier settlers in Wyoming. In 1778 he was appointed 
colonel, and was with Sullivan in his memorable expedition against the Pcnccas [page SO-lj the fol- 
lowing year. Ho was in active service thoughout the war, and died in Wyoming iu 1795, at the 
ago of sixty-four years. 

' All our histories contain horrible statements of the fiend-like character of John Butler, and his 
unmitigated wickedness on this occasion. They also speak of the "monst;T Brant" [page 278] as 
the leader of the Indians, and the instigator of tlie crimes of which they wiTe guilty. Botli of these 
men were bad enough ; but recent investigations clearly demonstrate that Brant was not there at 
all ; and the treaty for surrender, which is still in existanee, granted most humane terms to the be- 
sieged, instead of the terrible one reported in our histories. Tlie fugitives who fled over the raount- 
nina, and made their way back to their native Connectiout, crossed the Hudson, many of them at 
Poughkeepsie, where .lolm Holt was publishing a weekly paper. Their fears had niagnilied events, 
and their tales of terror were published in Holt's journal, and thus became records for future his- 
torians. Among other things, it was related that when the question was asked, on what terms the 
fort might be surrendered, Colonel John Butler, with more than savago cruelty, replied, Tlie Uatcheit 
This is wholly untrue, and yet the story is repeated iu all our historioa 



1778.] FOURTH TEAR OF TUE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 291 

leader, was not there to restrain his savage bands,' and their thirst for blood 
and plunder soon overcame all their allegiance to their white commander. Be- 
fore sunset they had scattered over the valley ; and when night fell upon the 
scene, the blaze of more than twenty dwellings cast its lurid glare over the 
paradise of yesterday. The cries of the murdered went up from almost every 
house and field ; and when the moon arose, the terrified inhabitants were fleeing 
to the Wilkesbarre mountains, and the dark morasses of the Pocono beyond. In 
that vast wilderness between the valley and the Delaware, appropriately called 
the Shades of Death, many women and children, who escaped the hatchet, 
perished by hunger and fatigue. That " Wyoming Massacre," as it has been 
appropriately called, stands out in bold relief as one of the darkest crimes per- 
petrated during the War for Independence. 

In the mean while, Brant^ was leading or sending war parties through the 
country south of the Mohawk River ; and the Johnsons' and their Tory adher- 
ents were allies of the savages in the Mohawk valley. On the 11th and 12th 
of November [1778], a party of Toi-ies, under Walter N. Butler,* accompanied 
by Indians, under Brant, fell like lightnirig upon the settlement of Cherry Val- 
ley. Many of the people were killed, or carried into captivity ; and for months 
no eye was closed in security at night, within an area of a hundred miles and 
more, around this desolated village. Tryon county, as that region of New 
York was then called, was a " dark and bloody ground" for full four years, and 
the records of the woes of the people have filled volumes.^ Our space allows 
us to mention only the most prominent events of that period. 

And now, when the year 1778— the fourth year of the war— drew to a 
close, the British army had accomplished very little more in the way of conquest, 
than at the end of the second year. The belligerent forces occupied almost the 
same relative position which they did in the autumn of 1776, while the Amer- 
icans had gained strength by a knowledge of military tactics," naval operations, 

' The Indians were led by Gi-en-gwa-tah (he who goes in the smoke), a celebrated Seneca 
chief. " Page 278. = Note 2, page 278. 

* He wag a son of Colonel John Butler, and one of the most brutal of the Tory leaders. In the 
attack upon the defenseless people at Cherry VaUey, on the 10th of Novemljer, 1778, he was the 
most conspicuous for cruelty ; in fact, he was the head and iront of all the villainy perpetrated 
there. Thirty-two of the mhabitants, mostly women and children, and sixteen soldiers of the little 
garrison there, were killed. The whole settlement was then plun- 
dered, and every building in the village was flred. Among the pris- 
oners carried into captivity, were the wife and children of Colonel 
Campbell, who was then absent. One of tlie children (Judge James 
S. Campbell of Clierry Valley), then sis years of age, survived until 
1808. During the summer of 185.5, after an absence of seventy- 
live years, he visited the Inchan village of Caughnawaga, twelve miles 
from Montreal, where he resided some time with his captors. Walter 
Butler was shot by an Oneida Indian, in West Canada Creek, and his 
body was left to be eaten by wild beasts. 

' See Campbell's Annak of Tryon County, Shnm's History of Scho- 
harie County, Stone's Life of Brant, etc. 

" Among the foreign ofBcers who _came to America in 1777, was 
the Baron Steuben, who joined the Continental army at Valley Forge 
[page 285]. He was a veteran from the armies of Frederic the baron steucen. 

Great of Prussia, and a skillful disciplinarian. He was made Inspector- 
General of the army ; and the vast advantages of liis military instruction were seen on the field 
•f llonmouth [page 287], and in subsequent conflicts. Steuben died at Steubenville, in the interior 




292 TUE REVOLUTION. [1778. 

and the art of civil government ; and they had secured the alliance of France, 
the powerful European rival of Great Britain, and the sympathies of Spain and 
Holland. The British forces occuj)ied the real position of prisoners, for they 
were hemmed in upon only two islands,' almost two hundred miles apart, and 
each about fourteen miles in length ; while the Americans possessed every 
other stronghold of the country, and, unlike the invaders, were warring for the 
dearest rights of common humanity. 

The scene of the most active military operations now changed. In the 
autumn [Nov. 3, 1778J, D'Estaing sailed for the West Indies, to attack the 
British possessions there. To defend these, it was necessary for the British 
fleet on our coast to proceed to those waters.' This movement would prevent 
any co-operation between the fleet and army in aggressive movements against 
the populous and now well-defended North ; they could only co-operate in act- 
ive operations against the sparsely-settled South. These considerations caused 
a change in the plans of the enemy; and late in November [Nov. 27J, Sir 
Henry Clinton dispatched Colonel Campbell, with about two thousand troops, 
to invade Georgia, then the weakest member of the Confederacy. They pro- 
ceeded by water, and landed at Savannah, the capital of the State, on the 
morning of the 29th of December. General Robert Howe' was there, with only 
about a thousand men, and these were dispirited by the failure of a recent expe- 
dition against Florida in which they had been engaged.* They defended tho 
city nobly, however, until an overwhelming force, by power and stratagem, com' 
pelled them to retire. They then fled, in confusion, up the Savannah River, 
and took shelter in the bosom of South Carolina. The capital of Georgia be- 
came the head-quarters of the British army at the South ; and the enemy re- 
tained it until near the close of the contest [1782], even when every foot of soil 
in the State, outside the intrenchments around the city, was possessed by the 
patriots. 



CHAPTER VI. 

FIFTH TEAR OP THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE [1779.] 

Thickly mottled with clouds of evil forebodings for the Republican caiwe, 
was the political firmament at the dawn of the year 1779. The finances of the 

of New York, in 1795, and liis remains rest beneath a slab m the town of Steuben, about seven 
miles north-west of Trenton Falls. ' Manhattan, or York Island, and Rhode Island. 

" Admiral Uotham sailed for tho West Indies on the 3d of November ; and early in Deeember, 
Admiral Uyron, who had just succeeded Lord Howe in chief naval command, also sailed lor that 
destination. ' Page 244. 

' A great number of Tories were orpiiuized in Florida, and committed so many depredations upon 
the settlers on the Georgian frontiers, tiiat Howe, during the summer of 1778, went thither to dis- 
perse them. He penetrated to the St, Mary's River, in .Tune, where he awaited reinforcements, 
and supplies, by water. Want of co-operation on the part of the governor of Georgia and the naval 
commander, produced much disunion ; and sickness soon reduced the number of effective men so 
much, that the eutorpriso waa abandoned. 



1179.] FIFTH Y-EAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 293 

country were in a most ■wretched condition. Already, one hundred millions of 
dollars of continental money' were afloat without the security of even good 
public credit ;' and their value was rapidly depreciating. While the amount 
of the issues was small, the credit of the bills was good ; but when new emis- 
sions took place, and no adequate measures for redemption were exhil)ited, the 
people became suspicious of those frail representatives of money, and their value 
began to depreciate. This effect did not occur until eighteen months after 
the time of the first emission.' Twenty millions of the continental bills were 
then in circulation, besides a large amount of local issues by the several States. 
It was perceived that depreciation was inevitable, and Congress proposed, as a 
substitute for further issues, a loan of five millions, at an interest of four per 
cent. A lottery had been early authorized, and was now in operation, designed 
to raise a like sum, on loan, the prizes being payable in loan-office certificates.* 
Although these offices were opened in all the States, and the interest raised to 
six per cent., the loans came in slowly. The treasury became almost exhausted, 
the loan-offices were overdrawn upon by the commissioners' drafts, and the issue 
of bills was reluctantly recommenced. 

The financial embarrassments were increased by the circulation of an 
immense amount of counterfeits of the continental bills, by the British 
and the loyalists, which rapidly depreciated the currency. They were 
sent out from New York, literally, by " cart-loads." ' Congress felt the neces- 
sity of making some extraordinary effi)rts for redeeming the genuine bill.-t, so as 
to sustain their credit. The several States were taxed, and on the 2d of Janu- 
ary, 1779, it was, by Congress, " Resolved, That the United States be called 
on to pay in their respective quotas of fifteen millions of dollars, for the year 
1779, and of six millions of dollars annually for eighteen years, from and after 
the year 1779, as a fund for sinking the emissions," &c. ; yet all was in vain; 
prices rose as the bills sank in value, and every kind of trade was embarrassed and 

' Pago 245. 

' At tliis time, when Congreaa could not borrow a dollar upon its own credit, Robert Morris 
[page 264] found no difficulty in raising millions upon his own. For a long time ho, alone, furnished 
the " hard money" used by that body. ' Note 3, page 245. 

* On tho first of November, 1776, the Continental Congress "Resolved, That a sum of money 
be raised by way of lottery, for defraying the expenses of the next campaign, tho lottery to be 
drawn in Philadelphia " A committee was appointed to arrange tho same, and on the 18th, 
reported a scheme. Tho drawer of more than the minimum prize in each class, was to receive 
vithiT a trea.sury bank note, payable in five years, with an aimual interest at four per cent., or the 
preemption of such billots in tlio next succeeding class ; this was optional with tlio adventurers. 
Those who should not call for their prizes within six weeks after the end of the drawing, were 
considered adventurers in tho next succeeding class. Seven managers were appointed, who were 
autliorized to employ agents in ditTeront States to sell tho tickets. The first drawing was decided to 
be made at Pliiladelphia, on tlio first of March, 1777; but purchasers wore comparatively few and 
tardy, and tho drawing was postponed fi"om time to time. Various impediments continually presented 
themselves, and tho plan, which promised such success at tho beginning, appears to have been a 
failure. Many purchiisors of tickets were losers; and this, like some otiier financial schemes of the 
Revolution, was productive of much hard feoliu'j; toward tlio Federal Oovcrnmcnt. 

' It was no secret at the time, as appears l)y tlie following advertisement in Gaines' Nmo York 
Mercury : " Advertlsement. Persons going into other colonies, may be supplied with any number 
of counterfeited Congress notes, for tho price of the jiaper per ream. They are so neatly and exactly 
executed, that there is no risk in getting thoni (iff, it lieing almost impossible to discover that they 
are not genuine. This has been proven by bills to a very large .amount, which have already been 
successfully circulated. Inquire of Q. E. D., at tho Cofl'ee-hou.se, from 11 A. M., to 4 P. M., during 
the present month. ' 



2'J4 'i'lll': ]IK VOLUTION. [1779. 

deranged. Tlic fi'ilcml f;;ovi'rnim'iit ■was thorouglily perjilexcd. Onlj about 
four millions of clollar.s had been obtained, by loan, from Europe, and present 
negotiations appeared futile. No French army was yet upon our soil, to aid 
U.S. nor had l<"rencii coin yet gladdened the hearts of unpaid soldiers. A French 
fleet liad indeed been upon our coasts,' but had now gone to fight battles for 
Prance in the West Indies, after mocking our hopes with broken promises of 
aid.'' Gloomy, indeed, apjieared the firmament at the dawn of 1779, the fifth 
year of the War for Indei)endenco. 

In the autumn of 1777, a iilan for invailing Canada and the eastern British 
provinces, and fi)r seizing the British jiosls on the western lakes, had been 
matured by Congress and the Board of AVar," but when it was submitted to 
Washington, his sagacious mind perceived its folly, and the influence of hia 
opinions, and the discovery, by true j)atriots, that it was a part of the secret 
plan, entered into by Gates and others, to dej)rive Washington of chief com- 
mand, caused an abandonnicnt of the scheme. Others, more feasible, occu- 
pied the attention of the Feileial Legislature ; and for several weeks the com- 
mander-in-chief co-operated with Congress [January, 1779], in person, in 
jiroparing a jilan for the campaign of 1779. It was finally resolved to act on 
the defensive, except in retaliatory expeditions against the Indians and Tories 
ill tiie interior.' This scheme promised the most beneficial results, for it would 
be safer and less expensive, than offensive warfare. During the entire year, 
the principal military operations were carried on in the two e.xtri'me sections of 
tlie confederacy. The chief efibrts of the Americans were directed to the con- 
finement of the British army to the seaboard, and chastising the Indian tribes. 
The winter campaign opened by Lieutenant-colonel (.'anipboll' (December 29, 
1778], continued until June, and resulted, as we have mentioned [page 292], 
in the complete subjugation of Georgia to British rule. 

AVhen Campbell iiad garrisoned Savannah, and arranged for its defense, ho 
prepared to mareJi against Sunbury, twenty-eight miles further south, the only 
post of any eonse(pu'nco now left to the Anu'ricans on the Georgia seaboard. 
lie treated the people leniently, and, by ]noelaniation, invited them to join tho 
British standard. These measures had their desired efifect, 
and timid hundreds, seeing tho State under the heel of 
British power, protdaimed their loyalty, and rallied be- 
neath tho standard of King George. At the same time, 
General Prevost, who was in connnand of the British and 
Indians in cast Florida,, marched northward, captured 
Sunbury [.January 9, 1779], and assumed the chief com- 
mand of the British forces in the South. With this post 
OENERAi, LINCOLN. fell the liopcs of tlio Ilepublicaus in east Georgia. In the 




' Pn(rr> 299. * P«g« 289. 

• On llh> I'ith of .Tun(>, 1776, Conpross npp.Miitoil a oonimittoo, to ho styled tho "Board of Wnr 
and Oriiiiiiiu'O," to lmvi> tlio (foiicral niip<Tvision of luilitrtry alVnirs. John Achims was Iho chainnan, 
and Itichard I'ctiTS wa.>) secretary. Peters was tlie real " Secretary of War" under the old Confed- 
eration, uiiiil nsi, whou liu waa succeeded bv (leneral Liucohi. General Gates was eliairinau in 
1778. • I'ago'2yi. * Pago 293. 



mo.J FIFTH YKAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 295 

mean while, General Benjamin Lincoln, of Massachusetts, had been appointed 
[September, 1778], conmiandcr-in-cliicfof the southern army of patriots.' lie 
made his head-quarters at I'urysburg [January GJ, twenty-five miles above 
Savannah, and there commenced the formation of an army, composed of some con- 
tinental regiments, new recruits, and the broken forces of General Howe." While 
Lincoln was collecting his army on the Carolina bank of the Savannah, Camp- 
bell marched up the Georgia side to Augusta," for the purpose of encouraging 
the Tories, opening a connnunication with the Creek Indians' in the West (among 
whom tiie Uritisli had active emissaries), and to awe the Whigs. At the same 
time a band of Tories, under Colonel Boyd, was desolating the Carolina fron- 
tiers, while on their march to join the royal troops. When within two days' 
march of Augusta, they were attacked" [February 14, 1779] and utterly defeated 
by Colonel I'ickens, at the head of the militia of Ninety-si.x." Boyd and 
seventy of his men were killed, and seventy-five were made prisoners.' Pick- 
ens lost tliirty-eigiit of his men. 

This defeat of Boyd alarmed Campbell and encouraged Lincoln. The latter 
immediately sent General Ashe, of North Carolina, with about two tliousand 
men," to drive Campbell from Augusta, and to confine the invaders to tlie low, 
sickly sections near the sea, hoping for aid from the deadly malaria of tho 
swamps, when the heats of summer should prevail. The liritish lied | h\'l)ruary 
13, 1779] at the approach of Ashe, and were pursued by him [February 1G| 
as far as Brier Creek, about forty miles below Augusta, where he halted to 
establish a camp. There Ashe was surprised and defeated (March 3] by Gen- 
eral I'revost, who, with quite a largo force, was marching up tlie Savannah to 
the relief of Campbell. Ashe lost almost his entire army by death, captivity, and 
dispersion. Some weie killed, others perished in the morasses, and many were 
di'owned in attempting to escape across the Savannah." This blow deprived 
Lincoln of one fourth of his army, and led to tho temporary re-establishment of 
royal government in Georgia.'" 

' Benjamin Lincoln was born in llin(;liam, Massat^lmsctts, in 17.'!:i. Ho was n fiirmor, yot took 
an active part in pulilio iiHiiirs. llo joiiiid tlio continental army in 1777, and roHo rapiiUy to tlia 
Station of niajor-i^onoral llo commundcd tlic militia a(,'ainst Shay's insurgents [See 5, jiago S53.] 
in 1786. lU) w:w also a uscl'nl public olliccr in civil alliiirs, and died in 1810. ' Pago 292. 

" WluMi (!ain]il)cll departed Uir Augusta, Trevost Hent Coloiul Gardiner with some troops, to tako 
possession of Port Koyal Island, Bonio sixty niilrs lielow Cliarlcston, preparatory to a mnrcli upon 
that city, (iardiiier was attacked by (leiieral Moultrie [page 24U], with (Jharleston militia, on tho 
morning of the 3d of February. Almost every JJritish ollicer (except tho conmiaiider), and many 
privates, wore killo'l. (hirdiner and a low men escaped iu boats, and Moultrie, whoso loss won 
trilling, joined Lincoln at I'urysburg. * Page 30. 

" i'lio plac<i of tho skirmish was upon Kettle Creek, in Oglethorpe county, Georgia. 

" Pago 338. 

' Seventy of tliem were tried and found guilty of treason, and soutoncod to bo hung. Only five 
were exijcuti'd. 

" Lincoln was joined by Generals Ashe and Rutherford, with North Carolina regiments, about 
tho first of KebruiM-y, and his army now amounted to little more than three thousand men. John 
Ashe was born in Kngland in 1721, an<l came to America whim a child. Ho was engaged in tho 
Begulalor War [page 22:iJ, and wius one of tho mo.st active of the North Carolina jjatriots. He died 
of small-po.'C in 1781. 

" About ouo hundred and fifty were killed and drowned, eighty-nine were made prisoners, and 
a large number, who wore dispersed, did not tako u)) arms again for several months. 

'° At tho beginning of 177G, the bold Whigs of Savaiuiali had made tlio royal governor, Sir 
-James Wright, a prisoner iu liia own house ; and the provincial Assembly, assuming govermucutal 



296 TIIK RKVOLUTION. [1179. 

Prcvoat now prepared for an invasion of South Carolina. Toward the last 
of April, ho crossed tlio Savannah [April 27J with two thousand regulars, and 
u largo body of Tories and Creek Indians, and marched for Cliarleston. Lin- 
coln ha<l recruited, and was now in the field willi about five thousand men, 
preparing to recover lost Georgia, by entering the State at Augusta, and sweep- 
ing the country t" tll(^ sea. T5ut when he discovered the progress of Prevost, 
and that even the danger of losing Siivannali did iKjt deter tiiat active general 
from his attempts upon Charleston, Lincoln hastened to the relief of the men- 
aced city. Tlio ])('()])lc on the line of his niaicli hailed him as a deliverer, for 
Prevost had marked his progress by plunder, eonllagration, and cruelty. For- 
tunately for tiie Repul)licans, the invader's march was so slow, that when he 
arrived [May 11 1 beloro the city, the ])ei)ple were ))repared fir resistance. 

Prevost, on the morning of the 11th of May, approached the American 
intrcnchments thrown across Charleston Neck,' and demanded an immediate 
surrender of the city. lie was answered by a jirompt refusal, and the remain- 
der of the day was spent by both parties, in preparations for an a.ssault. That 
night was a fearful one for tho citizens, for tiiey expected to bo greeted at dawn 
with l)ursting bomb-shells,' and red-hot cannon-lialls. When morning came 
[May 12, 177'J[, the scarlet uniforms of the enemy were seen across the waters 
upon John's Island, and not a hostile foot was upon the Charleston peninsula. 
Tho cause of this was soon made manifest. Prevost had bi-en informed of tho 
approiich of Lincoln, and fearing his connection with Savannah might be cut 
off, he commenced a retreat toward that city, at midnight, by way of the islands 
alonir the coast. For more than a month some Pritish detachments lingered 
upon John's Island. Then they were attacked at Stoiio Ferry, ten miles below 
Charleston [June 20] by a party of Lincoln's army, but after a severe engage- 
ment, and the h)S3 of almost three hundred men in killed and wounded, they 
repulsed the Americans whoso loss was greater. Prevost soon afterward 
established a military post at Beaufort, on Port Royal Island," and then retreated 
to Savannah. The hot season produced a suspension of hostilities in tho South, 
and that region enjoyed comparative repose for several months. 

Sir Henry Clinton was not idle while these events were in progress at the 
South. lie was sending out marauding expeditions from New York, to plunder 
and harass the people on the sea-coast. Governor Tryon' went from Kings- 
bridge" on the 25th of March [177!)], with fifteen hundred British regulars and 

powpra, mado provisions for military dofonso [Pobnmrv, 1770], issued bills of credit, &c Wright 
cscnpoil anil wont to Kugliiml. U(' returned m Jvily, 1779, and rcsunioil his oflico as governor of 
the "cdliiny." 

' I'liaiii'slon, liko Poston [note 3, papo 229], ia situated upon a ]>oninsnla, tho ncek of which is 
nmle qnito naiTow liy llio AHhlc>y and Cooper Rivers, and the niar-ihe.'*. Across tliis the Americans 
had hastily c;uit vip einliankuientk They served a present purpose, and beiiifj strengthened, wero 
of great valui- to the Anierieaiis tlie liillowing yi'ar. See page 310. 

' Hollow balls or slwlls of east iron, tilled with ginipowder, slugs, ie. In an orillee communi- 
cating with the powder, is a slow match. This is ignited, and the shell is hurled I'toin n mortar (ft 
short eainion) into the midst of a town or an army. When tho powder ignites, the shell is bursted 
into fragments, and the.so with tho slugs make terribli' hiivne. They are sometimes the size of a 
man's head. ' Note 5, page lfi(i. * Tage 2-18. 

• The pas.sago across tho Harlem Kiver (ora.s it ia aimotimoa there called, Spuytcu Duyvil Crcek)^ 
at tho upper end of Yoric or Manhattan Island. 



1719.] FIFTH YEAR OF THE WAR FOR I N D E T E N D ENC K. 297 

Hessians," to destroy some salt-works at Ilorseneck, and attack an American 
detachment under Genei'al Putnam, at Greenwich, in Connecticut. The Amer- 
icans were dispersed [March 2G], and Putnam barely escaped capture by some 
dragoons.'' He rallied his troops at Stamford, pursued the British on their 
return toward New York the same evening, recaptured a quantity of plunder in 
their possession, and took thirty-eight of them prisoners. 

On the 9th of May, Sir George Collier entered Hampton Roads," with a 
small fleet, bearing General Mathews, with land troops, destined to ravage the 
country in that vicinity. They spread desolation on both sides of the Elizabeth 
River, from the Roads to Norfolk and I'ortsmouth. After destroying a vast 
amount of property, they withdrew ; and at the close of the month, the same 
vessels and the same troops were up the Hudson River, iissisting Sir Henry 
Clinton in the capture of the fortress at Stony I'oint, and also the small tort on 
Verplanck's Point, opposite. Both of these posts fell into the power of the 
British, after a spirited resistance; the first on the 31st of Mny, and the latter 
on the 1st of June. These achievements accomplished. Collier, with a band 
of twenty-five hundred marauders, under Governor Tryon, sailed on the night 
of the 4th of July [1779], for the shores of Connecticut, to plunder and destroy 
the towns on the coast. They plundered New Haven on the 5th, laid East 
Haven in ashes on the 6th, destroyed Fairfield in the same way on the 8th, and 
burned and plundered Norwalk on the 12th. Not content with this wanton 
destruction of property, the invaders insulted and cruelly abused the defense- 
less inhabitants. While Norwalk was burning, Tryon sat in a rocking-chair, 
upon an eminence near by, and viewed the scene with great complacency, and 
apparent plciisure — a jmny imitation of Nero, who fiddled while Rome was 
blazing.'' The Hessian mercenai-ies generally accompanied these expeditions, for, 
unlike the British soldiers, they were ever eager to apply the torch and abuse- 
the iidiabitants. They were the fit instruments for such a warfare. Wherk 
Tryon (whom the English people abhorred for his wrong-doings in America), 
had completed the destruction of these pleasant villages, he boasted of his ex- 

' Page 24G. 

" Oil this occasion he performed the feat, so often related, of descending a steep hill on horse- 
back, making liis way, as common liistory asserts, down a flight of stono steps, which had been 
constructed for the convenience of people who hud to ascend this hill to a church on its summit. 
The whole matter is .an exaggeration. An eye-witness of the event says that Putnam pursued a 
zig-zag course down the hill, and only descended four or flvo of the steps near the bottom. The 
feat wa-s not at all extraordinary whim we consider tliat a troop of dragoons, with loailed pistols, 
were at his heels. Thosi-, however, dared not (lillow the generiil. In IS'2.5, when a company of 
horsemen were escorting La Fayette — the " Nation's (Juest" — along the road at that place, some of 
them wont down the .same declivity on horseback. The stono steps are now [1883] visible in some 
places, among the shrubbery and overlying sod. 

' Pago 69. This is a body of water at the conjunction of the James and Elizabeth Rivers, and 
communicating with the sea. It is ono of the most spacious harbors in the world. The village of 
Hampton lies upou its northern border. See page 243. 

' Alluding to these outrages of Tryon, and the burning of Kingston [page 283] hj Vaughan,. 
Trumbull, in his iVFingal, says : 

" Behold, like whelps of British lion. 
Our warriors, (Clinton, Vaughan, and Tryon, 
March forth, with patriotic joy, 
To ravish, plunder, and destroy. 
Great generals! Foromo.st in their nation — 
The journeymen of desolation I" 



298 



THE REVOLUTION. 



[1779. 



^ji^T 


i 


^Pi 




f^^^ 





STONY POINT. 



treme clemency in leaving a single house standing on the New England 
coast. 

"While these marauding forays were in progress, 
the Americans were not idle. They were preparing to 
strike the enemy heavy and unexpected blows. Only 
three days after the destruction of Norwalk [July 15], 
General Anthony Wayne was marching secretly to 
attempt the re-capture of Stony Point, on the Hud- 
son. The fort stood upon a rocky promontory, sur- 
rounded by water and a marsh, and was very strong 
in its position. So secretly was the whole movement 
conducted, that the British garrison were unsuspicious 
of danger. At midnight, the little army of patriots 

crossed the morass in the rear, and attacked the fort 
with ball and bayonet, at two separate points, in the 
face of a heavy cannonade from the aroused garrison. 
At two o'clock in the morning [July 16, 1779], Wayne, 
though so badly wounded in the head by a glancing 
blow of a bullet, as to fall senseless, wrote to Washing- 
ton, " The fort and garrison, with Colonel Johnson, are 
ours. Our officers and men behaved like men who are 
determined to be free." This was considered one of 
the most brilliant events of the war.' The British lost, 
in killed, wounded, and prisoners, about si.^c hundred 
men ; the loss of the Americans was fifteen killed, and eighty-three wounded. 
The spoils were a large amount of military stores. The post was abandoned by 
the Americans, for, at that time, troops sufficient to garrison it could not be 
spared.^ 

The capture of Stony Pomt was followed by another brilliant achievement, 
a month later [August 19], when Major Heury Lee,' at three o'clock iu the 
morning, surprised a British garrison at Paulus' Hook (now Jersey City),' op- 
posite New York, killed thirty soldiers, and took one hundred and sixty pris- 




GEXERAI, W.VYNE. 



' Wayne was highly complimented by all Gieneral Charles Lee [page 248], who wa.s not on 
the most friendly terms witli Wayne, wrote to him, sayinpr, " I do most seriously declare that your 
assault of Stouy Point is not only the most brilhant, in my opinion, throughout the wliole course of 
the war, on either side, but tliat it is tlio most briUiant I am acquainted with iu history-. The as- 
sault of Schivoidnitz, by Marsluxl Laudon, I think inferior to it." Dr. Rusli wrote, sayinp, "Our 
Btreets rang for many days with nothing but the name of General Wayne. You are remembered 
constantly next to oHr good and great Washington, over our claret and Madeira. You have estab- 
lished the national character of our country; you have taught our enemies tliat bravery, humanity, 
and magnanimity are the national virtues of the Americans." Congreas gave him thank.a, and a 
gold medal ; and silver medals were awarded to Colonels Stewart and Do Fleury, f >r their gallantry 
on the occasion. Anthony Wavne was born in Pennsylvania in 1745. He was a professional sur- 
veyor, then a provincial legislator, and became a .soldier in 1775." He was very active d<iring the 
whole war; and was efficient in subduing the Indians in tlio Ohio country, in 1795 [see page S74]. 
He died at Erie, on his way home, near the close of 1796. 

' After the Americans "had captured Stony Point, they turned the cannons upon Fort La Fay- 
ette, upon A''erplanck's Point, opposite. General Robert tlowe [page 292] was directed to attack 
that post, but on account of some delays, he did not reaeli there before Sir Henry Clinton sent up 
relief for the garrison. ' Note 2, page 133. * Note 1, page 94. 



ma] 



FIFTH TEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 



299 



oners. This gallant act was greatly applauded in the camp, in Congress, and 
throughout the country, and made the enemy more cautious and circumspect. 
The hero was honored by Congress with thanks and a gold medal. These and 
some smaller successes at about this time, elated the Americans ; but their joy 
was soon turned into sorrow, because of disasters in the extreme East. Massa- 
chusetts had fitted out almost forty vessels to attempt the seizure of a British 
post on the Penobscot River. The assailants delayed more than a fortnight 
after their arrival [July 25] before determining to carry the place by storm. 
Just as the troops were about to land for the purpose, a British fleet arrived, 
destroyed the flotilla, took many of the soldiers and sailors prisoners, and drove 
the remainder into the wilderness [Aug. 13]. These, after great hardships in 
the forests, reached Boston toward the close of September. 




The storm of war was not confined to the Atlantic settlements. It burst 
over the lofty AUeghiinies, and at an early period, even while it was gathering, 
a low, muttering peal of thunder came from clouds that brooded over the far- 
off wilderness of the great valleys of the West. Pioneers from the sea-board, 
colonies were there, and they were compelled, almost at the moment of arrival, 
to wage war with the Indian, and hunt savage men as well as savage beasts. 
Among the earliest and most renowned of these pioneers, was Daniel Boone^ 
the great " Hunter of Kentucky," of whom Byron wrote, 

" Of all men, saving Sylla, the man-slayer, 

Who passes for, in life and death, most lucky, 



300 TJEK HEVOLUTION. [1779. 

Of tho great namos wliirli in our faces stiirp, 

The flpneral Bouiio, biickwodiiaiiiau of Kentucky, 
AVus Imppicst aiiionj,' iiiorlalM anywhere." ' 

IIo went west of llie iJluo IMd^'o :is early as 170'J, ami in 1773, his own 
and a few other families accompanied him to tho paradise lying among tho 
rich valleys soutii of the Ohio River.' Froiii tiint period until tho power of tho 
western Indians (who were continually incited to hostilities by the British and 




Tories) was broken by George Rogers Clarke, Boone's lifo waa one of almost 
continual warfare with tho children of the forest. 

Nor did Boono and his companions measure strength with the Indians alone j 



• Don Juan, VIII., Ixi. 

• Tho wife and daughters of Hoonp were tlu> first wliiU" females tliat set foot in tho valleys west 
of tho Allej^hanie.-t. Daniel Boone wiui born in Herks county, Pennsylvaiiiii, in 1734. While h« 
was a smaH boy, his imrents .scttleil on the Vailkiu, in North Carolina. When in tlio prime of life, 
he went over tiio mountains, and became a famous hunter. Ho planted tlio first settlement on tho 
Kain-tuck-ee River, yet known as Boonsborou^jh. llurinn the Revolution he fought tho Indians 
bravely, and wils a prisoniT aniontr thorn for some time, but escaped. Ho was active in all matters 
portaininjt to tho settlement of Kentucky, until it became an independent State. Yet he was, by 
the toohnicjilities of law, doomed to be disinherited <if every foot of tho soil he had lielped to 
redeem from the wilderness, ami, at almost eighty years of age, he wius trapping beaver upon the 
Little Osago Kivor, beyond tho Missi.ssippi. He died iu Missouri, whuu almost uiuoty years of 
ago, iu September, 1820. 




•Clark s 



, inulSS TUK DllOWNED LANDS. 



mg.] FIFTH TEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 303 

but in time they confronted white leaders and white followers. These conflicts, 
however, were only a series of border forays, until 1778, when Major George 
Rogers Clarke' led a regular expedition against the frontier posts of the enemy. 
in the wilderness in the far north-west, now the States of Indiana and Illinois. 
His little army rendezvoused at the ^alls of the Ohio, where Louisville now 
stands, where he was joined by Simon Kenton, and other pioneers. From 
thence they penetrated the country northward, and on the 4th of July [1778]. 
they captured Kaskaskia.' On the 9th, they took the village of Cahokia, 
si.xty miles further up the river ; and finally, in August, the stronger British 
post of Vincennes, on the Wabash, fell into their hands. 

Acting in the capacity of a peace-maker, Clarke was working successfully 
toward the pacification of the western tribes, when, in the month of January, 
1779, the commander of the Briti.sh fort at Detroit retook Vincennes. With 
one hundred and seventy-five men, Clarke penetrated the dreadful wilderness 
a hundred miles from the Ohio. For a whole week they traversed the 
"drowned lands" of Illinois, sufToring every privation from wet, cold, and 
hunger. When they arrived at the Little AVabash, at a point where the forks 
of the stream are three miles apart, they found the intervening space covered 
with water to the depth of three feet. The points of dry land were five miles 
apart, and all that distance those hardy soldiers, in the month of February, 
waded the cold snow-flood" in the forest, sometimes arm-pit deep ! They 
arrived in sight of Vincennes on the 18th [February, 1779], and the next 
morning at dawn, with their faces blackened with gunpowder, to make them- 
selves appear hideous, they crossed the river in a boat, and pushed toward the 
town. On the 20th, the stripes and stars were again unfurled over the fort at 
Vincennes and a captured garrison. Had armed men dropped from the clouds, 
the people and soldiers at Vincennes could not have been more astonished, than 
at the apparition of these troops, for it seemed impossible for them to have 
traversed the deluged country. 

The indignation of the people was fiercely aroused by the atrocities at 
Wyoming and upon the head waters of the Susquehanna ; and in the summer of 
1779, General Sullivan' was sent into the heart of the country of the Si.\ Na- 
tions," to chastise and humble them. He collected troops in the Wyoming 

' George Roffer.s Clarke, wa.s born in Albemarle county, Virginia, in 1752, and first appears in 
history as an advcmturer beyond the AUogluiuies, twenty years afterward. He had been a laiid- 
Burveyor, and first went to tho Oliio rc-ffion in 1112. He was a captain in Dunmoro's nrniy [nolo '1 
page 237] in 1174, and in 1115, he aceonipanied some emigrants to Kentucky. Pleased with the 
coinitry, lie determined to make it liis home; and during the war for Independence, ho labored 
nobly to secure the vast region of tlio west and north-west, as a home for the free. Under hia 
loadorsliip, what afterward became the North-west Territory, was disenthralled, and he lias been 
appropriately styled the Blather of that region. Ho was promoted to the rank of brigadier, after 
swrving under the Baron Steuben against Arnold, in Virginia, in 1181, and at tho close of tlie war 
he remained iu Kentucky. He died near Louisville, in February, 1818, at tho ago of sixty-six 
years. ' Pago 180. " " Note 3, page 241. 

' John Sullivan was bora in Maine, in 1740. He was a delegate iu tho first Continental Con- 
gress [1714], and wa,s one of the first eight brigadiers in the Continental Army. After being in act- 
ive service about four years, he resigned his comniissiou iu 1119. He was afterward a member of 
Congress, and governor of New Hamiisliire, and died in 1195. 

' Page 25. British emissaries hail gained over to tlie royal interest the whole of tho Six Na- 
tions except the Oneidas. These were kept loyal to the republicans, chiefly through the iustru- 




504 THE REVOLUTIOiS. [ms. 

Valley ; and on tlie last day of July, marched up the Susquehanna, with 
about three thousand soldiers. At Tioga Point, he met General James Clinton,' 
on the 22d of August, who came from the Mohawk 
Valley, with about sixteen hundred men. On the 29th, 
tlicy full upon a body of Indian and Tory savages, 
strongly fortified, at Cliemung (now Elniira), and dis- 
persed them. AVithout waiting for them to rally, Sulli- 
van moved forward, and penetrated the country to the 
Genesee River. In the course of three weeks, he de- 
stroyed forty Indian villages, and a vast amount of food 
V'' .'"^ •\\*; growing in fields and gardens. One hundred and sixty 

GENERAL SULLIV/VN. f? l i l i ff ■ j.\ It T ^ 1 • 

tliousand bushels oi corn m the nelds and m granaries 
were destroyed ; a vast number of the finest fruit-trees, the product of years of 
tardy growth, were cut down ; hundreds of gardens covered with edible vegetables, 
were ilcsolated ; the inhabitants were driven into the forests to starve, and were 
hunted like wild beasts ; their altars were overturned, and their graves trampled 
upon by strangers ; and a beautiful, well-watered country, teeming with a 
prosperous people, and just rising from a wilderness state, by the aid of culti- 
vation, to a level with the productive regions of civilization, was desolated and 
cast back a century in the space of a fortnight" To us, looking upon the scene 
from a point so remote, it is difficult to perceive the necessity that called for a 
chastisement so cruel and terrible. But that such necessity seemed to exist we 
should not doubt, for it was the judicious and benevolent mind of Washington 
that conceived and j)lanned the campaign, and ordered its rigid execution in the 
manner in which it was accomplished. It awed the Indians for the moment, 
but it did not crush them. In the reaction they had greater strength. It 
kindled the fires of deep hatred, which spread far among the tribes upon the 
lakes and in the valley of the Ohio. Washington, like Demetrius, the son of 
Antigonus, received from the savages the name of An-na-ta-kau-les, which sig- 
nifies a taker of toivns, or Town Dkstroyer." 

mentality of one or two Christian missionaries. After the war, tliose of the Six Nations wlio joined 
the British, pleaded, as an excuse, the noble sentiment of loyalty. They were the friends of the En- 
glish, and rexardod the parent country as their ally. 'When they saw the cliildren of their preat 
Hither, the king, rebelling against him, they felt it to be their duty, in aocordance with stipulations 
of solemn treaties, to aid him. 

' General .lames Clinton was bom in Ulster county, New York, in 173fi. He was a captain in 
the French and Indian War, and an active oflicer during the Revolution, lie died in 1812. 

" The Seneca Indians were beginning to cultivate rich openings in the forests, known as the 
"Genesee Flats," quite extensively. They raised Large quantities of corn, and cultivated gardens 
and orchards. Their dwellings, however, were of tlio rudest character, and their villages consisted 
of a small collection of these miserable huts, of no value except for winter shelter. 

' At a eoimcil held in Philadelphia in 1792, Corn Planter, the distinguished Seneca chief, thus 
addres.sed Wasliington, then President of the United States: "Father — The voice of the Seneca 
nation speaks to you, the great counselor, in whose heart the ^\nse men of all the tliirteen fires have 
placed their wisdom. It may be very small in your ears, and. therefore, we entreat you to hearken 
with attention, for we are abo\it to speak to you of things which to us are very great When your 
-army entered tlie country of the Six Nations, we called you Tlie Town Destroyer : and to this day, 
when that name is heard, our women look liehind tlicm and turn pule, and ovir cliildren cling close 
to the necks of tlieir niotln'i's. Our ciiiiiiSfldrs and «-;irriois :iri' nieii, and can not be .afraid; but 
their hearts are grieved witli the fears of our women and cliildren, and desire that it may be buried 
so deep that it may be heard no more." 



1779.] 



FIFTH TEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 



305 




SIEGE OF SAVANNAH. 1779. 



While these events were in progress at the North, the Southern army, 
under Lincohi,' was preparing to attack Savannah, in concert with the French 
fleet, then in the West Indies. During that sum- 
mer, Count D"Estaing had battled successfully 
with Admiral Byron there, and early in Septem- 
ber, he appeared off the coast of Georgia with a 
powerful fleet, prepared to co-operate with Lincoln. 
D'Estaing landed troops and heavy battery cannon 
a few miles below Savannah ; and on the 23d of 
September, the combined armies commenced the 
siege. It was soon perceived that the town must 
be taken by regular approaches, and to that end 
all energy was directed. On the morning of the 4th of October, a heavy can- 
nonade and bombardment was opened upon the Britsh works. It continued for 
five days, but with very little effect upon the strong British intrenchmenta. 
D'Estaing became impatient of delay," and proposed an attempt to take the 
place by storm. It was reluctantly agreed to, for there seemed a certainty of 
final victory if the siege should continue. D'Estaing would listen to no re- 
monstrances, and the assault commenced on the morning of the 9th of October. 
After five hours of severe conflict, there was a truce for the purpose of burying 
the dead. Already, nearly a thousand of the French and Americans had been 
killed and wounded.' The standards of France and Carolina, which gallant men 
had planted upon the parapet, had been torn down. Yet important breaches were 
made, and another assault promised a sure triumph. But D'Estaing, strangely 
perverse, was unwilling to renew the assault, and made preparations to withdraw. 
Lincoln yielded a reluctant assent to the movement, and the enterprise was 
abandoned at the moment when the American commander felt certain of victory.* 
Ten days afterward, the French fleet had left the coast, and Lincoln was re- 
treating toward Charleston. Thus closed the campaign for 1779, at the South. 
The repulse at Savannah was a severe blow to the hopes of the patriots of 
Georgia, and spread a gloom over the whole South. Toward the Georgia sea- 
board, every semblance of opposition to royal power was crushed, and only in 
the interior did armed resistance appear. 

' Page 294. 

' D'Estaing expressed his fears, not only of the arrival of a British fleet, to blockade his own In 
the Savannah River, but of the autumn storms, which might damage liis vessels before he could get 
to sea. 

' Among the mortally wounded, wa.s Count Pula-ski, the brave Pole 
whom we first met in the battle on tlie Brandywiue [note 5, page 273]. 
He died on board a vessel bound for Charleston, a few days after the 
siege. Serjeant Jasper, whose bravery at Fort Moultrie we have not> 
iced [note 5, page 249], was also killed, while nobly holding aloft, upon 
a bastion of the British works which he had mounted, one of the beauti- 
ful colors [note 6, page 249] presented to Moultrie's regiment by ladies 
iif Charleston. The colors were beautifully embroidered, and given to 
tlie regiment, in tlie name of the ladies of Cliarleston, by Mrs. Su- 
sanna Elliott. Just before he died, Jasper said, " Tell Mrs. Elliott I 
lost my life supporting the colors she presented to our regiment" These 
colors, captured during this siege, are among British trophies in the 
tower of London. Savannah honors both these heroes by having finely- 
shaded parks bearing their respective names. * Page 289. 




COONT PULASKI. 



SC6 TIIK RK VOLUTION. [in* 

After the close of Sullivan's campaign against the Scnecas, very little of 
general interest transpired at the North, except the witlidrawal of the British 
troops from Rhode Island, on tlio 2s')th of October, 1779. La Fayette had 
been in France during the sunnner, and chieliy through his eflbrts, the Freneli 
government had consented to send another powerful fleet,' and several thousand 
troops, to aid the Americans. When informed of this intended e.xpedition. the 
British ministry ordered Clinton to cause tiie evacuation of Khode Ishmd, and 
to concentrate, at New York, all his troops at the North. This was accom- 
plished witii as little delay as possil)le, for rumors had reached Rliode Island 
that the new Freneli armament was a])proaehing the coast. So raj)id was the 
retreat of tlie British, caused by their fears, that they left beiiind them all their 
heavy artillery, and a large (juantity of stores. Clinton sailed for tlie South at 
the close of the year [December 25J, with about five tliousand troops, to open a 
vigorous campaign in the Carolinas. Washington, in the mean while, had gone 
into winter (juarters at Morristown,'^ where liis troops suffered terribly from the 
severity of the cold, and the lack of provisions, clotliing, and shelter.' Strong 
detachments were also stationed among the Hudson Highlands, and the cavalry 
were cantoned in Connecticut. 

During this filtli year [1779] of the war for Independence, difficulties had 
gathered thick and fast around Great Britain. Spain liad declared war against 
her' on the lOlh of June, and a jiowerful French and Spanish naval armament 
had attempted to effect an invasion of Fngland in August. American and 
French cruisers now became numerous and quite powerful, and were hovering 
around her coasts ; and in September, the intrepid John Paul Jones" had 
conquered two of her proud ships of war, after one of the most desperate 

' Pnpp 28P. * Pnge 2f.9. 

• llr. TIku-Iut, in liia Military Journal, snys, " Tlio suHoringa of tlip poor soldiers ciui sonnvlybo 
dcsoiilu'd ; wliik' on duty tln'V jiiv unavoiiialily oxposi'i! to liU tlio iiiclciiu'ncy of stoniis and severe 
cold; at nipht, they now luive a l)ed of .straw upon the pronnd, and a ."inple blanket to eaeli man; 
thoy are badly elad, and sonio are destitute of slioe.s. We have eontrived a kind of stone chimney 
outside, and an openinj; at one end of our tents jrives us the lieuelit of the lire within. The snow 
is now [January lith, 1780] from lb\ir to six foel deep, wliieh so obstructs the road.s a.s to prevent 
our reeoiving a supply of provisions. Fertile last tin days we have received but two pounds of 
meat a man, and wi' are Irenuently for six or ei};ht days entirely destitute of meat, and (liei\ as long 
without bread. The eonseciueuee is, the soldiers are so enfeebled from bunpi-r and cold as to bo 
almost uuablo to perform lluMr military duty, or labor in eonstructinp their huts. It is well known 
that (ienenil Washington experiences the greatest solicitude for the suO'ering of his army, and 
is sensible tliat tliey, in general, eonduct with heroic |)atieneo and Ibrtitiuie." In a ]irivato 
latter to a friend, Wa.shington said, " We have had the virtue and patience of the army put to Uie 
Boverest trial. Sometimes it has been five or six days together witliotit bread, at other limes as 
iwiuy without moat, and once lor two or three days at a time without either. * * * At one 
tinie the soldiei-s ale every kind of horse food but liny. Huckwheat, common wheat, rye, and Indian 
Ooni compoticd the meal wliieh made their bread. As an army, they bon' it with the most heroic 
palienct' ; but sulVerings like these, accompanied by the want of clothes, blanket.s, Ae., will p'-'Kluee 
frequent desertions in all armies ; and so it hajipencd with u.s, though it did not excite a single 
mutiny," 

' i loping to regain Oibrnltnr, Jamaica, ami the two Floridiis, which fln-at Ilritain bad taken 
from her, Spain made a secix>t IriMity of peace with France in April, 1770, and in June de<>lartMl war 
against (ircat Ibilain, This event was regarded as highly favorable to the Americans, because any 
thing that should cripple England, would aid them, 

' ,Tohn Paul .loiies wa.s born in Scotland in 17.I7, and came to Virginia in boyhood, Tleontercd 
me American nav.il service in 1775, and was acti\e during the whole war, lie R'as arterwiuxi 
very active in the Hus.sian service, against the Turks, iu the Black Sea, and was created rear-admi- 
nl iu the Kusaiau navy, lie died iu Paris iu 1782. 




mmm imMiL jimmmi 



:h(& Tisim ^mmjiJPM 



1779.] 



FIFTH TEAR OF THE WAR FOR lifD E P EN D EN CE. 



307 



naval fights ever known. These were the Serapis and Countess of Scar- 
borough. The conflict occurred in the evening, off Flamborough Head, on the 
east coast of Scotland. Jones's ship was the Boiihomine Richard, which had 
been fitted out in France. After much maneuvering, the Serapis and 




Richard came alongside of each other, their rigging intermingling, and in this 
position they poured heavy broadsides from their respective guns. Three times 
both ships were on fire, and their destruction appeared inevitable. A part of 
the time the belligerents Avere fighting hand to hand upon the decks. Finally, 
the commander of the Serapis was obliged to yield, and ten minutes afterward, 
the Countess of Scarborough, which had been fighting with another vessel of 
Jones's little fleet, struck her colors. The Richard was a perfect wreck, and 
■was &st sinking when the conflict ended ; and si.'cteen hours afterward, she went 
do'.in into the deep waters of the North Sea, off Bridlington Bay. Jones, with 
his prizes, sailed for Holland, having, during that single cruise, captui-ed prop- 
erty to the value of two hundred thousand dollars.' 

' The naval operations during the war for Independence, do 
not occupy a conspicuous place in history, yet they were by no 
means Insignificant. The Continental Congress took action on the 
subject of an armed marine, in the autumn of 1775. Already 
Washington had fitted out some armed ve.ssels at Boston, and 

constructed some gun-boats for use in the waters around that city. A Gim-BOAT AT BOSTOK. 

These were propelled by oars, and covered. In November, the 

government of Massacliusotts established a Board of AdmiraUtj. A committee on naval affairs, of 
which Silaa Deane [page 206] was chairman, was appointed by the Coutiueutal Congress iu Octo- 




808 THE REVOLUTION. [1179. 

On the land, in America, there had lieen very little success for the British 
arms ; and sympathy for the patriots was becoming more and more manifest in 
Europe. Even a great portion of the intelligent English people began to 
regard the war as not only useless, but unjust. Yet in the midst of all these 
difficulties, the government put forth mighty energies — energies which might 
have terminated the war during the first campaign, if they had been then 
executed. Parliament voted eighty-five thousand seamen and tiiirty-five thou- 
sand troops for general service, in 1780, and appropriated one hundred millions 
of dollars to defray the expenses. This formidable armament in prospective, 
w:is placed before the Americans, at tliis, the gloomiest period of the war, yet 
they neither quailed nor faltered. Relying upon the justice of their cause, and 
the favor of a righteous God, they felt prepared to meet any force that Great 
Britain might send to enslave them, 

ber, ITIS. Before the close of the year, the construction of almost twenty vessels had been ordered 
by Congress ; and the Marine Commiliee wa.s so rc-organized as to have in it a representative from 
each colony. In November, 1176, a ConlinenUxl Nary Board, to assist the Marine Commiltee, was 
appointed; and in October, 1779, a Board of Admiralty was installed. Its Secretary (equivalent to 
our Secretary of the Navy) [page 382j was John Brown, until 1781, when he was succeeded by 
General McDougaL Robert Morris also acted as authorized Agent of Marine ; and many privateers 
were fitted out by him on his own account. In NovcmW, 1776, 
Congress determined the relative rank of the naval commanders, such 
M admiral to be equal to a nnajor-general on land : a commodore equal 
to a brigadier-general, &e. The first commander-in-chief of the navy, 
or high admiral, was Esek Hopkins, of Rhode Island, whom Congress 
commissioued as such in December, 1775. He first went against 
Dunmore [page 244] on the coast of Virginia. He also ,.->nt to the 
Bahamas, and captured the town of New Providence and its governor. 
Sailing for home, he captured some British vessels off the east end of 
Long Island, and witli these prizes, he went into Narraganset Bay. 
In llie mean while, Paul Jones and Captain Barry were doing 
good service, and New England cruisers were greatly annoying 
English shipping on our coast. In 1777, Dr. Franklin, under the 
autiiority of Congress, issued commissions to naval officers in Europe. 
E.xpecUtions were fitted out in French sea-ports, and these produced 
ADMraAL HOPKINS. great alarm on the British coasts. 

While these things were occurring in European waters. Captains 
Biddle, Manly, M'Neil, Hinman, Barry, and others, were making many prizes on ihe American 
coasts. Finally, in the spring of 1779, an expedition w-as fitted out at L'Orient, under the auspices 
of the French and American governments. It consisted of five vessels under the command of John 
Paul Jones. They sailed first, in June, for tlie British waters, took a few prizes, and returned. 
They sailed again in August, and on the 23d of September, while off the coa.st of Scotland, not far 
above the mouth of the Humber, Jones, with his flag-ship (the Bonhomme Richard), and two others, 
fell in with and encountered a small British fleet, wliich was convoying a number of merchant vea- 
Bels to the Baltic Sea, when the engagement took place which is described in the text Congress 
gave Jones a gold medal for his bravery. Many other gallant acts were performed by American 
seamen, in the regular service and as privateers, during the remainder of the war. The " whale- 
boat warfare" on the coast, was also very intere,<>ting, and exhibited many a brave deed by those 
whose names are not recorded in history — men who belong to the great host of " unnamed demi- 
gods," who, in all ages, have given their services to swell the triumi)lis of leaders who, in real 
merit, have often been less deserving than themselves. 

For a condensed account of the whole naval operatioas of the Revolution, oa the coast, see sup- 
plemeut to Lossing's Field Book qftiie Hevohttion, 




1730.J SIXTH TEAR OF U H E WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 309 

CHAPTER VII. 

SIXTH TEAR OP THE "WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. [1780.] 

When, on Christmas day, 1779, Sir Henry Clinton sailed for the South, 
with the main body of his army, he left the Hessian general, Knyphausen,' in 
command at New York. To aid the southern patriots, Washington sent thither 
the Baron De Kalb' and others the following spring [1780J, and thus the 
two armies were so much weakened at head-quarters, that military operations at 
the North almost ceased during that year. The Carolinas became the chief 
theater of war, and many and bloody were the acts upon that stage. Invasions 
from without, and the cruelties of Tories' in their midst, made 1780 a year of 
great woe for the patriots and their families below the Roanoke, for they also 
suffered all the horrors of civil war. At no time, during the 
whole conflict, were the Tories, or adherents of the crown, more ^'ftf >^ jJ^J 
active throughout the whole country, than in 1780. They ^tt h^.fg, 
were the most inveterate enemies of the patriots, and the lead- '• V |k 
ers were in continual correspondence with each other, with the ££_ ^tti uc 
British government, and with the royal commanders in Amer- ^ ^^ ^ 
ica. Their correspondence was carried on chiefly in cipher -4-- i^ '^ 
writing, understood only by themselves, so that in the event of yj /^_ ^ 
their letters falhng into the hands of the Whigs, their contents ' /^ 

would remain a secret. These characters sometimes varied, and L>- C~ ^[^ 
it was a frequent occurrence for two persons to invent a cipher Sif K^y^ 
alphabet, for their own exclusive use. The engraving shows '' "^^ *' 
the alphabet of the cipher writing of some New York Tories. :XT " 71 ^J/ 

A fleet, under Admiral Arbuthnot, with two thousand ma- i. r^fs u 
rines, bore the forces of Sir Henry Clinton to the southern / *^ ""^ 
waters. After encountering heavy storms,^ they arrived on the 
coast of Georgia in January ; and early in February [Feb. 10], turned north- 
ward, and proceeded to invest Charleston. Clinton's troops were landed [Feb. 
11] upon the islands below the city, on the shores of the Edisto Inlet, thirty 
miles distant ; but instead of marching at once to make an assault upon the 
town, the British commander prepared for a regular siege. General Lincoln 
was in Charleston with a feeble force^ when Clinton landed ; and he was about 
to evacuate the city and flee to the interior, when intelligence of the tardy plans 
of the British reached him. He then resolved to remain, and prepare for de- 

' Page 259. ' Page 316. ' Note 4, page 226. 

• During a severe storm off Cape Hattera,s. one vessel, carrying lieavy battery cannons, was lost, 
and almost all the cavalry horses of Tarletou's legion, perished at sea. Tarleton supplied himself 
witli others, soon after landing, by plundering the plantations near the coast. 

° During the preceding winter, Lincoln's army had dwindled to a mere handM. The repulse at 
Saviinnah had so disheartened the people, that very few recruits could be obtained, and when Clin- 
ton arrived, Lincoln's array did not exceed fi^urteen hundred men in number. The finances of the 
State were in a wretched condition, and the Tories were everywhere active and hopeful. 



aio 



•r II !•: 11 \<: vol, nr i on. 



11780. 



rmiHO. Jdlili llutliMl;^(!,' tlic ;:;i)vcin(if iil' Sniilli Ciilolilia, wiiH c1(j11k;(1 with all 
tlin puwors III' III! iiliHoliito (licliilor ; and so nol)iy did the 
civil ami iniiilary autlKiritics lalior for tli(( ]iMl)lic, j^ood, 
dial wIm'Ii IIu^ invader.^ cro.s.si'.d tla! A.siilcy [March 2it, 
I71S(I|, and Hill down ladoro the Aiiicricuii workrt on 
('iaiiicsUiii NccU,' liui l)CHii';j;cd ildt. Htroiii.; ciioiij^li to 
n<.siHl tiu'iii. Ill llic nuMMi wiiii(s Ihoiiitronchiiioiits hud 
|jc('ii f^icatly Htrcii^^lhi'iuMJ, and workH of dcfunao had 
\V '% liccii cast up a.lon;^ llic wharves, anil at various points 
». A ariaiiid tlii' liarli(ii-. 1^'orl. Moultrie" waa Htroii}.;ly ffir- 

(lovnuNiiii iiiiii.K.iMiK lisimi'd, I ( '(iiiiiiiodoru Whijiplu* wua iu coinmaud of 

II llolilla. of Hliiall aiincd .sliip.s in llic Ii.iiImm-. 





On the 'jr)ili of Mar.-li, Admiral Arlmllniot ci-ommimI Charloston liar, drore 
\Vhi|ii>lo'.s litllo fleet lo the walers near (lie town, and cast anchor in Kivo 

' John Hulloilxo wim luini in Iroliiail, laul I'aiax li> SoiiHi CiiiMliiiii wlioii » cliiUI. llo \vm oiu> 
of tlio most uctlvi- imlrii>Us ef tlio Simtli. .Mtor llio wiir ho wius iimilo » JuiIki- of tlu> Suproino 
Ciiint of llii> I 'nilril SliiloM, mill iUho I'liM' jaatioo of South llivroUnii. llo dlwl in thi> your ISIU). 

" Nolo I, piiKo 'I'M. ' Noto r>, piiKo '.'-111. 

' Abmlmiii Wlilpplo wiw horn in TiMvidouoo, IDioilo Isliiml, hi 17:1,1. UIh onrly lil'o wim npoiit 
ohlollv ii|>oa tho oi'oiiii, iiikI, in Inlor voih-.h, lio w.i.t loii^; <>iii;a>,'o<l ill tho inoU'lmiit Horvioo. Al tlio 
lino oi'lwoutysovoii, ho wiw ooiiiiimiiilor ol'u i.riviiloor, anil .liirint; a »iiiK'lo onnso, in mill, ho look 
IwoiitvOiroo Kionoh lirl/.o.i. llo wa.s .'Hk'uk'oiI in llio iloslniolioii ol'lho (Ai.v;.., in 17 TJ Ipaj,'.- ■.'■.M). 
Ill 1775 ho wiw aiiiioinloa lo tlio ooininaiiil of vo.h,hoIs to iliivo .^ir .liiiuoH Wallaoo lioiii NarruKUU- 
soil Uuy llo wiw lu'livo In naval aoiviw until tlio tail of llliikrkvstoii, whim lio was tikkoii prinouor. 



1780.] 



SIXTH YI'lAll OK TlllO WAR l''()li I N D IC 1' 10 N I) K N (! M. 



811. 



Fiithoiu llolo, not far from St. Joliu's IhIiiihI. On llic luoniiiij; ot" tlio Dtli of 
April, iu! sailcil up tlio liiirbor, and HU.stainin;^ Iml trilliii;.^ dainaj^o from llio 
giiii.s of l<'ort Moullrio, ancliorcd witliin cannoii-sliot of lll(^ city. An Wliiiiplo 
could not contend with tlio Htrong uliip.s, lio Hunl; Hcvcrjil of lii.s vchhoIh near tlio 
moulli of llu' (!oopi>r Uivcr, and fornicil a. r/itrriii.i-i/c-J'rini'' to jirovcnt the en- 
emy's .nhips |)MSsinj; licyond tlie town, ho as to enfdadc the Americnii works on tiio 
Nock. (liinton, in tlic nic:in wliili', liiid crccti'd hatU^ries' in fioiit of tllOHO 
works, .'Uid both comninndcis Joined in a. sunnnons lor the pniriots to Hni'i'end<'r. 
l*].\j)ecting rcini'or(H^nientH from i\w interioi', tini people ol llie heleaj;nred city 
I'cl'nscd compliance, and I'ni' more tha-n a. nioul h the sie^^'e went on.' In Ihe 
im'iin wliih^, American ({(Hachments sent out lietweeii Ihe (Jooper and Sanlee 
JiivcrH to keep open a commnnicalion witli the interior, were attacked and de- 
feated hy parties of ]$rilish horsemen ;* ami at the close of tiie month [April, 
riHO], the (nty was complelely environed liy (he I'oe. OornwalliH had arrived 
[Ajii'il IH], from New York, with tliroo tliouHiind fresh trooi)H, am! all hopes 
for the puti-iots I'aileil. 

The nii;;lit of the IMh of May was ». terrihie one for ('harlesldn. That day 
u Ihird summons to surrender had heen n^fuseil, and latt) in tile cveliin;^ a j^eu- 
cral cannonade comnienced. Two hundred heavy e^ims shook tlie i^ily with 
their thunders, and all nij.dit loii;^ destructive homhshcUs" were iiailed upon it. 
Atono tiino thy city was on liin in fivo 
dilli'rent plaeiis. Nor did morning 
hriii}^ relief The eiunny had delcr- 
niincd Ui tiiko tlio city I)y stoini. The 
cannonadi; (Mintiniicd all llie day, and 
the licet iiiovcmI towaid tlunnwn to o[K!n 
a homhardiiKint. l''iirtlier resistance 
would have Imm^ii sheer madness, for ihe 
destruction of tiio town and the people 
Boomed inovitiiblo. At two o'<doek on (he mornin;:; of (he 1 1 ill, a proposition 
for surr(uid(!r was made to ( 'liiiton, and his ;^uns were all silenced liefort^ day- 
lif^ht. At ahout noon on the ll^tli |May, 17H()|, the continental troops marched 
out, and laid down thcsir arms, afUsr a gallant luul dosperato defenHo for forty 
days, jjineoln and his army, with a larf^e numlier of ci(i/.ens, were nind<i pris- 
oners of war. The citi/.(Mis, and a ji;rea,t nninher of soldiers, were paroled.' 

]!i> was till' llrnl, wliu iinriii lixl Mm Ainni'iriin llai< in l.lii' 'l'lciuni';i, iil linridun, iilVi'i- llie wiir A mi- 

pimyiiiK W-ilUcTH l,i> Oliiii, lid lii«aiiM(i a njHiitiiMl, nl' MM-rinliii, IViiin wliieh lici Haileil, in I Mild, down 
tlio Ohio, with piirli and llonr, tin- Havana, llci dind in IKIil, at th(i a^" "(' clKlity-llvn yninu 

' Nolo <;, paK" '"ill. 

" On Saturday niorniiiK, di" llrHt ol' April, the Dritiiili llrMi Ki-nKn t;''""'"' i" ""' I'"'" "!' t'itfHj 
iMiniouH and rnoi'larM (ui Ilio Aninriean woi'liH. 

" lliMieral Wocidliad had jiiHt arrivod with Hnven hniidml Vir'ninlanH, and othd'H IVnm North 
Carolina worn rnpoilrd on thnir way. 

* On thn 11th of April, 'I'arlcton {iofeapid Ooloni'l IhiK'T on tho IkmmI watorn of tlii^ doopor 
Rivor, and killnd twentydlvo Ainnricaiw. On the (Jth of May, a party under flolonel Wliile, of Now 
.lurHoy, were roiaivl at a liMTy (mi tho Hantoe, with a Iomh ill' alioiit thirty in killed, wonndnd, anij 
pri.soniirH. 'I'lieHi^ DritiHh iletaiOirnnntH overran tho wliolii country bnlow the (Joopnr and Hanl.oo, la 
tho eourHci of a linv dayn. ° Noto '2, pa^o 'iilfl. 

* A priHoiiur on jtarvle in ono who Ih loll Ihio to go iinywlairo within a preHerihud Hpiico otcoun' 







(U' eiiAiii.KSTON. nSO. 



312 



THE REVOLUTION. 



[1780. 



Altogether, the captives amounted to between five and si.x thousand ;' and 
among the spoils of vietory were four liundred pieces of cannon. 

The fall of Charleston, and the loss of this southern army, waa a severe 




blow for the Republicans. It paralyzed their strength ; and the British com- 
manders confidently believed that the finishing stroke of the war had been 
given. It was followed by measures which, for a time prostrated South Caro- 

trv, or within a city, under cortain restrictions relative to conduct. Prisoners taken in war are often 
paroled, and allowed to return to their friends, with an a^rrecnient not to take up anns. It is a 
point of honor, with a soldier, to "keep his parole," and when .such a one is again taken in battle, 
during the period of his parole, he is trc.-ited not as a prisoner, but as a traitor. 

' In violation of the solemn agreement for surrender, Clinton caused a great number of the lead- 
ing men in Charleston to bo seized, and carried on board prison-ships, where hundreds sufl'ercd ter- 
ribly. Many were taken to St. Augustine, and immured in the fortress there, .\mong other 
proininent citizens thus treated, were Lieutenant-tiovenior ('hristopher Gadsden, and Pavid Ram- 
Bay, the historian, wlio, with about twenty others, remained in prison at St. Augustine almost eleven 
months, before they were paroled. Both of these men were exceedingly active patriots. Ramsay 
was a native of Lancaster county, Pcnnsylvaniii, where he was born in 1749. He was educated at 
Princeton ; studied medicine, and became an eminent physician at Charli^ston. He was an etficient 
member of tho Council of Safety when the Revolution broke out, and was also an esteemed legis- 
lator. Ho wa-s also a member of the Continental Congrcs.s. In 1790, he published his IJislory of 
the American lievolulion. Ho wrote and published a Life of Washington, in 1801; a History oj 
South Carolina, in 1808; and when ho ilied, from a shot by a maniac, in 1815, he had almost com- 
pieted a History of the tfnited, States. Soon after the assembling of the first National Congress^ 
under the new Constitution, in 1789, Dr. Ramsay sent in a petition, asking for tho passage ot a 
law lor securing to liim and his hoirs the exclusive right to vend and dispose of his books, ro- 
Bpoctivoly entitled, //(.^tor/M;/ Wtt Remlution in South Carolina. a\n\ A History of the Americary 
lievolulion. A bill for that purpose was framed and discussed. Finally, in .\ugust, it was " post- 
poned until tho ne.\t Congress." A similar bill was introduced in January, 1790, and on the 30tb. 
of April following, the lirsl copyright law recorded on the statute books of Congress, was paased. 



1780.] SIXTH TEAR OP THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 31^ 

Una at the feet of royal power. With an activity hitherto unusual for the 
British officers, Clinton took steps to extend and secure his conquest, and to 
re-establish royal power in the South. He sent out three strong detachments of 
his army to overrun the country. One under Cornwallis marched up the 
Santee toward Camden ; another under Lieutenant-colonel Cruger, was ordered 
to penetrate the country to Ninety-sLx,' and a third, under Lieutenant-colonel 
Brown, marched to Augusta," in Georgia. A general truce was proclaimed, 
and a pardon to all who should accept British protection. The silence of fear 
overspread the whole country ; and mistaking this lull in the storm of war for 
permanent tranquillity, Clinton and Arbuthnot, with a large body of troops, 
sailed, on the 5th of June [1780], for New York. 

The last and most cruel blow struck by the British, was that which almost 
annihilated an American detachment under Colonel Abraham Buford. He had 
hastened toward Charleston for the relief of Lincoln ; but when he heard of the 
disasters there, he commenced retreating toward North Carolina. His force 
consisted of nearly four hundred Continental infantry, a small detachment 
of Colonel Washington's cavalry, and two field-pieces. He had evacuated 
Camden, and, in fancied security, was retreating leisurely toward Charlotte, in 
North Carolina. Cornwallis resolved to strike Buford, if possible, and, for 
that purpose, he dispatched Tarleton, with seven hundred men, consisting /f his 
cavalry and mounted infantry. That officer marched one hundred and five 
miles in fifty-four hours, and came up with Buford upon the Waxhaw. Impa- 
tient of delay, he had left his mounted infantry behind, and with only his 
cavalry, he almost surrounded Buford before that officer was aware of danger. 
Tarleton demanded an immediate surrender upon the terms granted to the 
Americans at Charleston. These terms were humiliating, and Buford refused 
comphance. While the flags for conference were passing and re-passing, Tarle- 
ton, contrary to military rules, was making preparations for an assault, and 
the instant he received Buford's reply, his cavalry made a furious charge upon 
the American ranks. Having received no orders to defend themselves, and 
supposing the negotiations were yet pending, the Continentals were utterly 
dismayed by this charge. All was confusion ; and while some fired upon their 
assailants, others threw down their arms and begged for quarter. None was 
given ; and men without arms were hewn in pieces by Tarleton's cavalry. One 
hundred and thirteen were slain ; one hundred and fifty were so maimed as to 
be unable to travel ; and fifty-three were made prisoners, to grace the triumphal 
entry of the conqueror into Camden. Only five of the British were killed, and 
fifteen wounded. The whole of Buford's artillery, ammunition, and baggage, 
fell into the hands of the enemy. For this savage feat, Cornwallis eulogized 
Tarleton, and commended him to the ministry as worthy of special favor. It 
was nothing less than a cold-blooded massacre ; and Tarleton^ s quarter became 
proverbial as a synonym to cruelty.^ The liberal press, and all right-minded 

> Page 336. ' Page 336. 

" Stedman, one of ComwallLs's officers, and afterward an eminent English historian of the war,. 
Bays, "On this occasion, the virtue of humanity was totally forgot." 



yi4 



TlIK UKVOLUTION. 



[1780 



men in England, cried Slianio ! After the battle, a largo number of tlio 
■wounded were taken to the log meeting-houso of the Waxliaw I'resbyterian 
Congregation, where they were tenderly cared for by those who had courage_ 
to remain. Thi^^ blow, liowever, was so terrible, that fear seized the people., 
nnd women and chiKlren lied from their homes in dismay, to avoid falling in thcj 
track of the invader.' 

Brief was the lull of the .'^torm. Do Kalb' did not reach the borders oi 
Soutli Carolina until uiidsummer, and then not an 
American was inarms in the lower country. Although 
Congress had confidonco in the skill of l)e Kalli (who 
by the capture of Lincoln, became the conunander-in- 
chief at the South), yet it was thought best to send 
General Gates" thither, because of the intluence of his 
name. The ])rospeet before him was far from flattering. 
An army without strength; a military chest without 
money ; but little jmblic spirit in the commissary 
dejiartment; a climate unfavorable to health; the spirit 
of tho Republicans cast down ; loyalists swarming in 
every direction ; and a victorious enemy pressing to 
tipreaa bis legions over tho territory he had come to defend, were grave obstji- 
cles in tho way of success. Yet Gates did not despond ; and, retaining Do 
Kalb in conimaiid of his division, ho prepared to march into South Carolina. 
^Vlu•u it was known that he was approac^iiing, southern hearts beat high with 
hope, for they expected great things from tho contiueror of Burgoyne.* Many 
jutriots, who, in their extremity, had signed "paroles" and "protections,"' 
fsoeing how little solemn j)romises were esteemed by tho conqueror, disregarded 
both, and ilocked to tho standard of those bravo partisan leaders, Sumter, 
Marion, Pickens, and Clarke, who now called them to the field. AViiile Gates 
and his army were approaching, these partisans were preparing tho way for 
conquest. They swept over the country in small bands, striking a British 




OKNERAI, l!.\TE? 



' AmoiiR thii.'^o wim floil, wn.") tho widowed mutlior oCViidrow .T.ickson, tlio srvontli Pivsidont 
of tlio lliiiti'd Slati'ii, will), with lii'i- two soiin, H.iliiTl lUid Amlivw, tool< ivlii^'o in tlic viniiity of 
Clmrlotto, Nortli Ciiroliiia. Tlio divaciful .sooiu's of tlmt niii.s.<aiTO, waa tlio lirst Uwon that tau^'ht 
Androw to liato tyranny. It liivd lii;< piitriot i.Hin ; ami at tlio ai^o of tliirtcon years, ho ontorod tho 
army, with his brother llohort, under Siinitor. They were hoth made jiritioners; but oven while iu 
tho power of the British, the indomitable eourajje of the alter man appeared in the boy. When 
ordered to clean the inuitdy boots of a Uritish oIlleiT, he proudly refuaoil, anil for hi.s toraoritj 
received a sword-cut. After their releiuse, Androw and liLs brother relumed to the Waxlmw set- 
tleuionl with their mother. That patriotic matron and two sons perished durinp tlie war. Her son 
IhiK'h was slain in battle, and Itobort died of a wound which he rocoivod from a rtritish otlicor while 
he was iiriscmor, because, like Andrew, he refused to do menial service, Tho heroic niotlior, while 
on her way homo Irom Charleston, whilluir she went to carry some luws-siuies to her friomls and 
relations on board a |irison-sliip, was seized with prison-fever, and died. Her unknown Rravo is 
somewhere botwoon what wils then called tho Quarter House and Charleston. Andrew was loft 
the solo survivor of the liimily. Pape 316. 

• Horatio Oates was a nativo of Knp;Iand, nnd wna educated for military life. Ho was the Unit 
ndjutant-peneral of the Continental army [note (S, pnpi^ 2.18], and wius made major-Konend in 1770. 
Ho retiroil to his ostjite in Vir^rinia at thi> olcwe of the war, and tiniJIy took up his abode iu Now 
Tork, where ho died in 180C, at tho ago of seveuty-eight yeara. 

* I'ltgo '281. * Noto 6, pngo 311. 



1780.] 



SIXTH TEAR OF THE V,' AU FOR I N D E r KN D E NC E. 



315 




GENERAL Sl'MTER. 



clctaclime»t here, and a party of Tories then' ; and soon, they so effectually 
alarmed tlic enemy in the interior, as to cheek the onward progress of invasion. 

General Sumter' first appeared in power on the 
Catawba River. Already Whigs, liotweeu that and 
the ]]road llivcr, led by local ollicers, had assailed 
tlio enemy at different points. In the mean while 
Sumter had collected a considerable force, and on 
the oOth of July, lie attacked a. British post at IJocky 
Mount, on the Catawlia. lie was repulsed, but not 
disheartened. Tie immediately cro.sscd the river, and 
at llanging-rock, a few miles eastward, he fell upon 
and dispersed a large liody of British and Tories, on 
the 6th of August. Through the folly of his men, 
lio did not secure a victory. They couunenced ])lundering, and driuking the 
liijuors found in the camp, after they had secured it, and becoming into.xicated, 
•were unable to complete the triumph. Yet the British dared not follow Sumter 
in his slow retreat. Marion, at the same time. w;is smiting the enemy, with 
sudden and fierce blows, among the swamps of the lower country, on the 
borders of the I'cdee. I'ickens was annoying Cruger in the lu'ighliorhood of 
the Saluda; and Clarke was calling for the j)at riots along the Savannali, Ogee- 
chee, and Alatamaha, to drive Brown^ from Augusta. 

General Clinton left Earl Cornwallis in the chief conunand of the British 
army at the South, and his troops on the Santee were intrusted to Lord Raw- 
don, an active and meritorious officer. AVhen that general heard t)f tlie approach 
of Gates, he gathered all his available forces at Camden, where he was .soon joined 
by the earl. Rumor had greatly magnified the nunil>er of the army under Gates. 
The loyalists became ahiniKcl. and the patriots took courage, lie came down 
from the hill country, tiirough Lancaster district, and took jiost at Clermont, a 
few miles north of Camden. l''eeling certain of victory, ho marched from his 
camp on the night of the 15th of August, to surprise the British at Camden. 
Without being aware of this movement, Cornwallis and Rawdon advanced at 
the same hour to surprise the Americans. A little after 
midnight the belligerents met [August 10, 1780J, near San- 
ders's Creek, about seven miles north of Camden, on the Lan- 
caster road. The sand was so deep that the footsteps of the 
approaching armies could not be heard by each other. They 
came together in the dark, almost noiselessly, and both were 
equally surprised. A slight skirmish between the vanguards 
ensued, and early in the morning a general battle began. 
After a desperate struggle with an overwhehuing force, the 




Americans were compelled to yield to the British bayonets in s.vxders's creek. 



' Thomas Sumtor was a native of Soutli Carolina, and was o.irly in tlie lielii. Ill health com- 
pelleil him to loavo the army jnst before the dose of the war. iu 17SI. lie was afterward a mem- 
ber of the National Congress, and died on the High Hills of Sauteo [page 337], iu 1S32, at tha 
MSe of ninety-eight years. ' Pagu 335. 



816 



TIIK UKVOLPTION. 



[1780. 




BARON DE KALIl. 



front, and the sabivs of Tiirlcton's dragoons on their flanks. The rout 
hocanio {^oniTal. Tlio militia iVil in grout ninnbers, under the heavy blowa 
from the Hritisii eavalrj- ; and tor more than two miles, along the line of 
their retreat, tiio open \vood \va,s strewn with the dead and dying. Anus, artil- 
lery, horses, and baggage, wereseattered in every direetion. More than a third 
of the continental troops were killed ; and the entire loss of 
the Amerieaiis, in killed, wovnuled, and prisoners, was 
about a thousand nieti, besides all of their artillery and 
annimnition, and a greater portion of their baggage and 
stores." The British loss was three hundred and twenty- 
five. Among tiie killed was the brave l?aron de Kalb,' 
whoso remains were buried at Camden, and there they 
yet lie, uiuier a neat monument, the corner-stone of 
whieh was laid l)y La. Fayette in liS:]').^ 

Having vainly endeavored to rally his flying troops, 
Gates fled to Oharlott(\' eighty miles distant. There he eontinned to be 
joined by ollieers and men, and he began to hope that another army might be 
speedily collected. But when, a few days after his own defeat, he received intel- 
ligence that Sumter's lioree had been nearly annihilated by Tarleton" near the 
Catawba, he almost despaired. That event was a sad one 
for tlio republicans. Suuitcr had been ordered, by Gates, 
to intercept a British detachment whieh was conveying 
Stores for the main army, from Ninety-Si-x." He was 
joined by other troops sent to assist him, and they cap- 
tured forty-four wagons loaded w'ith elotliiiig, and made a 
number of prisoners. On hearing of the defeat of tJates, 
Sumter continued his march up the Catawba, and on the 
18th [August, 1780] he encamped near the mouth of 
the Fishing Creek. There he was surprised by Tarleton, and his troops were 
routed with great slaughter. More than fifty were killed, and three hundred 
were made prisoners. All the booty captured by the Americans fell into the 
liajids of Tarleton. Sumter escaped, but Avas strii)pecl of jwwer. 

With the dispersion of Gates's army, and Sumter's brave band, the victory 
of the British was again complete ; and at the close of summer, there were no 




eOI.OXKI, TARI.ETOV. 



' ripiioml Ontps Imd folt so portnin of vioton', tlint he hnd mndo no provisions for n retrcnt, or 
tlio Niilvaliim of Ilia slorrn ill ttio ri-;ir. Hit) Uw\tn wi'R' si'iittoroil in nil diroctiims, mid In-, aiiiwr- 
oiitly iiiiiiic-strii'kon tiv tho ti-rrililo blow, tied, almost alotio, to CliarloMo. Evoii now [IHSyj Iml- 
li't.i'aro found in llio old |>iiio-tr.'c,>< on tlio routt> of tlioir ivtroat. (5 ates did indeed, lui General 
riiarUvs I.ee predieted lio would, wlion lio heard of liis apiioiiilinent to the command of the south- 
ern army, "exehantro his northern lanri'ls for soiilhern willows." 

' Do Ivalli wn.s n native of Alsaee, it tieriiian pnniiiee ceded to Frnncc. He had lieen in Amor- 
iea as a secret I'Ycni'h iiKciit, about fifteen years before. Ho cnmo to Amorien with Ij> Kayette ia 
1717, anil ("on);ress eomniisaionod him a niiyor-peiicral. llo died of his wounds at Camden, threo 
days alter the battle. ' V»KO l.-i.-t. ' PkRo 237. 

' Tarleton was one of the most active and unserupulou.s otVieers of the British army. He was 
dlstinKiiislied for his abilities and eruclties diiriii^r the southern eampai^ns of 1780-'S1. He was 
born in l.iveipwl, in 175 1. He married a daughter of tho Duko of Aucastcr, in 179S, and wu3 
alVcrwurd mado u miiior-geueiiU. Tago 338. 



1180.] 



SIXTH YEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 



317 



republicans in arms in South Carolina, except Marion and his men. Within 
three months [May 12 to August 1(1 1, two American armies had been annihil- 
ated, and one of the most formidable partisan corps (Sumter's) scattered to tha 
winds. 




The exploits of Marion' and iiis men, form the materials of one of the most 
interesting chapters in the history of our War for Independence. lie was in 
Charleston during the long siege, but having been disabled by an accident,' he 
had retired to the country, and was not among the prisoners when the city 
passed in the possession of the British." lie was tlierefore untrammeled by any 
parole, and as soon as he was alilo, he mounted his horse, and took the field. 
With a few ragged followers, equal in grotesque appearance to any Falstaff 



' Francis Marion was a descendant of a Hvijjuenot [pac;o 49] settler, and was bom near George- 
town, South Carolina, in 1732, Hia first military lessons wore learned in the war with the Chero- 
kec3 [pago 204], in PGl. Tie entered tlie annv at tlie coinmenoement <if the Kevohition, .ind wna 
one of the bravest and most useful of all the partisan odieera at the Senth. Ho wna also a member 
of '-Jio South Carolina Legislature, durini;. and aller the war. lie died at his home, near Eutaw 
Spnnppi, tm Ins (leloveii Santoe, in 179.'), in tlio sixty-third year of his acre. 

Marion wius dininp; with some friends at a liouse in Tradii-street, Charleston, when, on an at- 
torapt beins made to eause him to drink wine, contrary to l\is praoti<'e and desire, he leaped from a 
window, and sprained his ankle. The Americans yot kept the country toward the Santoe, open, 
and Marion was convoyed to his home. ' Page 311. 



318 TllK H K VOLUTION. [1780. 

ever saw,' he was annoying tlie Tories in the neighborhood of the Pedee, when 
Gates w;i3 moving southward; and just before the battle at Camden, ho ap- 
peareil in Gates's camp. The proud general would have treated him with con- 
tempt, had not Governor Rutlcdge,'' then in the camp, known the sterling 
worth of the man before them. While Marion was there, the j)eoplc of the 
Williamsburtr district, who had arisen in arms, seat for him to be their com- 
mander. Governor Rutledge gave him the commission of a brigadier on the 
spot ; and soon afterward, Marion organized that noted hriijiulc, which per- 
formed such wonderful exploits among .the swamps, the broad savannahs, and 
by the water-courses of the South. It was this motley brigade, only, that 
appeared in the held, and defied British power, after the dispersion of Gates's 
army at Camden. 

Had Cornwallis been governed by good judgment and humanity, the con- 
quest of South Carolina might have been permanent, 
for the State swarmed with Tories, and the Republic- 
ans were wearied with the unequal contest. But ho 
was govei-ned liy a foolish and wicked policy, and pro- 
ceeded to establish royal authority by the most severe 
measures. Instead of winning the respect of the people 
by wisdom and clemency, he thought to subdue them 
by cruelty. I'rivato rights were trampled under foot, 
and social organization was superseded by the iron rule 
of militarv desiiotism." Ilis measures created the most 

LORD C0UN\V.\I.1.1S. "^ ' '" ' J 1 

bitter hatred; and hundreds of patriots, who might 
have been conciliated, were goaded into active warfare by the lash of milit^iry 
power. Everywhere the people thirsted for vengeance, and only awaited the 
call of leaders, to rally and strike again for homes and freedom. 

Now, feeling confident of his power in South Carolina, Cornwallis' prepared 
to invade the North State. Early in September he proceeded with his army 
to Charlotte," while detachments were sent out in various directions to awe the 
Republicans and encourage the loyalists. While Tarlcton, with his legion, 




' Colonol Otho TI. Williams snid of liia nppo.iranoo then, that liia followers were " distinpuiahed 
by small lontlioni cups, and tlio wn<ti!liodiu<ssof tliLur attirt'. Tlicir numliiT did not oxcood twenty 
men and boys, some wliitc, some black, and all moinited, but most of tliem miserably equipped. 
Their aiipoar'auco was, in liiet, so burlesque, that it was with much dillieulty the diversion of tho 
reffuhu- .soldiery wa.s restrained bv the ollieers; ami the general himself [Gales] was (^lad of an op- 
portunity of detaehiuK' Colonel M'arion, at his own instanee, toward tho interior of South Carolina, 
with orders to wateh tho motions of tho enemy, luid furnish intelliij'onee." 

• Pago 310. 

• IIo issued cniol orders to Ina subaltoma. They were directed to hang pycry muitia-man who 
h.id onco served in I,ovaliat cnriia, but were now found iu arms ajjainst tho kinR. Many who had 
wibmilted to Clinton [patfo Itn], and accepted protection, and had remained at home quietly during 
the recent revolt, were imprisoned, their property tikeu from them or destroyed, and their famUies 
treated with tho titmost rigor. See note 3, page 'XM. . r •,• 

t • Charies Karl Cornw.illi.s, was born, In .SulVolk, Kngland, in n.lS. Ho was educated lor mili- 
t.arv life and'eoTmnenced his career in 1759. Atter tho Revolution in Americ,'^, he was mado gov- 
ernor-getieral of India [note 2, page 2211, then loni-lioutenaut of Ireland, and agam governor ot 
India. Uo died near lienares, Kast Indies, in 1805. . , » 

' nis advanced corps worn attacked by the Americana under Colonel Davie, on theu- arrival a» 
Charlotto, but after a severe akirmial), the patriots were repulsed. 



1180.] SIXTH YEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 31<) 

was openiting on the cast side of the Catawba, Major Patrick Ferguson was 
sent to embody the militia who favored the king, among the mountains west of 
the Bro;i(l River. Many proUigate and worthless nuMi joined his standard, and 
on the first of October, 17SU, he crossed the l>road Ivivcr at the Cherokee ford, 
in Yorkvillo district, and encamped among the hills of King's Mountain, with 
about fifteen hundred men. Several corps of Whig militia united to opposo 
him,' and on the 7th of October, they fell upon his camp on King's Mountain, 
there, a cluster of high, wooded, gravelly hills, about two miles below tho 
southern lino of Nortii Carolina. A very severe engagement ensued, and tiie 
lirilish were totally defeated. Ferguson was slain,' and three hundred of his 
men were killed and wounded. The spoils of victory, which cost the Americans 
eiglity-eigh men, were eight hundn^d prisoners, and fifteen hundred stand of 
arms. This defeat was to Cornwallis, what tho affair at 13ennington" was to 
Burgoyne, and it gave tho Republicans hope. 

Nearer the sea-board, in the mean while, tho j)atriot3 were daily gaining 
strength. Marion and his men' were striking the bandnig Tories here and 
there, and annoying British outposts continually ; while Colonel Pickens and 
Clarke were hourly augmenting their forces in Georgia and south-western 
Carolina. Sumter, too, undismayed by his recent defeat, again appeared in the 
field ;' and other leaders were coming forth between the Yadkin and Broad 
Rivers. Alarmed by tlie defeat of Ferguson, and these demonstrations on flank 
and rear, Cornwallis withdrew [October 14] to South Carolina, and toward tho 
close of October [27th], made his head quarters at Winnsborough, midway 
between the Broad and Catawba Rivers, in Fairfield district. Here he 
remained until called to the pursuit of Greene," a few weeks later. 

Victory after victory was achieved by Marion and his brigade, until late ia 
October, when they pushed forward to assail tho British j)ost at Georgetown, 
for the jmrpose of obtaining necessary supplies, llitiierto Marion had confined 
his operations to forays upon British and Tories ; now ho undertook a more 

' Tlioso wero oommandod by Colonels 'William Campbell, Isaac Shelby, Benjamin Clovoland, 
John Sevier, .To9oi)h Winston, Cliarlos McDowell, and James Williams. Their united forces 
amounted to nearly ei^htcun lunidroil men. 

'' On tho spot where Ferguson wius slain, a plain Btone ha-s boon erected to the memory of that 
officer, and of Americans who were killed. The following inscriptions upon the stone, (^ivo tlio 
names: North sick. — "Sacred to the memory of Major William (Iiikoniolk, Captain John Mat- 
tocks, William Ronn, and .JonK liOYU, who were killed here li(,'litiii(,' in defense of America, on 
tho seventh of Octoher, 1780." South side. — "Colonel Feuouson, aii odlcer belonging to his Hritiin- 
nic majesty, wa.s liore del'outed and killed." Ferguson's rank is incorrectly given, on the monument. 
He was only a major; but his good conduct was placing him in tho way of speedy promotion. ]1« 
was a son of the eminent Scotch jurist, James F'crguson, and came to America in 1777. He was 
in tho battle on tho Brandy wine, in tho autumn of that year [page 273], and accomp.anied Sir Henry 
Clinton to South Carolina '[page :-tOG| at tho (tlose of 1770. ' Page 277. * Page :U7. 

' Sumtor collected a small force in tho vicinity of Charlotte, and returned to South Carolina. 
For .some weeks ho annoyed tho British and Tories very much, and Lord Cornwallis, who called him 
The Oarolina Gama Cock, used great endeavors to crush him. On tlie night of tlui 12lli of Novenr 
ber, Major Wemyss, at the head of a British detachment, fell upon him near tho Broad River, but 
wiui repulsed. Hight days afterward ho had a severe engiigemont with 'rarleti)n, at Blackstock's 
p'l.'itation. on the Tyger River, in Union district, !le had now lieen joined by some Georgians 
(UHlnr Colonels Clarke and Twiggs. The Brilisli were repulse<l, witli a loss, in killed and wounded, 
of about tliri'o hundred, 'fhe -Vmericans lost only throe killed and live wounded. Sumter was 
among the latter, and ho waa detained from tho Held several months, by his wounds. 

' Fage 332. 



{>20 THK REVOLUTION. [1780. 

serious business. The garrison was on the alert, and in a severe skirmish with 
a hirgo j)arty near the town, the Partisan wiw repulsed. He then retired to 
Snow's Island, at the conflucneo of Lynch's Oreek and the Pcdee, where he 
fi.xed hi.s camp, and secured it by such works of art as the absence of natural 
defenses rctiuii-cd. It was chiefly higli river swamp, dry, and covered with a 
lieavy forest, filled with game. From that island camp, Marion sent out and 
led detachments as occasion required ; and for many weeks, expeditions which 
accomplished wonderful results, emanated from that point. Their leader seemed 
to bo possessed of ulii(iuitous powers, for he struck l)lo\vs at different points in 
rapid succession. The British became thoroughly alarmed, and the destruction 
of his camp became, with them, an object of vital importance.' That work was 
accomplished in the spring of 1781, when a party of Tories penetrated to 
Marion's camp, during his absence, dispersed the little garrison, destroyed the pro- 
Visions and stores found there, and then fled. The Partisan was not disheartened 
by this misfortune, but pursued the marauder some distance, and then wheeling, 
he hastened through the then overflowed swamps to confront Colonel Watson, 
who was in motion with a body of fresh troops, in tlie vicinity of the Pcdee. 

AVhile these events were progressing at the South, others of great import- 
ance were transpiring at the North. As we have observed," military operations 
were almost suspended in this region during the year, and there were no oflFens- 
ivo movements worthy of notice, excei)t an invasion of New Jersey, in June. 
On the Gth of that month (before the arrival of Clinton from Charleston), Knyp- 
liauscn" dispatched General ^Matthews from Staten Island, with about five 
thousand men, to penetrate New Jersey. They took possession of Elizabeth- 
town [Juno 7], and burned Coimccticut Farms (then a handet, and now tho 
village of U/iioii), on the road from Elizabethtown to Springfield. When tho 
invaders arrived at the latter place, they met detachments which came down 
from Washington's camp at Morristown, and by them were driven back to the 
coa-st, where they remained a fortnight. In the mean whde Clinton arrived, 
and joining Matthews with additional troops [Juno 22 J, endeavored to draw 
Washington into a general battle, or to capture his stores at Morristown. 
Feigning an expedition to the lligldands, Clinton deceived Washington, who, 
with a consideral)le force, marched in that direction, leaving General Greene in 
command at Springfield. Perceiving the success of his stratiigem, he, with 
Knyphausen, marclied upon Greene, witn ..bout five thousand infantry, a con- 
siderable body of cavalry and almost twenty pieces of artillery. After a severe 



' IToro wns tlio scoiio of tho intorvicw brtwoon Mnrion nnd n young Britisli officer from George- 
town, so wi'U rc'iiiniiln'ri'il by tnuiitioii, ami so wiOl (U'liiR'nteii by IIh< (hmi of Simms niul tlio pencil 
of Whito. 'Pile olliciT who came to treat ri'speetiiit; jirisoners, wius led bliiuifolded to tbe camp of 
Marion. Tliere lie lirst saw tlie diininutive tbrin of tlie groat partisan leadej-, and around him, in 
groups, were Ids followers, lounging beneath magiulieent trees drajied with moss. 'When their businixo 
was concluded, Marion invited tho young Briton to dine with limi. Ho remained, and to his utter 
nstonishmont he sjiw some roa.stt>d potatoes brought forw.ird on a piece of bark, of which tho 
general partook freely, nnd invited his guest to do the same. "Surely, giMieral," said the officer, 
"this can not bo your ordinary faro I" " Indeed it is," replied Marion, "and wo are fortunate on 
this oeea-sion, entertaining eoiiipany, to liavo more than our usual allowance." It is nutated that 
tho young officer gave up his commission on his return, declaring that such a people conld not bo, 
and'ought not to bo aubduod. ' I'ago 309. ' Page 259. 




Marion's Encampment on the PEDsa 



1780.] 



SIXTH TKAR OF THE WAR KOK INBEPEXDE^CK. 



323 



sbrmish at Springfield, the British were defeated f June ^3 1 78m a ■ 
fire to the vil age, thev retre-itpH .„^ j ^ ^ ' ^'*'"J' ^^^ setting 

Good news for tl!f A ' P""'"^ ''^'' *° ^^^t*^" Inland. ^ 

vjoou news tor the Americans came from the F-wt „ f j 

invasion. It was that of the irriv,l -.t 11 f t\ \ ""^ '^^^^ ^^^^"^ ^^'^ 

«f Jul^ fl780J, of a powerful F el fle!t"'7' ^f' '''^"^' °" *^^ ^^th 

f^ thousand land troops unde fhe Cou! l' I ^ "^f ™"'' ''"™^' ^'^-'"S 

i^aa heen expected .r Ime time:!; ^:;; t^ l^^Xst^-^T 




the Americans. With wise for H ht t£' iS K °f " *'' ^''' ^'^'"g^ *« 
Rochambeau had been settled by the tenl '^°" ^^'"'^^'^ Washington and 

any difficulties in relation to command hT ^ZTT""'- ^" °^'^^'- *° P'-'^-^^t 
cers, the king commissioned Zit"'*;" ' '^"'™'^" ''^'^^ ^••«"'^'' °ffi- 
This allowed him to take preced n"e o'r " b 'r'""'-°''^"'^' °'' ^'^ *--?"- 
^"^-tief of the allied armiL 7oo„ 1 , " ""' '"' "^''^ t^- commander- 



324 THE REVOLUTION. [1780; 

was determined to have the main body of it remain in camp, on Rhode Island, 
while the cavalry should be cantoned at Lebanon, in Connecticut, the j)lacc of 
residence of Jonathan Trumbull, governor of that State. That eminent man 
was the only chief magistrate of a colony who retained his office after the change 
from royal to Republican rule; and llirougho\it the war, he was one of the 
most efficient of the civil officers among the j)atriots.' 

The arrival of the French caused Clinton to be more circumspect in hia 
movements, and he made no further attempts to entice Washington to fight. 
Yet he was endeavoring to accomplish by his own strategy, and the treason of an 
American officer, what he could not achieve by force. At diffijrent times during 
the war. the British offic-als in America had tampered, directly or indirectly, 
■with some Americans, supposed to be possessed of easy virtue, but it was late in 
the contest before one could be found who was wicked enough to be a traitor. 
Finally, a recreant to the claims of patriotism aj)peared, and while the French 
army were landing upon Rhode Island, and were preparing for winter quarters 
there, Clinton was bargaining with Benedict Arnold for the strong military 
post of West Point,'^ and its dependencies among the Hudson Highlands, and 
with it the liberties of America, if possible. 

Arnold was a brave soldier, but a bad man.' lie fought nobly for freedom, 
from the beginning of the war, until 1778, when his passions gained the mas- 
tery over his judgment and conscience. Impulsive, vindictive, and unscrupu- 
lous, he was personally unjiopular, and was seldom without a quarrel with some 
of his comi)anions-in-arms. Soon after his appointment to the command at 
Philadelphia,* he was married to the beautiful young daughter of Edward 
Shippen, one of the leading loyalists of that city. lie lived in splendor, at an 
expense fiir beyond his income. To meet the demands of increasing creditors, 
he engaged in fraudulent acts which made him hated by the public, and caused 
charges of dishonesty and malpractices in office to be preferred against him, 
before the Continental Congress. A court-martial, appointed to try him, con- 

' .Tonntlmn Tmmlnill was liom nt I,ebiinon, Connecticut, in June, 1710, and was educated at 
Han'ard Oolloge. Ho prepared (or tlie ministry, but tlnnlly became a merdiant. He was a mem- 
ber of the Connecticut Assemlily at the age of twenty-tliroc years. He was chosen governor of 
Connecticut in 17 GO, and for fourteen consecutive years lie was elected to that office. He died at 
Lebanon, in August, 1785, at the ago of scventy-tivo years. See page .'?23. 

' During tho spring and summer of 1778, the pn.s.scs of the Hudson Highlands were much 
Btrengthonod. A strong redoubt called Fort Clinton (in honor of George Clinton, then governor of 
Now York), was erected on tho extreme end of the promontorj- of West Point. Other redoubts 
were erected in tho rear; and upon Mount Indcpcnilence, five hundred feet above the Toint, tho 
strong fortress of Fort Putnam was built, whose gray ruins are yet visilile. Besides these, an 
enormous iron chain, each link weighing more than one hiuidrcd pounds, was streti'hed across the 
Hud.son at West Point, to keep Hritish ships from ascending tho river. It was floated upon timbers, 
linked together with iroii, and made a very stning obstruction. Two of these floats, with the con- 
necting links, are preserved at Washington's Head guiutcrs, at Newburgh ; and several links of tho 
great chain may be seen on the parade ground, at West Point. 

' While yet a mere yo\itli, ho attempted murder. A young Frenchman was an accepted 
suitor of .Vrnold's sister. The young tyrant (for Arnol. I was always n de.spot among his play-fellows) 
disliked him, and when he could not [icrsuade his sister to discard him, he declared ho would shoot 
tho p>enchman if ho ever entered the house ai;nin. The opportunity soon occurred, and .\mold 
discharged a loaded pistol at him, as he escapeil thro\igh a window. The young man left the plaeo 
forever, and Hannah Arnold lived tho life of a maiden. Arnold and the I'Vencliman afterward met 
at Honduras, and fought a duel, in which the Frenchman was severely wounded. 

* Note 3, page 287. 



1780.] 



SIXTH TEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 



325 



victed him, but sentenced him to a reprimand only. Although Washington 
performed that duty with the utmost delicacy, Arnold felt the disgrace. It 
awakened vengeful feelings which, operating with the pressure of debt, made him 
listen with complacency to the suggestions of a bad nature. He made treason- 
able overtures to Sir Henry Clinton, and by a correspondence of several months 
(under an assumed name, and with propositions couched in commercial phrases) 
with the accomplished Major Andre,' Clinton's adjutant-general, he bargained 
with the British commander to betray West Point and its dependencies into his 
hands. For this service he was to receive a brigadier's commission, and fifty 
thousand dollars in cash. 




The traitor managed the affair very adroitly. For a long time, Washington 
liad been suspicious of Arnold's integrity, but was unwilling to believe him 
capable of treason. Under pretense of having private business in Connecticut, 
Arnold left Philadelphia, passed through Washington's camp on the Hudson, 
and on his return, he suggested to the chief that he would be glad to have com- 
mand of West Point. He made many patriotic professions, and his desires were 
gratified. He was appointed to the command of that post, in August, 1780, 
«nd then all his thoughts were turned to the one great object of the betrayal of 



' Arnold's hand-writing was disguised, and ho signed his letters Gikstavus. Andre's letters 
Vers gigned John Anderson. A correspondence was carried on between them for more than a 



year. 



826 THE REVOLUTION. [HSOt 

his trust. Tlie time chosen for tiio consuniination of Jiis treasonable desisrns 
was when Washington was absent, in September, in conference with the French 
officers at Hartford, Connecticut." Up to the time of his taking command of 
West Point, Arnokl and Andre' had negotiated in writing. They had never 
met, but now a personal conference was necessary. For that jjurpose, Andre 
went up the Hudson in the sloop of war. Vulture, which anchored off Teller's 
Point, just above the mouth of the C'roton River. Andre was t^iken ashore, 
near Havei-straw, on the west side of the Hudson, where, by previous appoint- 
ment, he met Arnold. Before they parted [Sept. 22, 1780], the whole matter 
was arranged. Clinton was to sail up the river with a strong force, and 
after a show of resistance, Arnold was to surrender West Point and its depend- 
encies into his hands. But all did not work well. Some Americans dragged 
an old iron si.x -pound cannon (yet preserved at Sing Sing) to the end of Teller's 
Point, and with it so galled the Vu/furc, that she was driven from her anchor- 
age, and, dropping down the river, disappeared from Andre's view. He was 
consc(iuently compellod to cross to the eastern side of the Hudson in disguise, 
and make his way toward New York, by land. At Tarrytown, twenty-seven 
miles from the city, he was stopped [Sept. 23] and searched by three young 
militia mcn,^ who, finding papers concealed in his boots, ^ took him to the near- 
est American post. Colonel Jameson, the commander, could not seem to com- 
prehend the matter, and unwisely allowed Andre to send a letter to Arnold, 
then at his quarters opjiosite West Point. The alarmed and warned traitor im- 
mediately fled down the river in his barge, and escaped to the Vulture in safety, 
leaving behind him his young wife and infant son, who were kindly treated by 
W^ashington.' 

The unfortunate Major Andre was tried and found guilty as a spy, and was 
hanged on the 2d of October, 1780, at Tappan opposite Tarrytown, while the real 
miscreant escaped. Strenuous efforts were made to gain possession of Arnold, and 
save Andre, but they failed," and that accomplished officer, betrayed by circum- 
stances, as he said in a letter to Wiishington, "into the vile condition of an 
enemy in disguise," suffered more because of the sins of others, than of his own. 
Washington would have spared Andre, if the stern rules of war had permitted. 

' Phrc 323. 

' .lolin rankliii);, David Williams, nml Isaac Van Wart, all rosiiionta of 'Wostchoster county. 
Andre ofl'cred lliciu largo bribes if tlioy would allow liiin to pass, but they refused, and thus saved 
their country from min. 

* These papers are well preserved. After beinn in private hands more than seventy years, they 
were purchased, and deposited in the New York Slate Lilirarv, in I8.'i3. 

* Washin^jrfnn returned from Ilarlliird on the very niorniii); of Arnold's escape, and reached hi« 
quarters (yet standinj; opposite West I'oint) just after the traitor had left. The evidences of his 
treason were tliere, and ollierrs were sent in pvn-suit, but in vain. Wasliinpton sent llie wife and 
son of Arnold to Mew York, whitlier the traitor was conveyed by the Vtillure. That infant, who 
was named .lames Robertson Aniold, was born at West I'oint. He became a distinguished officer 
in the British army, liavirif; jiassed thro<ij;h all the (.rrades of olTiee, from lieutenant. On the accession 
of Queen Victoria, in 1835, he wa.<) made one of her aids-de-camp, and rose to the rank of major- 
general, with the badge of a Knight of the Royal Hanoverian Ouelphic Order. 

* Serjeant Cliampe, of I.ee's legion [page 333], went into New York City, in the disguise of a 
deserter, joined the corps wliicli liad been placed under Arnold's command, and had every tiling 
arranged for carrying olT the traitor, in a boat, to the New ,Ii'rsey shore, (in the very day when he 
was to execute liis scheme, at night, .Arnold's corps were ordered to Virginia, and Chanipe was- 
compelled to accompany it. ' Tliore ho escaped, and joined Lee in the Carolinas. 



1781.] SEVENTH TEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 327 




CAPTOR .S MEDAL. 



The young soldier has always been more pitied than blamed ; -while the namo 
of Arnold will ever be regarded wiUi the bitterest scorn.' Although ho did not 
accomplish his wicked schemes, he received the stipulated reward for his treason- 
able services. And history, too, has given him its reward of recorded shame, 
while those who were instrumental in securing 
Andre, and with him the evidences of the foul 
treason, are honored by the nation with its ever- 
lasting trratitude. Thankful for deliverance from 
the dangers of treason, Congress voted [Nov. 3, 
1780] each of the three young militia men, a sil- 
ver medal and a pension of two hundred dollars a 
year, for life. And marble monuments have been 
erected to their memories f while the sentiment of 
sympathy for the unfortunate Andre, hiis also caused a memorial to him, to be 
erected at Tarry town, upon the spot where he was executed. 

And now another year drew to a close, and yet the patriots were not sub- 
dued. England had already expended vast treasures and much blood in en- 
deavors to subjugate them ; and, on account of the rebellion, had involved 
herself in open war with Franco and Spain. Notwithstanding all this, and 
unmindful of the fact that a large French land and naval armament was already 
on the American shores,* she seemed to acquire fresh vigor as every new ob- 
stixcle presented itself And when the British ministry learned that Holland, 
the maritime rival of England, was secretly negotiating a treaty with the United 
States for loans of money and other assistance, they caused a declaration of war 
against that government to be immediately proclaimed [Dec. 20, 1780], and 
procured from Parliament immense appropriations of men and money, ships and 
stores, to sustain the power of Great Britain on land and sea. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

SEVENTH TEAR OP THE "WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. [1181.] 

One of the noblest displays of true patriotism, for which the war for Inde- 
pendence was so remarkable, signalized the opening of the year 1781. Year 



' Benedict Arnold was born in Norwich, Connecticut, in January, 1730. He was bred to the 
business of an apotliecary, and for some time carried on tliat, witli bookselling, in New Haven. 
We have already met him in his career during the war, up to the time of his treason. We shall 
meet him again, in Virginia [page 330], with the enemy. At the close of the war, he went to En- 
gland, then to Nova Scotia, but lie was everywhere despised. He died in London, in June, 1801, 
where, just three years afterward, his wife also died. 

' On one side is the word "Fidelity," and on the other, "Vincit amor patrle" — "The lovo 
of country conquers." 

' To Paulding, in St. Peter's chnrch-yard, about two miles from PeeksklU, and to Van Wart m 
Greenbnrg church-yard, a little more than tliat distance from Tarrytown. WiUiams was buried in 
Schoharie county, where a monument is about to be erected to his memory. * Pago 323. 



828 Till'; RKVOLUTION. [1781. 

after year the poldiiM-s li;iil siilVcrod every priviition, from lack of money and 
clothing. Faction liiul now corrupted tlie Continental ('ongreas, and the public 
welfare Hufl'ered on account of the tardiness of tliat body in the performance of 
its legitimate duties. Continental money had become almost Nvorthlcss,' and 
tlie pity of officers and men was greatly in arrears. The frecjnent promises of 
Congress had i)een as freijuently unfulfilled, and the connnon soldiers had cause 
to be dissatisiieil with the illiberal interpretation which their officers gsive to 
the terms of enlistment.' They had asked in vain for aid ; and finally, on the 
first day of January, 1781, thirteen hundred of the reinisylvnnia line, whose 
time, as they understood it, had expired, left the camp at Morristown,' with the 
avowed determination of niarciiing to I'liiladelphia, and in person demanding 
justice from the national legislature, (leneral Wayne' was in command of the 
Pennsylvania troops, and was much beloved by them. He exerted all his influ- 
ence, by threats and persuasions, to liring them back to duty until their griev- 
ances should 1)0 re<lresse(l. They would not listen to his remonstrances ; and, 
on cocking his pistol, they presented their bayonets to his breast, saying, " We 
respect and love you ; often have you led us into the field of battle, but we are 
no longer under your eonnnand; we warn you to be on your guard; if you fire 
your pistol, or attempt to enforce your commands, wo shall put you instantly 
to death." "Wayne ajijicaled to tlieir patriotism ; they pointed to the impo- 
sitions of Congress, lie reminded them of the strength their conduct would 
give to the enemy ; they exhibited their tattered garments and enmciated forms. 
Tliey avowed tlieir willingness to support the cause of freedom, for it was dear 
Id tlieir hearts, if !id('(|ii;ite jirovision eould he made for tlieir comfort, and then 
boldly reiterated their inlciitioii to nunt'h directly to Philadelphia, and demand 
from CongrchS a redress of their grievances. 

Finding tlireats and jiersuasions useless, Wayne concluded to accompany 
the mutineers. When they reached Princeton, they presented the general with 
a written jirogramme of tlieir demands. It appeared reasonable ; but not being 
authorized to jironiise them any thing, the matter was referred to Congress. 
That body immediately appointed a commission to confer with the insurgents. 
The result was a eomplianee with their just demands, and the disbanding of a 
largo part of the Pennsylvania line, for the winter, which was filled by new 
recruits in the spring.' 



' Pago 246. Thirty dollars in pnppr were then worth only ono in silver. 

' Tho tonns, as oxprcssi'ii, woro, that thoy shoiilil " sitvo fur three years, or lUirinfr the war;" 
that is, I'or three years if tho war eoiitimieil, or ho ilisehartjed sooner if tlie war slioiilil end .sooner. 
Tho oflieers el.iiiuril that they were hound to serve as ion^t as the war should eontiiuie. 

' The head-iiuarters of Wa.shiii^^lnii were now at New Windsor, just above the Hudson HiRh- 
lanils. The rennsylvania troops were cantoned at Morristown, New Jersey; and the Now .Tersey 
troops were at I'oniiiton, in the 8;iine State. ' Vngo 298. 

' IntellJKeneo of this revolt reaehed Washinfjton and Sir Henry Clinton on the same day. 
Washington took nieivsures ininieiiiately to su]ipress the mutiny, and pivvent the had inlluenee of its 
txnmplo. Sir Henry Clinton, niistakhifr the spirit of Ihenuitineers, lliou^'ht to piin great advantftgo 
by the event. He dispati-hed two eniissarie.s, a liritish serjreani, and a New .lersey Tory named 
OKdeii. to the insur^i'iits, with the wrilten oiler that, on laying down their anus and nmrehing to 
New York, they .should reeeive their arrearages, and the amount of the depreciation of the Conti- 
nental euiTeney, in hard eiush ; that they should lie well eletlied, have a IVee piu-don for all past 
oObusos, and bo taken under tho protoction of tlio Britiali goveniuiout; and that no military service 



IISI.] SEVENTH YEAR OP TUB "WAR FOR I N D E r END ENC E. 329 

Oil the IStli of January, a portion of the New Jersey line, at Pompton, 
followed the example of their comrades at Morristown. The mutiny was sooa 
quelled [January 27], but by harsher means than Wayno had employed. Gen- 
oral Rolicrt Howe' was sent by Washington, with five hundred men, to rcstorff 
order. Two of the ringleaders were hanged, and the remainder quietly sul)- 
mitted. These events had a salutary effect. They aroused Congress and the 
people to the necessity of more efficient ineasnres for the support of the army. 
Ta.xes were imposed and cheerfully paid ; a special agent, sent abroad to obtain 
loans, Wiia quite successful," and a national bank" was established at Philadel- 
phia, and pliu^ed under the charge of Roliert Morris,' to whose superintendence 
Congress had recently intrusted the public Treasury. To his efforts and finan- 
cial credit, the country was indebted for the means to commence offensive opera- 
tions in the spring of 1781. He collected the ta.xes, and l>y the free use of his 
ample private fortune, and his public credit, he supplied the army with Hour 
and other necessaries, and doubtless prevented their disbanding by their own 
act. 

Let us now turn our attention to events in the South. While half-starved, 
half-naked troops were making such noble displays of patriotism amid the snows 

should be required of tliem, unless voluntarily oflerod. Sir Henry requested them to appoint agents 
to troiit with hi.s and adjust tlio terms of a treaty; and, not doubtiiif; the success of liis plana, ho 
went to Staten l.-<l;uid himself, witli a larf,'c liody of troop.M, to act as circuiiislauccs nii(;hl iV(|uiro. 
Like his mastora at hoiao, lio entirely iiiisappreiiendud tiio .spirit !uid the inceulivos to action of tho 
American soldiers. They were not niorccnary — not soldiers by profession, iigliting merely for hire. 
Tho protection of their homes, tlicir wives and little ones, and tlio defense of holy ))rinciple.s, which 
their general intellij^once understood and .appreciated, formed tlie motive-power and the bond of union 
of tho American army ; and tlie soldier's money stipend was tho least attractive of all the induoo- 
monts whicli urged liiin to tal<e up arms. Yet as it was iiecc3.sary to liis coniliirt, and even hia 
existence, tile waul of it alTorded a just pretext for tlie assumption of powers delegated to a few. 
The mutiny w.as a democratic movement: and, wliilo the patriot felt juslilied in using his weapons 
to redress griovanci'S, he still looked with horror upon tho armed oppressors of his country, and 
regarded tiie a:'t and stain of tre:ison, uwifr auy drciimstaiice-f, iia worse than the infliction of death. 
Clinton's proposals were, therefijro, rejected witli disdain. " See, conirudea," said one of tlie leadens, 
"ho takes us for traitors. Lot us show him that tlio American army can furoisli but one Arnold, 
and tliat America lias no truer friends tliaii we." They immediately seized tho emissaries, who, 
being delivered, witli Clinton's papers, into the hands of Wayne, wero tried and executed as spies, 
and tho reward wliicli liad boon olfered for their apprelieusion was teiirlered to the mutineers who 
seized tliem. Tliey sealed tlio pledge of their patriotism Ijy nobly rehisiiig it, saying, "Necessity 
wrung from us the act of demandin;.; justice from Congress, but wo desire no reward li>r doing our 
duty to our bleeding country I" A committee of Congress, appointed to report on the condition of 
the army, said, a short time previous to this event, that it was " unpaid lor five months; that it 
seldom had more than six days' provisions in adv.anco, and was, on several occasions, for sundry 
successive days, without meat; that llio medical department had neither sugar, coll'ce, tea, choco- 
late, wine, nor spirituous liquors of any kind, and that every department of tho army was without 
money, and had not oven the shadow of credit left." ' Pago 292. 

'' Colonel John Ijaurens [See page IMS], a son of Henry Laurens [page 34S], had been sent 
to Franco to ask for aid. Wliilo earnestly pressing his suit, vvitli Vergennes, tho l''rench iiiiniBU'r, 
one day, that official said, that tho king had every disposition lo favor llie United States. This 
patronizing expression kindled the iniliguatiou of the young dijilomatist, ami he replied with empha- 
sis, " Favor, sir I The respect which I owe to my country will not admit the term. Say tliat tli9 
obligation is mutual, and I will acknowledge the obligation. But, as the last argument I shall oder 
to your Excellency, the sword which 1 now wear in ilefonae of France, as well as my own country, 
unless the succor I solicit is immediately aceord<'il, I may bo comjielled, within a short time, to draw 
against Franco, a-s a Briti.sh subject." This had the elVeet intended. The l''reneb dreaded a recon- 
ciliation of the colonies with fireat Britain, and soon a subsidy of one million two hundred thousand 
dollars, and a further sum, as a loan, wits granted. The French minister also gave a guaranty for 
a Dutch loan of aliout two millions of dollars. 

' This was called the Bank of North America, and was the first institution of tho kind estab- 
lished in this country. • I'ago 2G4. 



330 THE RKVOLUTION. [1781. 

of New Jersey, Arnold, the arch-traitor," now engaged in the service of his 
xoyal master, was coiumencing a series of depredations upon lower Virginia, 
•with about sixteen hundred British and Tory troops, and a few armed vessels. 
He arrived at Hampton Roads' on the 30th of December. An.xious to distin- 
guish himself, he pushed up the James River, and after destroying [January 5, 
1781] a large quantity of public and private stores at Richmond, and vicinity, 
he went to Portsmouth [Jan. 20], opposite Norfolk, and made that his head- 
quarters. Great efforts were made by the Americans to seize and punish the 
traitor. The Virginia militia men were collected in great numbers, for the 
purpose ; and Jefferson, then governor of that State, offered a reward of five 
thousand guineas for his capture.^ La Fayette was sent into Virginia, with 
twelve hundred men, to oppose him ; and a portion of the French fleet went 
[March 8, 1781] from Rhode Island, to shut him up in the Elizabeth River, 
and assist in capturing him. But all these efforts fiviled. He was brave, vigil- 
ant, and exceedingly cautious. Admiral Arbuthnot' pursued and attacked the 
French fleet on the IGth of March, and compelled it to return to Newport ; and 
General Phillips soon afterward joined Arnold [March 26], with more than 
two thousand men, and took the chief command. In April, the traitor accom- 
panied Phillips on another expedition up the James River, and after doing as 
much mischief as possible between Petersburg and Richmond, he returned to 
New York." We shall meet Arnold presently on the New England coast." 

During the year 1781, the southern States became the most important 
theater of military operations. General Greene' was appointed, on the 30th of 
October, 1780, to succeed General Gates in the direction of the southern army. 
He first proceeded to Hillsborough, to confer with Governor Nash, and other 
civil officers of North Carolina, and arrived at the head-quarters of the army, 
at Charlotte, on the second of December, On the following day he took formal 
command, and Gates immediately set out for tlie head-quarters of Washington, 
in East Jersey, to submit to an inquiry into his conduct at Camden,' which 
Congress had ordered. Greene, with his usual energy, at once prepared to 
confront or pursue the enemy, as occasion might require. He arranged his 
little army into two divisions. With tlie main body he took post at Cheraw, 
east of the Pedee, and General Morgan was sent with the remainder (about 
a thousand strong) to occupy the country near the junction of the Pacolet and 
Broad Rivers. Cornwallis, who was just preparing to march into North Car- 

' Page 325. ' Page 243. ' Pago 326. * Page 310. 

• General Phillips sickened and died at Petersburg. Lord Cornwallis, who arrived from North 
Carolina soon afterward [page 338] took the chief command. In a skirmish, a short disUince from 
Petersburg, on the 27tli of April [1781], in which Arnold was engaged, he took some Americans 
prisoners. To one of them he put the question, " If the Americans should catch me, what would 
tliey do to me?" The soldier promptly replied, "They would bury with military honors the leg 
which was wounded at Saratoga, and hang the remainder of you upon a gibbet." 

• Page 340. 

' Nathanial Greene was bom, of Quaker parents, in Rhode Island, in 1740. He was an anchor- 
smith, and was pursuing his trade when the Revolution broke out. He hastened to Boston after 
the skirmish at Lexington, and from that time until the close of the war, he wa.s one of the most 
u.'jeful officers in the army. Lie died near Savannah, in .June, 1786, and was buried in a vault ia 
that city. His sepulchre can not now be identified. No living person knows in what vault his 
reinaina were deposited, and there is no record to cast light upon the question. ' Page 315. 



1181.] SEVENTH TEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 331 

olina again,' when Greene made this disposition of his army, found himself in 
a dangerous position, for he was placed between the two divisions. Unwilling 
to leave Morgan in his rear, he sent Tarleton to capture or disperse his com- 




mand. The Americans retreated before this superior force, but were overtaken 
at the Coivpe?is, in Spartanburg district, and compelled to fight." There, well 
posted upon an eminence, Morgan^ and his brave follow- 
ers turned upon their pursuers. Tarleton was discon- 
certed by this movement, for he expected to overtake the 
Americans while on the wing ; yet, feeling confident of 
an easy victory, he quickly arranged his line in battle 
order. It was now nine o'clock in the morning [January 
17, 1781]. At a signal from Tarleton, his advance gave 
a shout, and rushed furiously to the contest, under cover 
of artillery, and an incessant discharge of musketry. 




c.>^^ 



GENERAL MOBOAK. 



' Page 318. 

" The scene of the battle is among the Thicketty Mountains, west of the Broad River. It was 
called Oou'pens from the fact, that some time before the Revolution, some traders at Camden kept 
herds of cows in that fertile region. 

' Daniel Morgan, commander of the famous rifle corps of the Revolution, was bom in New Jer- 
sey, in 1138, and was in the humble sphere of a wagoner, when called to the field. He had been 
a soldier under Br.addock, and joined Washington at Cambridge, in 1775. He served with distinc- 
tion in the army of the Revolution, and was a farmer in Virginia after the war, where he died ia 
1802. 




832 THK REVOLUTION. [1781. 

The Americans were prepared to receive tliem, and combatted with them for 
more than two hours, with skill and bravery. The British were defeated, with 
a loss of almost three hundred men in killed and 
wounded, five hundred made prisoners, and a large quan- 
tity of arms, aninmnition, and stores. It was a brilliant 
victory ; and Congress gave Morgan a gold medal, as n. 
token of its approbation. Colonels Howard' and Wash- 
ington," whose soldierly conduct won the battle, received 
each a silver medal. 

When the battle was ended, Morgan pushed forward 

COLOXEL WASIIINQTON. • ,i i • • ■ ^ T ^ ^l r^ . -L l 

witn Ills prisoners, intending to cross the Catawba, and 
make his way toward Virginia. Cornwallis started in pursuit of him, as soon 
as he heard of the defeat of Tarleton. He destroyed his heavy baggage, and 
hastened with his whole army toward the Catawba to intercept Morgan and 
his prisoners, before they should cress that stream. But he was too late. He 
did not reach that river until in the evening, two hours after Morgan had 
crossed. Then feeling confident of his prey, he deferred his passage of the 
stream until morning. A heavy rain during the night filled the river to its 
brim ; and while the British were detained by the flood, Morgan had reached 
the banks of the Yadkin, where he was joined by CJeneral Greene and his escort. 
One of the most remarkable military movements on record, now occurred. 
It was the retreat of the American army, under Greene, from the Catawba, 
through North Carolina, into Virginia. When the waters of the Catawba had 
subsided, the next day, Cornwallis crossed, and resumed his pursuit. He 
reached the western bank of the Yadkin on the 3d of February [1781], just as 
the Americans were safely landed on the eastern shore. There he was again 
arrested in his progress by a sudden swelling of the floods. Onward the patriots 
pressed, and soon again Cornwalhs was in full chase. At Guilford Court-house, 
the capital of Guilford county, Greene was joined [February 7J, by his main 
body from Cheraw,' and all continued the flight; for they were not strong 
enough to turn and fight. After many hardships and narrow escapes during 
the retreat, the Americans reached the Dan on the loth of February, and 

' John Eager Howard, of the Maryland line. Ho was bom in Baltimore county in 1752. He 
went into military service at tlie coramencenieiit of the war. He wa.s iu all the principal battles of 
the Revolution, was chosen governor of Maryland iu 1718, was afterwad United States Senator, and 
died in October, 1827. 

' William Washington, a relative of the general. He was bom in Stafford county, Virginia. 
He entered tlio army under Mercer, who was killed at Princeton [page 269], and greatly distin- 
guished himself at the South, as a commander of a corps of cavalry. Taken prisoner at Eutaw 
Springs [page 338], he remained a captive till the close of the war, and died in Charleston, in 
March, 1810. In a personal combat with Tarleton in the battle at the Cowpens, Washington 
•wounded liis antagonist in his hand. Some months afVem-ard, Tarleton said, snceringly, to Mrs. 
Willie Jones, a witty American lady, of Halifa.v, North Carolina, "Colonel Wasliington, I am told, 
is illiterate, and can not write his own name." "Ahl colonel," fJaid Mrs. Jones, "you ought to 
know better, for you bear evidence that he cm make his mark." At another time he expressed a 
desire to see Colonel Wa.s!iington. Mrs. Ashe, Mrs. Jones's sister, instantly replied, " Had j'ou 
looked behind you at the Cowpens you might have had that plea.sure." Stung by this keen wit, 
Tarleton placed his hand upon his sword. General Leslie fpage 347 ), who w.is present, remarked, 
" Say what you please, Mrs. Ashe ; Colonel Tarleton knows better than to insult a lady in my 
presence," • Page 330. 



nsi.] SEVENTH YEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 333 

crossed its rising waters safely into the friendly bosom of Halifax county, in 
Virginia. When Cornwallis arrived, a few hours later [February 14], the 
stream was too much swollen to allow him to cross. For the third time the 
waters, as if governed by a special Providence, interposed a barrier between 
the pursuers and the pursued. Mortified and dispirited, the earl here aban- 
doned the chase, and moving sullenly southward through North Carolina, he 
3Stablished his camp at Hillsborough. 

General Greene remained in Virginia only long enough to refresh his troops, 
and receive recruits,' and then he re- crossed the Dan 
[February 23], to oppose Cornwallis in his efforts to 
embody the loyalists of North Carolina under the royal 
banner. Colonel Lee," with his cavalry, scoured the 
country around the head waters of the Haw and Deep 
Rivers, and by force and stratagem foiled the efforts 
of Tarleton, who was recruitinc; in that region. On one 
occasion he defeated and dispersed [March 2] a body of 
three hundred loyalists under Colonel Pyle,' near the 
Alamance Creek, after which the Tories kept quiet, and 
very few dared to take up arms. Greene, in the mean 
while, had moved cautiously forward, and on the first 

of March [1781], he found himself at the head of almost five thousand troops. 
Feeling strong enough now to cope with Cornwallis, he sought an engagement 
with him, and on the 15th they met, and fiercely contended, near Guilford 
Court-house, about five miles from the present village of 
Greensborough, in Guilford county. North Carolina. 
That battle, which continued for almost two hours, was 
one of the severest of the war. Although the Americans 
were repulsed and the British became masters of the field, 
the victory was almost as destructive for Cornwallis as a 
defeat. " Another such victory," said Charles Fo.x in the 
British House of Commons, " will ruin the British army."* 
Both parties suffered severely ; and, in some degree, the 
line of the Scotch ballad might be applied to them ; 




COLONEL HENKT LEE. 




BATTLE OF GUILFORD. 



" They baith did fight, they baith did beat, they baith did rin awa." 



' On liis way south, to take comm.and of the southern army, ho left the Baron Steuben [page 
291] in Virginia, to gather recruits, provisions, &c., and forward them to him. This service th» 
Baron performed with efficiency. 

" Henry Lee was born in Virginia, in 1756. He entered the military service as captain of a 
Virginia company in 1776, and iu 1777 joined the continental army. At the head of a legion, ho 
performed extraordinary services during the war, especially at the South. He was afterward gov- 
ernor of Virginia, and a member of Congress. He died in 1818. 

' Lee sent two young countrymen, whom he had captured, to the camp of Pyle, to inform that 
leader that Tarleton was approaching, and wished to meet him. Pyle had never seen Tarleton, and 
when he came up he supposed Lee and his party to bo tliat of the renowned British officer. 
Friendly salutations were expressed, and at a word, the Americans fell upon the loyalists, killed 
almost a hundred of them, and dispersed the remainder. This event took place two or three miles 
from the scene of the Regulator battle mentioned on page 22:1. 

' That statesman moved in committee, " That his majesty's ministers ought immediately to take 
every possible means for concluding peace with our American colonies." Young WiUiam Pitt, tha 




334 TllR KKVOLUTION. [1781. 

The battalions of Cornwallis were so shattered,' that ho could not maintain 
tlio :i(lvaiit;igo ho had {gained ; while tho Ainciicans ivtreated in good order to 
the Hecily Fork, 'i'horoiigiily dispirited, he abandoned Western Carolina, and 
moved [Marcii r.i| with liis wiiole army, to Wilmington, near the sea-board. 
Greene rallied his (i)rces and j)ursued the British as far as Deep River, in 
Chatham covmty. There he relinquished the pursuit, and prepared to re-enter 
South Carolina. 

Lord ]{awdon,' one of the most effieient of Cornwallis's eliief officers, was 
now in command of a British force at Camden. On the Oth of April, Greene 
marched directly for that place, and on the 19th, he 
eiieani])ed on Ilolikirk's Hill, about a mile from Rawdon's 
intrenehments. !Si.\ days afterward [April 25, 1781], ho 
was surprised' and defeated by Rawdon, after a sharp battle 
for several hours, in which the Americans lost, in killed, 
wounded, and missing, two hundred and sixty-si.x men. 
Tho British lost two hundred and fifty-eight.* Tiie British 
retired to their works at Camden, and Greene, with his 
little army, encamped for the night on the north side of 
Sanders's Creek.' Greene conducted his retreat so well, 

IIOIIKIRKS UII.U , , . , 11 1 . -,1 1 , -1 

tliat lie carried away all ins artillery and baggage, with 
fifty British prisoners, who wero captured by Colonel Washington." 

This defeat was unexpected to Greene,' yet he was not tho man to be 

successor of his fatlior, tlio Earl of CImtliam, invoiRhod oloquontly ajjainst a further prosecution of 
the war. Ho avorroti that it was "wicked, barliarous, unjust, and diabdUeal — conceived in injust- 
ice, nurtured in Iblly — a monstrous tliin^,' that eontiined every eliaracteristic of moral depravity and 
human turpitude — as niiseliievous to tlie unliapjiy people of I'lnuland as to tho Americans." Yet, 
as in former years, tlie liritisli government was lilind and Btul>bom slill. 

' Tho Americans lost in killed and wounded, about lour hundred men, besides almost a thousand 
who deserted to tlieir liomcs, Tlio loss of tho liritisli was over six hundred. Among tlie officers 
who wero killed was Lieutenant-Colonel Webster, who was one of the most eflieient men in the 
Briti.sh army. On this occasion, (Ireene's force was mueli superior in number to that of Cornwallis, 
and he had every advanta(;e of jmsition. Kvcnts such as are (generally overlooked by the lii.Mlorian, 
but which e.\liiliit a prominent trait in the cliaracterof tlio people of North Carolina, occurred during 
this battle, and deserve great prominence in a descriptiim of the gloomy picture, for they Ibrm 
a few touches of radiant light in the midst of tho sombro coloring. \\'hile the roar of cannon 
boomed over the country, groups of women, in the liulValo and Alamance congregations, who were 
under the piustoral charge of the Reverend Dr. Caldwell, might have been seen engaged in common 
prayer to the Hod of Hosts for his protection and aid; and in many places, the solitary voice of a 
jiious woman went up to the Divine Ear, with the earnest pleadings of faith, for the success of tho 
Americans. Tho battling hosts wero surrounded by a cordon o( praymij tcomcn during those dread- 
ful hours of contest, ' I'agc 315. 

* (ireene wa.s breakfiisting at a spring on tho eastern slope of Uobkirk's Hill, when Kawdon's 
nrmy, by a circuitous rout through a forest, fell upon him. Some of his men wore cleaning their 
guns, others wero washing their clothes, and all were unsuspicious of danger. 

* Tlie number killed wa.s reiniirkably small. Only oightoon of tho Americans, and thirty-oight 
of the Hritish, were slain on tlie battle-Held. * Pago 315. 

* He had captured two hundred, but hiustily paroling tho ofTleors and some of tho men, he took 
only liIVy with him. 

' (ireene had some desponding views of the future at this time. To Luzerne, tho French min- 
i.ster at I'hilailelphia, he earneatly wrote: "This distres.sed country cannot struggle much longer 
without more elicclnal support. * ♦ * 'Wo light, get beaten, rise, and light again. The wholo 
country is one continued scene of blood and slaughter." To La Fayette, he wrote: "You may 
depend upon it, that nothing can equal the sutVerings of our littlo army, but their merit." To Gov- 
rnior Reed, of reiinsylvania, he wrote: "If onr good friends, tlie French, cannot lend a helping 
linnd to save these sinking States, they must and will fall." At tliat time, tho French anny hiul 
roinained for severid uioutha inactive, in Now lOnglaud. 



1781.] SEVENTH TEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 335 

crushed by adversity. On the morning succeeding the battle, he retired as far 
as Rugeley"s Mills, and (hen srossing the Wateree, he took a strong position 
for offensive and defensive operations. The two armies were now about e(iual 
iu numbers, and Greene's began to increase. Alarmed by this, and for the 




^tJ 



^e/ccc^ OnJc 



safety of his posts in the lower country, Rawdon set fire to Camden and 
retreated [May 10, 1781] to Nelson's Ferry, on the Santee. lie had ordered 
Lieutenant-Colonel Cruger' to abandon Ninety-six" and join Brown at Augusta,' 
and had also directed Maxwell, the commander of Fort Granby,* to leave that 
post, and retire to Orangeburg," on the North Edisto. But his orders and his 
movements were made too late. Within the space of a week, four important 
posts fell into the hands of the Americans," and Greene was making rapid marches 
toward Ninety-six. Lee had pressed forward and co-operated with Piekens in 

' Page 313. 

' So called because it wag iiiiicty-si.K miles from the frontier fort, Prince Georpo, on the Keowee 
River. Its site is ocoupiod by tlie pleasant village of Cambridge, in Abbeville District, one luindred 
and forty-seven miles north- west from Charleston. ' Pago 313. 

* On the western side of the Congarec, two miles from the present city of Columbia, South 
Carolina, 

' On the east bank of the North Edisto, about sixty-fivo miles south of Columbia. 
Lee .and Marion were the principjil leaders against these posts. Orangeburg was taken on ths 
11th of May ; Fort Motte on the 1 2tli ; the post at Nelson's Ferry on the 1 +th, and Fort firanby on 
the 16th. Fort Watson, situated on the Santee, a few miles above Nelson's Ferry, was taken on 
the 16th of .\pril. Nelson's Ferry is at the mouth of Eutaw Crook, on the Santee, .about fifty miles 
from Charleston. Fort Motte was near the jiini'ticm of the Wateree and Congaree Rivers, and was, 
beonuse of its geographical jiosition, the most important of all those posts. It was composed of the 
fine residence of Rebecca Motto (a widowed motlior, with six childronl, and temporary fortifications 
construoted around it. Mrs. Motte, who wa,s an ardent Whig, had been driven to her firm-bouse 
upon an eminence near by. M:irion and T.oe appeared lipfore Fort Motte with a considerable force, 
but having only one piece of artillery, could make but slight impression. The expected approach 



336 



THE REVOLUTION. 



[nsL 



holding the country-between Ninety-six and Augusta, to prevent a junction of 
the garrisons at either of those places ; and thus, by skillful operations, the 
Americjuis completely paralyzed the lately potent strength of the enemy. At 
the bcinning of June [1781], the British possessed only three posts in South 
Carolina, namely, Charleston, Nelson's Ferry, and Ninety-six. 

On the 22d of May [1781J, Greene commenced the siege of Ninety-six,' 
with less than a thousand regulars and a few raw militia. Kosciuszko,' the 
brave Pole, was his chief engineer, and the post being too strong to be captured 
by assault, the Americans commenced making regular ap- 
proaches, by parallels. ° Day after day the work weiit 
slowly on, varied by an occasional sortie. For almost a 
month, the efforts of the Americans were unavailing. Then 
hearing of the approach of Rawdon, with a strong force, to 
the relief of Crugcr, they made an unsuccessful effort, on 
the 18th of June, to take the place by storm. They raised 
the siege the following evening [June 19], and retreated 
Rawdon pursued them a short distance, when he wheeled 
and marched to Orangeburg. 

Although unsuccessful at Ninety-six, detachments of the Republican army 
were victorious elsewhere. While this siege was pro- 
gressing, Lee and Pickens, with Clarke and others of 
Georgia, were making successful efforts on the Savan- 
nah River. Lee captured Fort Galphin, twelve miles 
below Augusta, on the 21st of May, and then he sent 
an officer to that post, to demand of Brown an instant 
surrender of his garrison. Brown refused, and the 
siege of Augusta was commenced on the 23d. It 
continued until the 4th of June, when a general as- general pickens 




FORT NINETT-SIX. 

beyond the Saluda. 




of Rawdon, would not allow them to make the slow process of a regular siege. Lee proposed to 
hurl some burning missile upon the building, and consume it. To this destruction of her property, 
Mrs. Motte at once consented, and bringing out a bow and some arrows, which had been brought 
from the East Indies, these were used successfully for the purpose of conveying fire to the dr)' rooC 
The house was partially destroyed, when the Britisli surrendered. The patriotic lady then regaled 
both the American and British officers with a good dinner at her own table. Colonel Horry (one 
of Marion's olBcers), in his narrative, mentions some pleasing incidents which occurred at the table 
of Mrs. Motte, on this occasion. Among tho prisoners was t^Japtain Ferguson, an officer of consider- 
able reputation. Finding himself near Horry, Ferguson said, " You are Colonel Horry, I presume, 
sir." Horry replied in tho affirmative, when Ferguson continued, " Well, I was with Colonel Wat- 
son when he fouglit vour General Marion on Sam]nt. I tliink I saw you there with a party of 
horse, and jUso at Nelson's Ferry, when ilarion surprised o\ir p.arty at tho house. But," he con- 
tinued, " I was hid in liigli grass, and escaped. You were fortunate in your escape at Sampit, for 
Watson and Small had twelve Imndred men." " If so," replid Horry, " I certamly was fortunate, 
for I did not suppose tliey had more than half that number." " I consider myself;" added the cap. 
tain, " equally fortunate in escaping at Nelson's Old Field." " Truly you were," answered Horiy 
dryly, " for Marion liad but thirtv militia on tliat occasion." Tlie officers present could not suppress 
laughter. Wlien Greene inquired of Horry how he came to aflront Captain Ferguson, he replied, 
"He affronted himself by telling his own story." 

' The principal work was a star redoubt [note 3, page 192]. There was a picketed inclosure 
[note 1, page 127] around the Uttle village; and on the west side of a stream running from a 
spring (a) was a stockade [note 2, page 183] fort The besiegers encamped at four diflbrent points 

around the works. , , ,^ , ' ^'^? P^mu 

* These are trenches, dug in a zig-zag line in the direction of the fortress to be assaileo. in» 



1781.] SEVENTH YEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 337 

sault was agreed upon. Brown now proposed a surrender ; and the following 
day [June 5, 1781J the Americans took possession of that important post. 
They lost fifty-ono men, killed and wounded; the British lost fifty-two killed, 
and three hundred and thirty-four (including the wounded) were made pris- 
oners. At the close of the siege, Lee and Pickens' hastened to join Greene 
before Ninety-six, and all, on the approaoh of Rawdon, i-etreated beyond the 
Saluda, as we have observed. 

The two chief commanders of the belligerent forces now changed relative 
positions. When Rawdon retired toward Orangeburg, Greene became his pur- 
suer, and sent a message to Marion and Sumter, then on the Santee, to take a 
position in front of the enemy, so as to retard his progress.' Finding Rawdon 
strongly intrenched at Orangeburg, Greene deemed it prudent not to attack 
him. The Americans crossed the Congaree, and the main body encamped on 
the High Hills of Santee, in Santee district, there to pass the hot and sickly 
season. Leaving his troops at Orangeburg, in the command of Colonel Stew- 
art (who had come up from Charleston with a reinforcement), Rawdon went to 
the sea-board and embarked for England.^ 

Early in August, Greene w;is reinforced by North Carolina troops, under 
General Sumner ; and at the close of that month ho crossed the Wateree and 
■Congaree, and marched upon Orangeburg. Stewart (who had been joined by 

earth is cast up in such a way that the workmen are shielded from shots from the assailed works, 
and in tills way they get near enough to undermine a, fort, or erect a battery, so as to have a power- 
ful effect. 

' Andrew Pickens was bom in Pennsylvania, in 1739. In childhood he went to South Car- 
olina, and was one of the first in tlio field for liberty, in the upper country of that State. He was a 
Tery useful officer, and good citizen. Ho died in 1817, at the age of seventy-eight years. 

" It is related that the message to Sumter from Greene was conveyed by Emily Geiger, the 
■daughter of a Crorinan planter in Fairfield district. He prepared a letter to that officer, but none 
of his men appeared willing to .attempt the hazardous service, for the Tories were on the alert, as 
Rawdon was approaching the Congiu-ee. Greene was delighted by the boldness of a young girl, 
not more than eighteen years of age, who came forward and volunteered to carry the letter to Sum- 
ter. With liis usmil caution, ho communicated the contents of the letter to Emily, fearing she 
might lose it on the way. Tlie maiden mounted a Heet horse, and crossing tho Wateree at the 
Camden Ferry, pressed on toward Sumter's camp. Passing througli a dry swamp on tlio second 
day of her journey, slie w.as intercepted by some Tory scouts. Coming from the direction of Greene's 
army, she wa,s an object of suspicion, and was taken to a house on the edge cf the swamp, and con- 
fined in a room. With proper delicacy, they sent for a wom.an to search her person. No sooner 
was she left alone, than she ate up Greene's letter piece by piece. After a while, the matron ar- 
rived, made a ttvroful search, but discovered nothing. With many apologies, Emily was allowed to 
pursue her journey. Sho reacheil Sumter's camp, communicated Greene's- message, and soon Raw- 
don was flying before tho Americans toward Orangeburg. Emily Geiger afterward married Mr. 
Thurwits, a rich planter on tho Congaree. 

' A sliort time before ho sailed, Rawdon was a party to a cruel transaction which created a 
great deal of excitement throughout tho South. Among those who took British protection after the 
fall of Charleston in 17S0 [page nil], was Colonel Isaac llavne, a highly respectable C:iroliniau. 
When General Greene, tho following year, confined tho British to Charleston alone, and their pro- 
tection hid no force, Hayno considered himself released from tho obligations of his parole, took up 
arms for his country, and was made a prisoner. Colonel Balfour was then in chief command at 
Charleston, and from tho beginning seemed determined on tho death of Hayne. Without even the 
form of a tri:J, tint patriot was condemned to be hanged. Not one, not even the prisoner, supposed 
that such a erueltv was contemplated, until the sentence was made public, and he was mformed 
that he h.ad but two days to live. Tho men of the city pleaded for him ; the women signed peti- 
tions, and went in troops, and upon their knees, implored a remission of his sentence. AH was 
in vain. Rawdon h.ad exerted his influence to save the prisoner, hut finally he consented to hi? 
execution, as a traitor, and he became as inexorable as Balfour. Greene was inclined to retaliate, 
but) fortunately, hostilities soon afterward ceased, and the flow of blood was stopped. 

22 



838 TIfl'' REVOLUTION. [1781. 

Cruger from Ninety-six), immediately retreated to Eutaw Springa, near the 
south-west bank of the Santec, and there encamped. Greene pui-sued; and on 
the morning of tlie 8th of September [1781], a severe l)attle eommenccd. The 
British were driven from their camp ; and Greene's troops, like those of Sum- 
|tcr at Hanging Rock," scattered among the tents of the enemy, drinking and 
plundering. The British une.xpeetedly renewed the liattle, and after a bloody 
conflict of about four hours, the Americans were obliged to give way. Stewart 
felt insecure, for the partisan legions were not far ofif, and that night the Brit- 
ish retreated toward Charleston. The ne.xt day [Sept. 0, 1781], Greene ad- 
vanced and took possession of the battle-field, and then sent detachments in 
pursuit of the enemy. Both parties claimed the honor of a victory. It be- 
longed to neither, but the advantage was with the Americans. Congress and 
the whole country g.ive warm expressions of their appreciation of the valor of 
the patriots. The skill, bravery, caution, and acuteness of Greene, were highly 
applauded ; and Congress ordered a gold medal, ornamented with emblems of 
the battle, to be struck in honor of the event, and presented to him, together 
with a British st^mdartl, captured on that occasion. The Americana lost, in 
killed, wounded, and missing, five hundred and fifty-five. The British lost six 
hundred and ninety-throe. 

While these events were transpiring upon the upper watei-s of the Santee,' 
Marion, Sumter, Lee, and other partisans, were driving British detachmcnta 
from post to post, in the lower country, and smiting parties of loyalists in every 
direction. The British finally evacuated all their interior sfcitions, and retired 
to Charleston, jiursued almost to the verge of the city by the bold American 
scouts and partisan troops. At the close of the year [1781] the British at the 
South were confined to Chiudeston and Savannah ; and besides these places, 
they did not hold a single post south of New York. Late in the season 
[November] Greene moved his army to the vicinity of Charleston,' placing it 
between that city and the South Carolina Legislature, then in session at J;ick- 
sonborough ; while AVayne, at the opening of 1782, was closely watching tha 
British at Savannah. 

We left Cornwallia, after the battle at Guilford Court-house, making his 
way toward Wilmington,' then in possession of a small British garrison, under 
Major Craig. Cornwallis arrived there on the seventh of April, 1781, and 
remained long enough to recruit and rest his shattered army. Apprised of 
Greene's march toward Camden, and hoping to draw him away from Lonl 
Riwdon, then encamped there,' he marched into Virginia, joined the forces of 
Phillips and Arnold, at Petersburgh," and then attempted the subjugation of 
that State, lie left Wilmington on the 25th of April, crossed the Roanoke at 

' Page 315. 

' At Coluinbii*, tlio Saliuin and Watcroo join, niul form tlio Congaroo. Tliifi, «-ith otlier and 
inialler tributario^^, form tlio SanUw Tlio Watoroo, aliovo Camden, is called the t'atjiwba. 

* After the battle at Kiitaw Sprintrs, Oeene apiin eneamped on the Iliitb llilU of Sant«e, from 
whence he mnit ont e.\pedition.s toward ('liarlesloii. These wero succosslUl, and the enemy was 
kept closo upon the soa-lward during tUo remainder of tlio war, * Page 334. 

• Pago 315. • Page 338. 



1781.] SEVENTH TEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 339 

Halifax, and on the 20th of May, reached Petersburg. La Fayette was then 
in Virginia,' but his force was too small effectually to oppose the invaders, and 
the State seemed doomed to British rule. 

For the purpose of bringing La Fayette into action, Cornwallis penetrated 
the country beyond Richmond, and destroyed an immense amount of property " 
He also sent out marauding parties in various directions," and for several weeks 
the whole State was kept in great alarm. He finally proceeded [June, 1781] 
sloAvly toward the coast, closely pursued by La Fayette, Wayne, and Steuben. 
While lying at Williamsburg, he received [Juno 29] orders from General 
Clinton, to take post near the sea, in order to reinforce the garrison at New 
York, if necessary, which was now menaced by the combined American and 
French armies. He crossed the James River [July 9] at Old Jamestown, 
where he was attacked by Wayne before he could embark his troops. Wayne 
struck a severe blow, and then skillfully and hastily retreated back to 
the main army under La Fayette, then only two miles distant. His loss was 
inconsiderable, but the attack damaged the British seriously. After crossing 
the river, Cornwallis proceeded by land to Portsmouth, opposite Norfolk ; but 
disliking that situation, he went to Yorktown, on the York River, and com- 
menced fortifying that place and Gloucester Point, opposite. 

The French army under Rochambeau,' in the mean while, had left New 
England, and made its way to the Hudson River, where 
it joined [July 6, 1781] that of the Americans, in the 
vicinity of Dobbs' Ferry." At that time, Washington, 
who had the immediate command of the American 
forces, contemplated an attack upon the British in New 
York city. For six weeks the two armies remained in 
Westchester waiting for the arrival of the Count De 
Grasse, an eminent French naval commander, to co- 
operate in the attack. While preparing to strike the 
blow, Clinton was reinforced [August 11] by nearly three count de roohameatj. 
thousand troops from Europe ; and intelligence came 
from De Grasse that he could not then leave the West Indies. Thus foiled, 
Washington turned his thoughts to Virginia ; and when, a few days afterward, 
he learned from De Barraa, the successor of Ternay,° in command of the French 

' Page 330. 

' The principal object of Cornwallis in marcliing beyond Richmond, was to prevent a junction 
with La Fayette of troops under Wayne, then approaching through Maryland. But the marquis 
was too expert, outmarchod tlio earl, and met Wayne on the 10th of June. 

* Colonel Simcoe, commander of an active corps called the Queen's Rangers, was sent to capture 
or destroy stores at the junction of the Fluvanna and Rivanna Rivers. Cornwallis also dispatched 
Tarleton to attempt the capture of Governor Jefferson and the Legislature, who had fled from Rich- 
mond to Charlottesville, near the residence of Mr. Jefferson. Seven members of the Legislature fell 
into his hands [June 4], and Mr. Jefferson narrowly escaped capture by fleeing from his house to 
the mountains. 

The Count Rochambeau was born at Vendome, in France, in 1'725. He was a distinguished 
officer in tlio French army, and after his return from America, was made a Field Marshal by his 
king. He was pensioned by Bonaparte, and died in 1807. ' Page 257, 

Admiral Temay died at Newport, soon afl»r the arrival of the fleet there, in the summer of 
1780. His remains were deposited in Trinity Chorch-yard there, and a marble slab was placed 
over hia grave. 





340 THE REVOLUTION. [1781. 

fleet at Newport, that De Grasse was about to sail for the 
Chesapeake, he resolved to march southward, and assist 
La Fayette against Cornwaliis. He wrote deceptive let- 
ters to General Greene in New Jersey, and sent them so 
as to be intercepted by Sir Henry Clinton.' He thus 
blinded the British commander to his real intentions : and 
it was not until the allied armies had crossed the Hudson, 
passed through New Jersey, and were marching from the 
Delaware toward the head of Chesapeake Bay," that Clin- 
couNT Liii tiRAs.sE. tou was convincc'd that an attack upon the city of New 
York was not the object of Washington's movements. It 
was then too late for successful pursuit, and he endeavored to recall the Amer- 
icans by sending Arnold to desolate the New England coast. Although there 
was a terrible massacre perpetrated by the invaders at Fort Griswold" [Septem- 
ber 6, 1781], and New London, opposite (almost in sight of the traitor's birth- 
place),' was burned, it did not check the progress of Washington toward that 
goal where he was to win the greatest prize of his military career. Nor did 
reinforcements sent by water to aid Cornwaliis, effect their object, for when 
Admiral Graves arrived off the Capes [September 5], De Grasse was there to 
guard the entrance to the Chesapeake.' He went out to fight Graves, but after 
a partial action, both withdrew, and the French fleet was anchored [September 
10] within the Capes." 

While Cornwaliis was fortifying Yorktown and Gloucester, and the hostile 
fleets were in the neighboring waters, the allied armies, twelve thousand strong,' 
were making their way southward. They arrived before Yorktown on the 28th 
of September, 1781 ; and after compelling the British to abandon their out- 
works, commenced a regular siege. The place was completely invested on the 
30th, the line of the allied armies extending in a semi-circle, at a distance of 
almost two miles from the British works, each wing resting upon the York 
River. Having completed some batteries, the Republicans opened a heavy can- 
nonade upon the town and the British works on the evening of the 9th of Oc- 

' These letters directed Greene to prepare for an attack on New Tork. 

' This is gener.illy called in the letters and histories of the time, "Head of Elk," the narrow, 
upper part of the Chesapeake being called Elk River. There .stands the village of Elkton. 

* Arnold landed at the mouth of the Thames, and proceeded to attack Fort Trumbull, near New 
London. The garrison evacuated it, and the village was burned. Another division of the expe- 
dition went up on the ea.st side of the Thames, attacked Fort (Iriswold at Groton, and after Colonel 
Ledyard had surrendered it, ho and almost every man in the fort were cruelly murdered, or badly 
wounded. There is a monument to their memory at Groton. 

' He was bom at Norwich, at the head of the Thames, a few miles north of New London. See 
note 1, page 327. 

* Graves intended to intercept a French squadron, which w;i3 on its way with heavy cannons 
and military stores for the armies at Yorktown. He was not aware that De Grasse had left the 
West Indies. 

* The place of anchorage was in Lynn Haven Bay. The hostile fleets were in sight of each 
other for five 8\icee.ssive days, but neither party was anxiois to renew the combat. 

' Including the Virginia militia, the whole of the American and French forces employed in the 
siege, amounted to a little over sixteen thousand men. Of the Americans, about seven thousand 
were regular troops, and four thousand militiii. The French troops numbered about five thousand, 
including those brought by De Grasse from the West Indies. 



1T81.] SEVENTH YEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 341 



tober. On the following evening they hurled red-hot balls among the British 
shipping in front of the town, and burned several vessels. Hour after hour, 
disasters were gathering a fearful web of difficulty around Cornwallis. De- 
spairing of aid from Clinton, and perceiving his strong fortifications crumbling, 
one by one, under the terrible storm of iron from a hundred heavy cannons, he 
attempted to escape on the night of the 16th, by crossing to Gloucester, break- 
ing through the French troops stationed there, and making forced marches to- 
ward New York. When the van of his troops embarked, the waters of the 
York River were perfectly calm, although dark clouds were gathering in the 
horizon. Then a storm arose as sudden 
and as fearful as a summer tornado, dis- 
persed the boats, compelled many to put 
back, and the attempt was abandoned.' 
Hope now faded ; and on the 19th, Corn- 
wallis surrendered the posts at York- 
town and Gloucester, with almost seven 
thoujand British soldiers, and his ship- 
ping and seamen, into the hands of Wash- 
ington and De Grasse.^ 

The ceremony, on the occasion of 
the sunender, was exceedingly impos- 
ing. The American army was drawn 
up on the right side of the road lead- 
ing from Yorktown to Hampton (see 
map), and the French army on the left. Their lines extended more than a 
mile in length. Washington, upon his white charger, was at the head of the 
American column ; and Rochambeau, upon a powerful bay horse, was at the 
head of the French column. A vast concourse of people, equal in number, ac- 
cording to eye-witnesses, to the military, was also assembled from the sur- 
rounding country to participate in the joy of the event. Universal silence pre- 
vailed as the vanquished troops slowly marched out of their intrenchments, with 
their colors cased, and their drums beating a British tune, and passed between 
the columns of the combined armies. All were eager to look upon Lord Corn- 
walHs, the terror of the South,' in the hour of his adversity. They were dis- 




SIEGE OF TORKTOWN. 



' Note 4, page 247. 

' The British lost one hundred and fifty-six killed, three hundred and twenty-six wounded, and 
seventy missing. The combined armies lost, in killed and wounded, about three hundred. Among 
the spoils were seventy-five brass, and one hundred and sixty iron cannons ; seven thousand seven 
hundred and ninety-four muskets ; twenty-eight regimental standards ; a large quantity of musket 
and cannon-balls ; and nearly eleven thousand dollars in specie in the military chest. The army 
was surrendered to Washington, and the shipping and seamen to De Grasse. The latter soon after- 
ward left the Chesapeake, and went to the West Indies. Rochambeau remained with his troops in 
Virginia during the winter, and the main body of the American army marched north, and went into 
winter quarters on the Hudson. A strong detachment, under General St. Clair [page 276], was 
lent south to drive the British from Wilmington, and reinforce the army of General Greene, then 
lying near Charleston. 

' The conduct of Lord Cornwallis, during his march of over fifteen hundred miles through the 
Southern States, was often disgraceful to the British name. He suffered dwelling-houses to be 
plundered of every thing that could be carried off; and it was well known that his lordship's table 



342 THE REVOLUTION. [1781. 

appointed ; lio hatl given himself up to vexation and despair, and, feigning 
illness, lie sent General O'llara •with his sword, to lead the vanquished army to 
the field of huniiliation. Having arrived at the head of the line, General 
O'llara advaneed toward Washington, and, taking off his hat, apologized for the 
absence of Earl Cornwallis. The commander-in-chief pointed him to General 
Lincoln for directions. It must have been a proud moment for Lincoln, for 
only the year before ho was obliged to make a humiliating surrenilcr of his 
army to British coniiuerors at Charleston.' Lincoln conducted the royal troops 
to the field selected for laying down their arms, and there General 0"]lara 
delivered to him the sword of Cornwallis. Lincoln received it, and then po- 
litely handed it back to O'llara, to be returned to the earl. 

The delivery of the colors of the several regiments, twenty-eight in ntim- 
ber, was next jierformed. For this purpose, twenty-eight British captains, 
each bearing a flag in a case, were drawn \ip in line. Opposite to. them, at a 
distance of six paces, twenty-eight American sergeants were placed in line to 
receive the colors. An ensign was appointed by Colonel Hamilton, the officer 
of the day, to conduct this interesting ceremony.-' When the ensign gave the 
order for the British captains to advance two paces, to deliver up their colors, 
and the American sergeants to advance two paces to receive them, the former 
hesitated, and gave as a reason, that they were unwilling to surrender their 
flags to non-commissioned oflieers. Hamilton, who was at a distance, observed 
this hesitation, and rode up to inquire the cause. On being informed, he will- 
in<'ly spared the feelings of the British captains, and ordered the ensign to 
receive them himself, and haiul them to the American sergeants. The scene is 
depicted in the engraving. 

Clinton appeared at the entrance to Chesapeake Bay a few days afterward, 
with seven thousand troops, but it was too late. The final blow which struck 
down British power in America had been given. The victory was complete; 
and Clinton returned to New York, amay-ed and disheartened. 

Great w:is the joy throughout the colonies when intelligence of the capture 
of the British army reached the people. From every family altar where a love 
of freedom dwelt— from pulpits, legislative halls, the army, and from Congress,' 



was furnished with plato thus obtnined from private families. Tlis march was more frequently that 
of a nianuiilor than an lii>noral>le ^'cncral. It ia estimated that Virginia alone lost, during Corn- 
wailis's atteinpt to reduce it, tliirty thousand slaves. It wa.s also estimated, at the time, from the be.st 
information that eould be obtained, that, duriiii; the six months jirevious to the surrender at York- 
town, the whole devasta\ions of his army amounted in value to atioul titteen millions of dollars. 

' rajjo ;ui. 

" Ensign Uoliert Wilson, of Crcneral James (^linton's Now York Bripade. He wa.s the vounKCst 
commissioned olTieer in the army, beinp then only ei);htoen years of age. Ho was allcrwani a magis- 
trate in central Now York for (i mmiber of years, and was for some time postiunster at Manliua, in 
Onomlapo co\mty. He died in 181 1. 

' A messenger, with a di.sjiatch from TVaahinpton, reached Pliiladelphia at inidnipht. Soon the 
watchmen in tlie streets cried, •' Ta.st twelve o'clock, and (Viniwallis is taken." Before dawn the 
exultint; people tilled the streets; and at an early hour, Secretary Thoni.soit fpape 227] read that 
clieeriiiK letter to the assembled ('enpres.s. Then that aupnst liody went in procession to a temple 
of tlie livinp (iod [Oct. 2-lth, 1781], and there joined in public thank.-'pivinK'S to the Kinp of kinps 
for the preat victory. They also resolved that a marlil(< column should be erei'bui at Yorktown, to 
oommeinorate the event; and that two stands of colors should be presented to Washington, and two 
piecci of cannon to each of the French commaudors, Uochumbouu and De tirasse. 




SUBRENDEB OF FLAQS AT YORKTOWN. 



1782.] CLOSINa EVENTS OF THE WAR FOR I ^DEPENDENCE. 345 

there went up a shout of thanksgiving and praise to the Lord God Omnipotent, 
for the success of the allied troops, and these were mingled with universal eulo- 
gies of the great leader and his companions in arms. The clouds which had 
lowered for seven long years, appeared to be breaking, and the splendors of 
the dawn of peace burst forth, like the light of a clear morning after a dismal 
night of tempest and woe. And the desire for peace, which had long burned 
in the bosom of the British people, now found such potential expression, as to 
be heeded by the British ministry. The intelligence of the fate of Cornwallis 
and his party, fell with all the destructive energy of a bomb-shell in the midst 
of the war-party in Parliament;' and the stoutest declaimers in favor of bay- 
onets and gunpowder, Indians and German mercenaries,'' as fit instruments for 
enslaving a free people, began to talk of the expediency of peace. Public 
opinion soon found expression in both Houses of Parliament ; and Lord North' 
and his compeers, who had misled the nation for twelve years, gave way 
under the pressure of the peace sentiment, and retired from office on the 20th 
of March, 1782. The advocates of peace then came into power ; and early in 
the following May, Sir Guy Carleton* arrived in New York, with propositions 
for a reconciliation. 



CHAPTER IX. 

CLOSING EVENTS OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. [1182—1789.] 

General Greene, with the mam body of the Southern army, was yet on 
the High Hills of Santee, when, on the 30th of October [1781], intelligence 
of the capture of Cornwallis reached him. The day of its arrival was made 
jubilant with rejoicings by the army. The event seemed to be a guaranty for 
the future security of the Republicans in the South, and Governor Rutledge' 
soon called a Legislative Assembly, to meet at Jacksonborough, to re-establish 
civil authority. An offer of pardon for penitents, brought hundreds of Tories 
from the British lines at Charleston, to accept the clemency. The North Caro- 
lina Tories were dismayed, for immediately after the surrender of Cornwallis, 
St. Clair' had marched upon Wilmington, when the frightened enemy imme- 
diately abandoned that post, and Major Craig, the commander, and a few 
followers, took post upon St. John's Island, near Charleston. Yet the vigilance 
of the Americans was not allowed to slumber, for a wary foe yet occupied the 
capitals of South Carolina and Georgia.. Marion and his men kept '' Tratch and 
ward" over the region between the Cooper and the Santee,' while Greene's main 

' Lord Greorge Germaine said that Lord North received the intelligence " as he would have 
done a cannon-ball in his breast." He paced the room, and throwing his arms wildly about, kept 
exclaiming, " 0, God I it is all over, it is all over 1" 

» Page 246. ' Page 224. « Page 240. ' Page 310. " Page 276. 

' On one occasion. Marion's brigade pufifered a ievjre defeat, wliile the commander was attends 



846 THE REVOLUTION [1782. 

army lay near the Edisto ; and Wayne, always vigilant, kept the enemy as 
close within his intrenchments at Savannah. Washington, who returned to the 
North immediately after the surrender, was, at the same time, keeping Clinton 
and his army close prisoners in New York. 




i^-^y^^o-ry^ 



While the theater of war was thus narrowing, British statesmen of &11 
parties, considering the capture of Cornwallis and his army as the death-blow 
to all hope for future conquests, turned their attention to measures for an 
honorable termination of the unnatural war. General Conway, the firm and 
long-tried friend of the Americans, oflered a resolution in Parliament in Febru- 
ary [1782], which was preliminary to the enactment of a decree for command- 
ing the cessation of hostilities. It was lost by only one vote. Thus encouraged, 

5ng bis duties as a member of the South Carolina Legislature. He left his men in command of 
Colonel Horry, and near the Santee, Colonel Thompson (afterward the eminent Coimt Rumford) 
attacked the corps, with a .superior force, and dispersed it. Marion arrived during the engagement, 
rallied his brigade, and then retired beyond the Santee, to reorganize and recruit. Benjamin 
Thompson wi.s a native of Massachusetts, and was bom in March, 175.'!. He became a school- 
ma.ster, and while acting in that capacity, he married a rich widow. Already his mind was filled 
with scientific knowledge, and now lie pursued his studies and investigations with energy. When 
the Revolution broke out, he reftised to take part in political matters. The Whigs drove him to 
Boston for British protection, and he was sent to Kngland by Lord Howe, with dispatches. Toward 
the close of the war, he. commanded a corps of Tories at New York and Charleston. He returned 
to Europe, became acquainted with the sovereign of Bavaria, made himself exceedingly u.seful, waa 
raised to the highe.stdignity, and was created a count. A fter sufifaring many vicissitudes, he died, near 
Paris, in August, 1814. tlis daughter, the Countess of Rumford, who was bom in America, died at 
Concord, Now Hampshire, in 1852. See Lossing's Rmineni Americans. 



1789.] CLOSING EVENTS OF THE WAR FOR IND EPENDE NC K. 347 

the opposition pressed the subject warmly upon the attention of the House of 
Commons and the nation, and on the 4th of March, Conway moved "That th^ 
House would consider as enemies to his majesty and the country all those whd 
should advise, or by any means attempt, the further prosecution of offensive 




yZy 



war on the Continent of North America." The resolution was carried without 
a division, and the next day the attorney-general introduced a plan for a truce 
with the Americans. Orders for a cessation of hostilities speedily went forth 
to the British commanders in America, and preparations were soon made for 
evacuating the cities of Savannah and Charleston. 

When General Leslie, the Biitish commander at Charleston, was apprised 
of these proceedings in Parliament, he proposed to General Greene a cessation 
of hostilities. Like a true soldier, Greene referred the matter to Congress, and 
did not for a moment relax his vigilance. Leslie also recjuested Greene to allow 
him to purchase supplies for his army, at the same time declaring his intentioa 
to evacuate Charleston. Greene was unwilling thus to nourish a viper, until 
his power to injure was destroyed, and he refused. Leslie then resorted to 
force to obtain provisions. Already he had made several efforts to penetrate 
the country for the purpose, and now, late in August, he attempted to ascend 
the Combahee,' when he was opposed by the Americans under General Gist, of 



' Page 42. 



848 ''"'"'' in-; VOLUTION. [i782. 

tlio Maryliiiid liiu>. Colonel .loliii LiuirciiH' volunteered in the service; and in 
!i skirmish at diiy-l)roak, on tlic 2r)tii of August, ho was killed, llo was greatly 
hi'loved by all, and his death was mourned with real sorrow. His was almost 
(he last lite saerifieed in that glorious old war. The blood of one other was 
elied at Stono Ferry,'' a few weeks afterward, when Captain Wilmot wna killed in 
a akirmisii with a Uritish foraging party. 

Several weeks previous to this, the J5ritish had evacuated Savannah. That 
event occurred on the lltli of July, when General Wayne, in consideration of 
the eminent services of Colonel James Jackson," appointed him to " receive tho 
keys of the city of Bavannali" from a connnitteo of IJritisii officers. He jier- 
formed tho duty witii groat dignity, and on the same day the American army 
entere<l the city. Royal powor tiien ceased in Georgia, forever. On the 14th 
of December following, the British evacuated Charleston, and the ne.xt day. the 
Americans, under General Greene, took possession of it, greeted from windows, 
balcHinies, and even house-tops, with cheers, waving of handkercniefe, and cries 
of "God bless you, gentlemen! Welcome! W^elcome!"' The British 
n^mained in New York almost a year longer (until the 25th of November, 
17H3), under the eonnnand of Sir (Juy Carleton, who had succeeded Sir Henry 
Clinton, bei^ause the linal negotiations for peace were not completed, by ratifi- 
cation, until near that time. 

Measures were now taken by Congress and the British government to 
arrange a treaty of peace. The United States appointed five commissioners for 
the purpose, in order that different sections of tho Union might be represented. 
Tiiese consisted of .lolin Adams, John Jay, Benjamin Franklin, 'I'homas Jef- 
ferson, and Henry Laurens. These met Richard Oswald, tiie English com- 
missioner, at Paris, and there, on the 30th of November, 1782, they signed a 
])relimiiiary treaty.' French and English conmiissioncrs also signed a treaty 
of peace on tho 20th of January following. Congre.ss ratified the action of its 
connnissioners in April, 1783, yet negotiations were in progress until September 
following, when a definitive treaty was signed f September 3, 1783J at Taris." 
In that treaty, England acknowledged the Indejiendenee of the United 
States; allowed amjilo boundaries, extending northward to the Great Lakes, 

' Note 2, pago 329. " Page 2P6. 

' Janii<s .Iiiikson wast oiio of ttiti mo8t eminent men in Oeorjiin. Tie wius bom in Knjjlnnd, in 
SoptonilxT, nfiT, and ninu> to Aniori«i in 11"!!. lie Hluilioil law at .Savaniiali, ami wiu< an active 
soldier during tlio H-lmlc war for liidiiu'iiilcncc. Wln'O a litlli' pa.'st thirty years of a(,'i', lie was 
clei'ted ^'civcrnor oI'deurKiii, Imt drcliiied ihr honor im aivount of his youth. He was u nienilier 
of the United State.'* Senate liir some time, and waa ^rovernor of his Stale fur two years. He died, 
■while at Wa.shinKton, as TTiiited States senator, in 1808, and his remains uro id the Con(fre8sional 
burial-sfronnd. See his ])ortrait on jiatro 'Ml. 

' Vi\rpenne», tho FriMieh niinisti'r, was dissatisfied with the manner in wljieli th(> matter had 
been eoiahieted. It was nnderstood, by the terms of the allianeo between the United States and 
Fraiiee (mid (>x|iressly stated in the instniclions of the eoiiimissioners), that no tivjity should bo 
fii^fiied by the latter without the knowledge of the other. Yet it was done on this oeeasion. A 
portion of the Amerieiin eomniissioiiers doubled the (food faith of A'i*rg<nines, beenus(> lie favored 
Siianisli eliiinis. Dr. KraiiKliu, however, trusted Verireniies imiilieitly, and the latter appears to 
have acted honorably, thnmnhout. The cloud of di.ssatisliiction soon passed away, when Franklin, 
with soil words, e\iiliiiiied the whole mailer. 

' It was signed, on the pint of lOngliind, by David Hartley, aod on that of tho Uuited States^ b/ 
Dr. I'Yuukliu, joliu Adnuis, and John Jay. 



1789.] CLOSING EVENTS OF T II K WAR FOR IND E I' K ND E NO E. 349 

and westward to the Mississippi, and an unlimited right of fishing on the hanks 
of Newfoundland. The two Fioriilas were restored to Spain. At tiio same 
time, definitive treaties between England, France, Spain, and Holland, were 
signed by their respective commissioners,' and the United States became an 
active power among the nations of the earth.'' 

A great work had now boon accomplished, yet the joy of the American 
people, in view of returning peace and j)rospority, was mingled with many 
gloomy apprehensions of evil. The army, which, through the most terrible 
sufferings, had remained faithful, and become conqueror, was soon to bo dis- 
banded ; and thousands, many of them made invalids by the hard service in 
which they had been engaged, would be compelled to seek a livelihood in tho 
midst of the desolation which war had produced.'' For a long time tho public 
treasury hskd been empty, and neither olTlcers nor soldiers had received any pay 
for their services. A resolution of Congress, passed in 1780 [October 21], to 
allow the officers half pay for life, was ineffective, because funds were wanting. 
Already the gloomy prospect had created wide-sjtread niurmuriiigs in the army, 
and there were many men who sighed for a stronger government. They iiscribcd 
the weakness of the Confederation to its republican form, and a change, to bo 
wrought by the army, was actually proposed to Washington. Nicola, a foreign 
officer in a Pennsylvania regiment, made the proposition, in a well-written letter, 
and not only urged tho necessity of a moTiarchy, but endeavored to persuade 
Washington to become king, by the voice of tho army. Tho sharp rel)uke of tho 
commander-in-chief | May, 1782] , checked all further movements in that direction. 

The general discontent soon assumed another shape, and on the 11th of 
March, 1783, a well-written address was circulated through the American camp 
(then near Newburg), which advised tho army to take matters into its own 
hands, make a demonstration that should arouse the fears of the people and of 
Congress, and thus obtain justice for themselves.* For this purj)ose a meeting 
of officers was called, but tho great influence of Washington prevented a 
response. Tho commander-in-chief then summoned all tho officers together, 
laid the matter before them [March 15], and obtained from them a patriotic 
expression of their faith in tho "justice of Congress and tho country." In a 
few days the threatening cloud passed away, and soon after this event Congress 
made arrangements for granting to tho officers full pay for five years, instead 
of half pay for life ; and to the soldiers full pay for four months, in partial 
liquidation of their claims. This arrangement was not satisfactory, and discoa- 

' Tlmt betwoen Groat Britain and TTolIand was sif;nod on tho Bocond. 

' .lolin Adams was tlio first minister of tho United States to Groat Britain. TIo wius politely 
received by Kiii^? Goorf;o tlie Tliird ; and that nionarc'Ii wiw faithful to his promises to pre.sorvo 
inviolate tho eovonant he had made liy acknowlodginf,' tho imlopendonco of the now Rcpiihlic. 

' Tho army, consisting of about ton thousand men, was then encamped on tlio Hudson, near 
Nowburpf. 

* This address was anonymoufl, but it was afterward acknowledged to bo tho production of John 
Armstrong, then a major, and ono of General Gates's aids. It is believed that Gates and other 
ofBcors wore the instigators of tho scheme, and that Armstrong acted under their direction. Ha 
was an accomplished writer, and wius much in public life after the war. llo.was United States min- 
ister to France for six years, from 18(11. Ho was Secretary of 'War in 1814; and died in Duchess 
county, Now York, in 184;i, in tho oighty-Illth year of hia ago. 



850 TIIK RK VOLUTION. [1782. 

tout Still prpvnilod.' Tn the mean while [March 2] the preliminary treaty had 
ai-riveil. On the eighth anniversary of tiie skirmish at Lexington [April 1'.), 
1783], a cessation of hostilites was jjrochiimed in the army, antl on the 3d of 
Novenilier following, the army was tlisbaniled hy a general order of Congress. A 
Bniaii force was retained under a definite enlistment, until a peace cstahlishmcnt 
uliould be organized. '' These were now at West I'oint, under the command of 
General Knox. Tho remainder of that glorious band of patriots then quietly 
returned to their homes, to enjoy, for the renmant of their lives, the blessings of 
the liberty they had won, and the grateful benedictions of their countrymen. 
Of tho two hundred and thirty thousand Continental soldiers, and tho fifty-si.^ 
thousand militia who bore arms during the war, tlie uanios ofoidy two are now 
[18117] on tlie ]iension list 1' And the average of these must bo full ninety yeuis. 
'I'he British army evacuated tho city of New York on the 25th of Novem- 
ber, its;?. Willi their di'])arturc, went, forever, the last instrument of royal 
power in these United States. On the morning of that day — a cold, frosty, 
but clear and brilliant morning — tho Americiin troops, 
under GeTicral Knox,' who had come down from West 
Point and encamped at Harlem, marched to the Bowery 
Lane, and halted at tho present junction of Third 
Avenue and tho Bowery. Knox was accomjjanied by 
George Clinton," tho governor of tho SUite of New 
York, with all tho principal civil officers. There they 
remained until about one o'clock in the afternoon, when 
the British left their posts in that vicinity and marched 
to AVhitehall.' Tho American troops followed, and 

OOVERNOR CLINTON. 

' In May, 11 S3, a portion of tho Ponnsylvania troops, Intoly arrivpil ftom the South, marohed 
to riiilmli'liiliiii, wliiTi' tlu'V woro joined liy otliors, and liir tliroo liours tlioy stood at tlio door of tho 
Stato lIoMsc, and di'inandicl iniincMliato pay from Con^rros.'i. St. Clair, then in command there, 
piK'illod tliom lor tlio nionii'iit, and Wa.iliitiffton soon cpicllod tlio nnitiny. Si'O pajjo :!28. 

' A (!;r<*at portion of llio olVn'ora and soldiora had lioon ponnittod, dnrin); tlio mmimcr, to visit 
their hoine.s on liirlonfth. The proelamation of discliart;e, by Conijress. was followed by Washinjf- 
ton's farinvcll luldress to hia companions in arms, written at lloeky Hill, New .Tei-sey, on the 3d of 
November, lie had alnwly issued a eirenlar letter (Newbnrp, .Inne Sth, HS.'i) to the ({ovemors 
of all the Stales on llie snbjeet of disbandlnj; the army. It was designed to be laid Viefore the sev« 
onil Stato l,ej;islatnrcs. It is a doennient of j;reat vahio, beeau.so of tho soundness of its doctrines, 
and tho weinht and wisdom of it.s counsels. Four great points of jxilicy constitute the chief tlieme 
of his communication, namely, an VHliAtoluMe union of the Sluies; a mcred reijiird for public jtwdfc; 
Vie or(j(iiii:<ilion of a pn>)}iT peaee e.itiibli.thinrnl ; anil a frienilly intercourse aniotig the people of tha 
invrt'U ,S/<i/f.v, ''!/ n-hich local prejwiice mitjU lie effaeed. " These," ho romnrka, " are tho pillars on 
which the glorious fabric of our indepeniieuey ami national character nnist be supported." No 
doubt this address had great inlliumce upon tiie minds of the whole people, and made them ycaru 
for that more I'llli'ieut \niion wliieli tho Kedi'ral ("onslilution soon afterward secured. 

' Creat Itritain sent to .\meriea, <luring the war. one hun.lred ancl twelve thousand five hun- 
dred and eiK'hty-four troops for the land service, and more than twenty-two thousand seamen. Of 
nil this host, not one is known to lie living. One of them (,Iolm Dattiu) died in tlie city of New- 
York, in ,Inne, IS.'i'J, nt tho ape of one hundred years and four months. 

♦ Henry Knox, the nblo connnander of the artillery during tlie Revolution, was bom in Boston, 
In 1740. ile entered tho army at the commencement of the war. He was Tresidcnt Washington's 
Bocretary of War, and held Ihiit oftiee eleven years. He died at Thomn.ston, in Maine, in 1S06. 

• I.iiio Uovernoi-s Tnnul.uU [page :t2.S] imd liutledge (page .110], Clinton, in a civil capacity, 
'uns of inmienae service to the ,\merlean cause. He was born in ITlster county. New York, in 1739. 
lie wa.s governor about eightoou years, and died in 1812, while Vice-President of the tluitod 
Btates. Sco page 401 * Now the South Ferry to Brooklyn. 




1789.] CLOSING EVKNTS OF T 1! K WAR FOR I N D E 1' E NDE NOE. 351 

before three o'clock General Knox took formal possession of Fort George amid 
the !u;clamations of thousands of emancipated freemen, and tlio roar of artillery 
upon the Battery. 

On Thursday, the 4th of December, Washington met his officers, yet re- 




maining in service, at his quarters, corner of Broad and Pearl-streets, New 
York, for the hist time. TIk; a(!cnc, as described by Marshall,' the best of the 
early biographers of Washington, was one of great tenderness. The commander- 
in-chief entered the room where they were all waiting, and taking a glass of 
wine in his hand, he said, " With a heart full of love and gratitude, I now take 



' John Marshall, th» eminent Chief Justice of the United States, was born in Fauquier county, 
Virginia, in 1155, and wius the oldest of titloon children by the Siime mother. He entered the mil- 
itary service, in the Virginia militia, agniiiat Duninoro [paj^e 241], in 1775, and was in the battle at 
the Groat Bridge [see page 2-t;iJ. He remained in service, lus an excellent officer, until early in 

1780, when he studied law, and became very eriiiiiont in his profession. He was again iu the field in 

1781. In 1782 he was a member of the Virginia Legislature. Ho was chosen Secretary of War in 
1800, and the next year was elevated to the ("liicf .justiceship of the United States. His Life of 
Washington was published in 1805. Judge Marshall died at I'hiladelphia iu 1835, in the eightieth 
year of his age. Ho Wius an exceedingly plain man, in person and habits, and always carried hia 
own marketing homo in his hands. On one occasion, a young housekeeper was swearing lustily 
because he could not hire a person to carry his turkey home lor him. A plain man, standing by 
offered to perform the service, and when they arrived at the door, the young man iisked, " What 
shall 1 pay you?" "Oh, nothing," replied the old man; "you are welcome; it was on my way, 
and no trouble." " Who is that polite old gentleman who brought homo my turkey for mo ?" in- 
quired the young man of a bystander. " That," ho replied, " is John Marshall, Cliiof Justice of tho 
United States." The astonished young man exclaimed, "Why did he bring home my turkey?" 
" To give you a severe reprimand." replied the other, " and to learn you to attend to your own bu»- 
inesa." Tho lesson was never furjjottou. 



352 



THE REVOLUTION. 



[1182. 




leave of you. I most devoutly wish that your latter days may be as prosperous 
and liappy as your former ones have been glorious and honorable." Having 
drank, lie continuetl, "I can not come to eacii of you to take my leave, but 
shall be obliged to you if each will come and take me by the hand." Knox, 
who stood nearest to bim, turned and grasped his hand, and, while the tears 
flowed down the cheeks of eacii, the commander-in-chief kissed him. This he 
did to each of his officers, while tears and sobs stifled utterance. Washington 
soon left the room, and passing through corps of liglit infantry, he walked in 
silence to Whitehall, where he embarked in a barge for Elizabethtown, on his 
■way to Annapolis, in Maryland, where Congress was in session. There, on the 
23d of December, he resigned into its custody the com- 
mission which he received [June 10, 1775J from that 
body more than eight years before.' His address on 
that occasion was simple and touching, and the re- 
sponse of General Mifllin,' the president, was equally 
affecting. The spectacle was one of great moral sub- 
limity. Like Cinciiniatus, Washington, having been 
instrumental, under Providence, in preserving the lib- 
erties of his country and achieving its independence, 
laid down the cares of State and returned to his plow. 

A few months before the final disbanding of the army, many of the officers, 
then at Newburg, on the Hudson, met [June 19, 1783] at the head-quarters of 
the Baron Steuben, situated about two miles from the Fishkill 
Ferry, and there formed an association, which they named the 
Society of the Cincinnati. The chief objects of the Society 
were to promote cordial friendship and indissoluble union among 
themselves ; to commemorate, by frequent re-unions, the great 
struggle they had just passed through ; to use their best en- 
deavors for the promotion of human liberty ; to cherish good 
feeling between the respective States ; and to extend benevolent 
aid to those of the Society whose circumstances might require 
it. They formed a General Society, and elected Washington 
its first president. They also made provision for the formation 
of auxiliary State societies. To perpetuate the Association, it 
was provided, in the constitution, that the eldest male descend- 
ant of an original member should be entitled to bear the Order, 
and enjoy the privileges of the Society. The Order' consist* 
of a gold eagle, suspended upon a ribbon, on the breast of which is a medallion 



GENKIUL MlhTLIN. 




' Papo 238. At the same time Wasliington rendered the account cinrent of h\s expenditures, 
for reconnoiterinR, traveling, secret service, and mi.scell.aneous expenses, amountintj to about 
$74,480. He would receive nothing in comDen.sation for liia own services as cominander-i:i-cliieC 

' Thomas Milllin was born in Pliiladolpliia in 1744. He was a Quaker [note 7, page 94], but 
joined the patriot army in 1775, and rapidly rose to the rank of major-general. Ho WM a member 
of Conpjess after the war, and also governor of Pennsylvania. He died in January, 1800. 

• An order is a badge, or vi.sible token of regard or distinction, conferred upon persons lor mer- 
itorious services. On the breast of Baron Steuben on page 291, is the order of Fidelity, presented 
♦o him by Frederic the Great of Prussia, for his services in the army of that monarch. Some of the 




AuEUams-Robiu.NY 



WASF:-"- '■')3'IEIEg 



1789.] CLOSING EVENTS OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 353 

with a dovico, ruprcsoiitini^ Cincitiiwtus receiving tlio Roman senators.' Sev- 
eral State societies are yet [1883] in existence. 

The war was ended, and peace was guarantied, but the people had much to 
do in the adjustment of public affairs, so as to lay the foundations of i)ermanent 
prosperity, and thus secure the liberty and independence proclnimed and 
acknowledged. The country was burdened with a heavy debt, foreign and do- 
mestic," and the Articles of Coiifcdralioa' gave Congress no power to dis- 
charge them, if it had possessed the ability. On its recommendation, however, 
the individual States attempted to raise their respective quotas, by direct tax- 
ation. But all were impoverished by the war, and it was found to be impos- 
sible to provide moans even to meet the arrears of pay due the soldiers of tiie 
Revolution. Each State had its local obligations to meet, and Congress could 
not coerce compliance with its recommendations. 

This effort produced great excitement in many of the States, and finally, in 
1786, a portion of the people of Msissachuaetts openly rebelled. Daniel Siiays, 
who had been a captain in the continental army, marched at the head of a thou- 
sand men, took possession of Worcester, anil prevented a session of the Supreme 
Court. lie repeated the same at Springfield. The insurrection soon became 
80 formidable, that Govci'nor Bowdoiu was compelled to call out several thou- 
sand militia, under General Lincoln, to suppress it. Lincoln captured one hun- 
dred and fifty of the insurgents, and their power waa broken. A free pardon 
was, finally, offered to all privates who had engaged in the rebellion. Several 
leaders were tried, and sentenced to death, but none were executed, for it was 
perceived that the great mass of the people sympathized with them. This epi- 
sode is known as S7iai/fi\s RcbelUon. 

We have already noticed the fixct that the Pope was unfriendly to England,' 
and looked with favor upon the rebellious movements of her colonies. Soon 
after the treaty of peace was concluded [Sept. 3, 1783], the Pope's Nuncio at 
Paris made overtures to Franklin, on the subject of appointing an apostolic 
vicar for the United States. The matter was referred to Congress, and that 
body properly replied, that the subject being purely spiritual, it was beyond 
their control. The idea of entire sepaTatiou between the State and spiritual 
governments — the full exercise of freedom of conscience — was thus early enun- 



ordera conferred by kinps aro very costly, boinp; raado of gold and silver, and precious stones. The 
picture of tlie orckr of tlie ('ineinnati, (fiven on tlic procedinf^ paRO, is I'alf the size of tlics orijjinal. 

' Cincinnatus waa a nol)li' Tloman citizen. When tlie Romans were menaced with destruction 
by an enemy, the Senate appointeil dole^fatea to invito Cincinnatus to iwsumo ttio cliiof magistracy 
of the nation, Tliey found him at liis |)low. lie iniraeiliatoly compiiorl, raised an army, subdued 
tlic enemy, and, after l)earin^; tlie almost imperial dignity for fburti'cn days, he resiK'iied his oflioe, 
and returned to his plow. Ilow like Cincinnatus were Washington and his compatriots of the War 
for Independence I 

" Accordinf? to an estimate made by the Register of tho Treasury in 17D0, the entire coat of the 
War for Independence, was at least om hundrf.d and Ihirty milKorui of dollars, exclusive of vast siiraa 
lost by individuals and the several States, to the amount, probably, of prrty miUinn.'i more. The 
treasury paymcmta amounted to almost ninety-three. milUm-i, chiefly in continental bills. The foreign 
debt amounted to eiijht miUiim.'i of dollars ; and tho domestic debt, due chiefly to the officers and 
■soldiers of the Revolution, was more than thirty miUiorui of dollar.'^. 

" Note 1, page 2G7, and Supplement. ♦ Page 268. 

23 



354 



THK I!i; vol, ITlnX. 



ciated- The Pope accordinjily appointed the Reverend John Carroll, of 
Maryland, to the high ollice of Apcstolic-Vicar.' At abont the same time, 
the Church of England in the United States sought arc-organization. In 
compliance with (he wishes of the Churchmen of Connecticut, the Rev- 
erend 8amuel .Seabury went to England in 1784, to obtain ordination as 
bishop. The Englisli bishops hesitating to act in consequence of the 
refusal of Seabury to take the oatli of allegiance to the king of England 
as head of the Church, ho obtained ordination by Scotch bishops at 
Aberdeen.* 




Three years later, the Reverend William White, who had been elected 
bishop of the diocese of Pennsylvania, was consecrated, (with Bishop 
Provoost, of New York,) by (he Archbisliop of Canterbury ; ^ and a few 
years later, the independent " Protestant Episcopal Church in the United 
States of America," was established. Sucli was the commencement of 
two of the mo.st prominent prchitical Churches in this country. The 
Methodist Church, which has since flourished so wonderfully, was then 
just taking firm root. 

' John Corioll wns n. native of Mnrvland. He wiis oiilained to the ministry in the Romnn 
Catholic t'hiiivh in 171)9 ; was consoirateil a hishop in IT'.IO, and made anhbishop in 1808. 

- Siinincl Scahurv was a native of Connoctiiiit. He entered the ministry in 1758, and became 
tlic tirst hishop of the Protestant Episeoi>al Church, in this country, in 1784. 

•Wilhani White entered the niiuisiry by oriiination in London, in 1770; and at one time he 
was cliiiplain to tlie Continental Congress. He was consecrated a hishop in i7S7, and in 1789 he 
lircsided over the convention called to consider the orjjanization of an American Church. He 
wrote the cotistitntion of that Church ; and with the assistance of Bishop Seabury, he revised th^ 
Book of Commou Prayer, so as to adapt it to the new order ol' things. 



i 



17S9.] CLOSING EVENTS OF THE AVAR FOR I X DE FE ND ENCE. 355 

For a long time it had been clearly perceived that, while the Articles of 
Confederation formed a suiEcieiit constitution of government during the prog- 
ress of the war, they were not adapted to the public wants in the new condition 
of an independent sovereignty in which the people found themselves. There 
appeared a necessity for a greater centralization of power by which the general 
government could act more efficiently for the public good. To a great extent, 
the people lost all regard for the authority of Congress, and the commercial 
affairs of the country became wretchedly deranged. In truth, every thing 
seemed to be tending toward utter chaos, soon after the peace in 1783,' and the 
leading minds engaged in the struggle for Independence, in view of the increas- 
ing and magnified evils, and the glaring defects of the Articles of Confedera- 
tion, were turned to the consideration of a plan for a closer union of the States, 
and for a general government founded on the principles of the Declaration of 
Independence, from which the confederation in question widely departed. 

The sagacious mind of Washington early perceived, with intense anxiety, 
the tendency toward ruin of that fair fabric which his wisdom and prowess had 
helped to rear, and he took the initial step toward the adoption of measures 
which finally resulted in the formation of the present Constitution of the United 
States.'^ At his suggestion, a convention, for the purpose of consulting on the 
best means of remedying the defects of the Federal Government, was held at 
Annapolis, in Maryland, in September, 1786. Only five States (Virginia, 
Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York) were represented. They 
met on the 11th of that month, and John Dickenson' was chosen chairman. 
They finally appointed a committee to prepare a draft of a report to be made to 
the Legislatures of the several States, then represented. The committee 
reported on the 14th, but there not being a representation from a majority of 
the States, it was thought advisable to postpone further action. They adjourned, 
after recommending the appointment of deputies to meet in convention at 
Philadelphia, in May following. The report was adopted and transmitted to 
Congress. On the 21st of February, 1787, a committee of that body,' to whom 
the report of the commissioners wiis referred, reported thereon, and strongly 
recommended to the different Legislatures to send forward delegates to meet in 
the proposed convention at Philadelphia. Propositions were made by delegates 
from New York and Massachusetts, and finally the following resolution, sub- 
mitted by the latter, after being amended, was agreed to : 

" Resolved, That in the opinion of Congress, it is expedient that on the 
second Monday in May next, a convention of delegates, who shall have been 
appointed by the several States, be hold at Philadelphia, for the sole and 
express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation, and reporting to 
Congress and the several Legislatures such alterations and provisions therein 
as shall, when agreed to in Congress, and confirmed by the States, render the 



' Page 348. » Pag;6 359. ' Pago 219. 

' The committee consisted of Messrs. Dana, Tarnum, S. M. Mitchell, Smith, Cadwalader, Irvine, 
N. Mitchell, Forest, Grayson, Blount, Bull, and Few. 



356 THE REVOLUTION. [1782. 

Fecleral Constitution lulcfjuatc to the exigences of the government and the 
preservation of the Union." 

This resolution, with a preamble, was immediately transmitted to the several 
Speakers of State Legislatives Assemblies, and they were laid before the repre- 
sentatives of the people in all the States of the Confederacy. While a feeling 
generally prevailed, that somelhing must be done to avert the threatened anarchy, 
toward which governmental oj)erations W'Cre rapidly tending, great caution was 
observed in the delegation of powers to those who should be appointed members 
of the proposed convention." In May, 1787," delegates from all the States, 
except New Hampshire and Rhode Island," assembled at Philadelphia, in the 
room where Congress was in session when the Declaration of Independence waa 
adopted.' AVashington, who was a delegate from Virginia, was, on motion of 
Robert Morris, chosen President. Able statesmen were his associates,' and they 
entered earnestly upon their duties. They had not proceeded far, however, 
before they perceived that the Articles of Confederation were so radically 
defective, and their powers so inadequate to meet the wants of tlie country, that, 
instead of trying to amend that old code, they went diligently to work to form 
a new Constitution. For some time they made but little progress. There w»re 

' The great question that came up before the members, at the veiy commencement of the session 
of the Convention, w.is, " Wliat powers do we possess ? Can the amendments to the Articles of 
Confederation bo carried so far as to establisli an entirely new system ?" 

' Tlie day fixed for tlio a.<isembling of the Convention, was the 14th of May. On that day, del- 
egates from only half tho States were present. The remainder of the delegates did not all arrive 
before the 25th. 

' Ignorant and unprincipled men, who were willing to liquidate pulilic and private debts by the 
agency of unstaljlo paper money, controlled tho A.isembly of Rhode Island, and that body refused 
to elect delegates to the Convention. But some of tho best and most intiuential men in tlie State 
joined in sending a letter to tho Convention, in which they expressed their cordial sympathy with 
the object of that national .a.ssembly, and promised their adhesion to whatever the majority might 
propose. The following are tlie names of the delegates: 

Neil) Hampslnre. — John Langdon, Jolin I'iekering, Nicholas Oilman, and Benjamin TV est. 

Ma.<if!ai:hi.sett.i. — Francis Dana, Klliridgo Gerry, Nathaniel Gorham, Ruftis King, and Caleb Strong. 

Connerticut. — William Samuel Johnson, Roger Sherman, and Oliver Ellsworth. 

Neio York. — Robert Yates, John Lansing, .Ir., and Alexander Hamilton. 

Neio Jersey. — David Brcarley, William Chureliill Houston, WiUiam Patcrson, John Neilson, 
William Livingston, Abraham Clark, and Jonathan Dayton. 

Pennsylvania. — Thom;is Miflhn, Robert Morris, George Clymcr, Jared Ingersoll, Thomas Fitz- 
simmons, James Wilson, Gouveriuur Morris, and Benjamin Franklin. 

Delaware. — George Read, Gunning Bedford, Jr., John Dickenson, Richard Bassett, and Jacob 
Brown. 

Maryland. — James M 'Henry, Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer, Daniel Carroll, John Francis Mercer, 
and Luther Martin. 

Virginia. — George Washington, Patrick Henry, Edmund Randolph, John Blair, James Madison, 
Jr.. George Mason, and George Wythe. Patrick Henry having declined his appointment, James 
M'Clure was nominated to supply his place. 

North Carolina. — Richard Caswell, Alexander Martin, William Richardson Davie, Richard 
Dobbs Spaight, and Willie Jone.s. Richard Ciuswell having resigned, William Blount was appointed 
a deputy in his place. Willie Jones having also declined his appointment, his place was supphed by 
Hugli Williamson. 

South Carolina. — John Rutledge, Charles Pinckey, Charles C. Pinekney, and Pierce Butler. 
Georgia. — William Few, Abraham Baldwin, Wilham Pierce, George Walton, William Houston, 
and Nathaniel Pendleton. * Page 260. 

' The members who were most conspicuous aa debaters in the Convention, were Randol))h, 
Madison, and Ma.son, of Virginia; King, Gerry, and Gorliam, of Massachusetts; Gouverncur Mor- 
ris, Wilson, and Dr. Franklin, of Pennsylvania ; Johnson, Sherman, and Ellsworth, of Connecticut; 
Lansing and Hamilton, of New York ; the two Pinckncys, of South Carolina; Patcrson, of New 
Jersey ; Martin, of Maryland ; Dickenson, of Delaware ; and Dr. WiUiamsou, of North Carolina. 




Franklin in the National Contention. 



ns9.] CLOSING EV3NTS OF THE WAR FOR INDEPE NL EN CE. 359 

great diversities of opinion," and it seemed, after several days, that the conven- 
tion must, of necessity, dissolve without accomplishing any thing. Some pro- 
posed a final adjournment. At this momentous crisis, Dr. Franklin arose, and 
said to the President, "How has it happened, sir, that while groping so long 
in the dark, divided in our opinions, and now ready to separate without accom- 
plishing the great objects of our meeting, that we have hitherto not once thought 
of humbly applying to the Father of Lights to illuminate our understandings ? 
In the beginning of the contest with Britain, when we were sensible of danger, 
we had daily prayers in this room for divine protection. Our prayers, sir, 
were heard, and graciously answered." He closed by saying, " The longer 
I live the more convincing proofs I see of the truth that God governs 
in the affairs of inen^'' and then moved that " henceforth, prayers, im- 
ploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessings on our deliberations, 
be held in this Assembly every morning before we proceed to business." 
The resolution was not adopted. On a memorandum of it, Fi'anklin 
wrote, " The Convention, except three or four members, thought prayers 
unnecessary." 

After long and animated debates, the Convention referred all propositions, 
reports, etc., which had been agreed to from time to time, to a Committee of 
Detail, consisting of Rutledge, Randolph, Gorham, Ellsworth,' and Wilson. 
The Convention then adjourned, and ten days afterward [August 6, 1787] it 
met, and that committee reported a rough sketch of the Constitution, as it now 
stands. Now, again, long and sometiraos angry debates were had. Amend- 
ments were made, and all were referred to a committee for final revision. 
That committee submitted the following resolution on the 12th of September, 
which was adopted : 

' Edmund Randolph submitted a plan on the 29th of Jlay, in a series of Resolutions, wliich was 
known as the " "Virginia Plan." It proposed to form a general government, composed of a legislature, 
and an executive and judiciary department ; a revenue, and an army and navy, independent of the 
■control of the several States; to have power to conduct war, estabhsh peace, and malie treaties; to 
have the exclusive privilege of coining money, and the general supervision of all national trans- 
actions. Upon general principles, this plan was highly approved; but in that Convention there 
■were many ardent and pure patriots, who looked upon the preservation of the State sovereignties 
as essential, and regarded this proposition as an infringement upon State Rights. Mr. Paterson 
also submitted a plan for amending the Articles of Confederation. It proposed to enlarge the 
powers of Congress, but left its resources and supplies to be found through the medium of the State 
governments. This was one of the most serious defects of the old League — a dependence of the 
general government upon the State governments for its vitality. Other propositions were submitted 
from time to time, and the most intense solicitude was felt by every member. Subjects of the most 
vital interest were ably discussed, from day to day ; but none created more earnest debate than a 
proposition for the general government to assume the debts of the States contracted in providing 
means for carrying on the war. Tlie debts of the several States were unequal. Those of Massa- 
chusetts and South Carolina amounted to more than ten millions and a half of dollars, while the 
debts of all the other States did not extend, in the aggregate, to fifteen millions. This assumption 
was finally made, to the amount of twenty-one millions five hundi-ed thousand doUars. See 
page 370. 

Oliver Ellsworth was one of the soundest men in the Convention, and was ever one of the 
most beloved of the New England patriots. He was born in Windsor, fionnecticut, in April, 1745. 
He was educated at Tale College, and at Princeton, and at the age of twenty-five, he commenced 
the praxitice of law at Hartford. He was an eloquent speaker, and became very eminent in his 
profession. He was a member of the Continental Congress in 1777. and in 1784 he was appointed 
Judge of the Superior Court of Coimecticut. He was the first United States senator fi-om Connect- 
icut, under the new Constitution, and in 179(1 he was appointed Chief Justice of the Vwta\ ^ta1»3. 
He was an embassador to the French court from 1799 to 1801. He died in November. 1807. at 
the age of sixty-two years. See next page. 



860 



TUK REVOLUTION. 



[1782. 



" Resolved unanimoushj, Thut llio said report, with the resolutions and 
letters accompany in}:^ the same, be transmitted to the several Legislatures, in 
order to bo submilteil to a convention of delegates chosen in each State by 
the people thereof, in conformity to the resolves of the Convention, made and 
provided, in that case." 




(yC^^^r^^W^ 



The new Constitution, when submitted to the jjeople,' found many and able' 
opposers. State supremacy, sectional interests, radical democracy, all had nu- 
merous friends, and these formed the phalanx of opposition. All the persuasive 
eloquence of its advocates, with ])eii and speech, was needed to convince the 
people of its superiority to the Artirh.t of Confi'derutioii, and the necessity for 
its ratification. Among its ablest sujiporters was Alexander Hamilton,' whoso 



' Tho Convention ngrcod to tlio revised Constitution on tlio 15tli of September, and on tlio 17th 
it was signed liy tlio ro])reseutiitivi'S of all tlie States tlien present, except Uandolph, Oerrv, and 
Mason. Tlio Constitution was submitted to Coiipress on the 28tli, and tliut body sent copies of it 
to all tho State Legislatures. State Conventions wero then called to consider it ; and more than a 
year elapsed before tlio requisite number of States had ratilled it. These performed that act in tho 
following order: Delaware, Pec. 7, 1787; Pennsylvania, Pec. 12. 1787; New Jersey, Dec. 18, 
1787; Georgia, .Ian. 2, 1788; Connecticut, .Tan. 9,' 1788; Massaclmsetts, Fob. 6, 1788;" Maryland, 
April 28, 1788; South Carolina, May 23, 1788; New Hampshire, Juno 21, 1788; Virginia,' Juno 
25, 1788; Now York, July 2U, 1788; North Carolina, Nov. 21, 1788; Rhode Island, May 29, 
1790. 

' Alexander Hamilton was born on the Island of Nevis, British West Indies, in .Tanuary, 1757. 
Ho was of Si'Otch and I'Vench pareiitap'. He became a elerk to a New York merchant nt St 
Croix, and lio wa.i finiilly brought to New York to be educated. He w.as at King's (now Columbia) 
College, and was distinguished as a good speaker and writer, while yet a mero lad. When tho Rev- 
olution l)roko out, he espoused the Hrpublican cause, entered the army, became Washington's favor- 
ite aid and secretary, ami was an ctlicieiit olllcer until its I'lose. He made the law hi.s profession, 
tad, as an ublo liuaucicr, ho w;ia made the llrst Secretary of Iho Treasury, under tho new Coust'tu- 



1789.] CLOSING EVENTS OF THE "WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 361 

pen and sword had been identified with the career of Washington during almost 
the whole War for Independence. He gave to its advocacy the whole weight of 
his character and power of his genius ; and, aided by Jay and Madison, he scat- 
tered broadcast among the people, those able papers called 77ie Federalist. 
These, like Paine's Crisis, stirred the masses ; and soon eleven States^ in Con- 




vention assembled, gave the National Constitution their support, and ratified 
it. Congress then fixed the time for choosing electors for President and Vice- 
President,' and provided for the organization of the new government. Ou 
Wednesday, the 4th day of March, 1789, the old Continental Congress' ex- 
pired, and the National Constitution became the organic law of the 
Republic. This was the crowning act of the War for Independence,' and 
then the United States of Ameeica commenced their glorious career as a 
powerful empire among the nations of the earth. 



tlon. He was shot in a duel, by Aaron Burr, in .July, 1804, at the early age of forty-seven years. 
Hia widow, daugliter of General Schuyler, died in November, 1854, in the ninety-seventh year of 
her age. 

' These are men elected by the people in the various States, to meet and choose a President and 
Vice-President of the United States. Tlieir numtjcr is equal to the whole number of Senators an(i 
Representatives to which the several Stales are entitled. So the people do not vote directly for the 
Chief Magistrate. Formerly, the man who received tlie highest number of votes was declared to 
be President, and he who received the next highest number was proclaimed Vice-President. Now 
these are voted for as distinct candidates for separate offices. See Article II. of the National Con- 
stitution, Supplement. The first electors were chosen on tlie first Wednesday in February, 1189. The 
inauguration of the first President did not take place [page 366] until the' 30th of April following, 

' Page 226. 

' For details of the history, biography, scenery, relics, and traditions of the War for Independ- 
ence, see Lossing's Pictorial Fkld Book of the Revolution. 



862 



THE REVOLUTION. 



^1782. 



Congress was in session at New York while the Convention at Philatlelphia 
was busy in preparing the National Constitution. During that time it disposed 
of the suliject of organizing a Territorial Government for tlic vast region north- 
ward of the Ohio River, within the domain of the United States.' On the 11th 
of July, 1787, a committee of Congress reported " An Ordinance for the Gov- 
ernment of tho Territory of the United States North-west of the Ohio." This 




^y.^w:^.^fe^ 




report embodied a bill, whose provisions in regard to personal liberty and distri- 
bution of property, were very important. It contained a special proviso that 
the estates of all persons dying intestate, in the territory, should be equally 
divided among all the children, or ne.xt of kin in equal degree, thus striking 
down the unjust law of primogeniture, and asserting a more republican prin- 
ciple. The bill, also, provided and declared, that "there shall be neither 
slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory, otherwise than in the 
punishment of crimes whereof the party shall have been duly convicted." This 
ordinance was adopted on the 13th, after ;idding a clause relative to the reclam- 
ation of ftigitives from labor, similar to that incorporated in tbe National Con- 
stitution a few weeks later.' 

This ordinance, together with the fact that Indian titles to seventeen mil- 
lions of acres of land in that region, had been latel} extinguished by treaty 



' Pagre 390. 



' See tho National Constitution, Article IV.. Section 2. Clause 3. 



1189.] CLOSING EVENTS OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 363 

with several of the dusky tribes,' caused a sudden and great influx of immi- 
grants into the country along the northern banks of the Ohio. Manasseh Cut- 
ler, Rufus Putnam, Winthrop Sargent, and other New Englanders, organized 
the " Ohio Company," and entered into a contract for the sale of a tract of five 
millions of acres, extending along the Ohio from the Muskingum to the Scioto." 
A similar contract was entered into with John Cleves Symmes, of New Jersey, 
fi3r the sale of two millions of acres, between the Great and Little Miamis. 
These were the first steps taken toward the settlement of the vast Noi-th-ivest 
Territory, which embraced the present States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Mich- 
igan, and Wisconsin. It was estimated that, during the year following the 
organization of that Territory [1788], full twenty thousand men, women, and 
children had passed down the Ohio River, to become settlers upon its banks. 
Since, then, how wonderful has been the progress of settlement beyond the 
Alleghanies ! How wide and deep has been the ever-fiowing tide of emigration 
thither ! The original thikteen States have new [1883] expanded into 
THIRTY-EIGHT, aud vast territories, destined to become numerous other States, 
are rapidly filling with people.* 



' The Six Nations [page 25], the 'Wyandots [page 23], the Delawares [page 20], and the 
Shawnees [page 19]. 

" Rufus Putnam, who had been an active officer during the War for Independence, was one of 
the most efficient of the Ohio settlers. He was born in Worcester count}', Massachusetts, in 1738. 
He entered the provincial army in 1757, and continued in service during the remainder of the 
French and Indian War. He entered the army of the Revolution in 1775, and at near the close of 
the war, he was promoted to brigadier-general He went to the Ohio country, with about forty 
•settlers, in 1788. They pitched their tents at the mouth of the Muskingum River, formed a settle- 
ment, and called it Marietta. Suspicious of the Indians, they built a stockade, and calied it Campus 
Martius. In 1 7 80, President Washington commissioned General Putnam Supreme Judge of the North- 
west Territory; and in 1792, he was appointed a brigadier, under Wayne. He was appointed sur- 
veyor-general of the United States in 1796; helped to frame the Constitution of Ohio in 1802 ; and 
then retired to private life. Ho died at Marietta in 1824. at the age of eighty-six years. He is 
called the Father ok Ohio. 

3 The following table gives the names, in alph.abctical order, of the States that compose the 
Republic, at this time [188-3], with the area of each in square miles, and its population in 1880: 

Population. 



States. Area Population. 

Alabama 50,rS3 .... l,2Ca..")0.'j 

Arkansas 53.198 803,.5a5 

California 188,981 .... 8li4,ti!l4 

Colorado IM.5.,0 ... liM..337 

Connecticut 4,T50 .... 623,r0ll 

Delaware 3.130 .... 14(),(i08 , 

Florida 59.348 .... 3119,493. 

Georgia .'iS.OOO .... 1..543.180 I 

Illinois .55.410 .. . 3.ti7T,Sn 

Indiana 33.809 .... 1.97.s..i01 

Iowa 55,045 1,034,015 

Kansas , 81.318 .... 990,090 

Kentucky. 37,080 .... 1,018,090 

Louisiana 41,.340 939.946 

Maine 35.000 ... 04S,936 

Maryland 11.134 .... 934,94:5 

]Ha.^sachusetts 7,800 1,783.085 

Michi<;an .56.451 .... 1,036,9.37 

Jliimesota 83,531 .. 780.773! 



States. 
Mississippi., 
Missouri. . . 
Nebraska. 



Area. 

47.1.56 

. 65,.350 

75,9il5 

Nevada 81, .531 

New Ilanipshiru 9,380 

New Jer,«ey 8,330 

Now York 47,000 

North Carolina 50,704 

Ohio 30.904 

Oregon 95.374 

Pennsylvania 46,000 

nhode'lsland 1,306 

South Carolina 34,(00 

Tennessee 45.600 

Tesas 274,3,50 

Vermont 10.313 

Virginia .38..3.53 

West Virginia. 23.000 

Wisconsin 53,934 



I,131,50r 
2,108.:«Q 

453,403 
63.366 

340.991 
1,1.31,118 
5,083,871 
1,399.750 
3,198.002 

174,768 
4.283,801 

376,531 

ft9.-,,,577 
1„543,.359 
1,591.71!) 

332.386 
1,513..505 

618,4.57 
1,315,497 



There are also eight organized Territories, in which population is rapidly increasing. These 
are Arizona, Dakota, Idaho. Montana. New Mexico. Utah, Wasliington, and Wyoming Ter. 
The aggregate area of these Territories is 906,650 square miles, and'the aggregate population 
in 1880 was ,586,819 ; making the grand total of the area of the Republic 3,b03,0l:J, and of 
population 50,155,783 ; besides these there is the District of Columbia, an Indian Territory, 
and Alaska. 




SIXTH PERIOD. 



THE NATION. 



CHAPTER I. 

•WASHINGTON'S ADMINISTRATIOK. 

1789—1797. 



GOUVERXECR MORRIS. 



When the National Constitution^ bad 
received the approval of the people, and 
was made the supreme law of the Repub- 
lic, all minds and hearts seemed spontaneously turned toward Washington a3 
the best man to perform the responsible duties of chief magistrate of the nation. 
On the 6th of April, 1789, he was chosen President of the United States by 
the unanimous vote of the electors," and John Adams was made Vice-President. 
The journey of Washington from Mount Vernon to New York, was like a 
triumphal march. He had scarcely left his porter's lodge, when he was met 
by a company of gentlemen from Alexandria, who escorted him to that town. 
Everywhere the people gathered to see him as he passed along the road. Towns 
sent out committees to receive him, and public addresses and entertainments 



' We have observed that Gouverneur Morris w.as one of the committee to make the final revision 
of the Constitution. The committee placed it in his liands, and that instrument, in language and 
tfeneral arrangement, is the work of tliat eminent man. Oouvernevir Morris was born near New 
York, in 1752. Ue was a lawyer, and was always active in public life. In 1792 he was appointed 
minister to France, and after his return he was a, legislator for many years. He died in 1816. 

" Note 1, page 361. 



1789.] 



WASHINaXON'S ADMINISTRATION. 



365 



were given in his honor, in many places. Militia companies escorted him from 
place to place, and firing of cannons and ringing of bells, announced his approach 
to the large towns. At Trenton, his reception was peculiar and gratifying. It 
•was arranged by the ladies. Over Trenton bridge an arch was thrown, which 
was adorned with laurel leaves and flowers from the conservatories. Upon the 




crown, and formed of leaves and flowers, were the words, " December 26, 
1776 ;" ' and on the sweep beneath was the sentence, also formed of flowers : 
" The Defender of the Mothers will be the Protector of the 
Daughters." Beneath that arch the President was met by a troupe of 
females. As he approached, a group of little girls, bearing each a basket, 
commenced strewing flowers in the road, and the whole company, young and 
old, joined hi singing the following ode, written for the occasion by Governor 
Howell : 

"Welcome, mighty chief^ once more 
Welcome to this gratefiil shore. 
Now no mercenary foe 
Aims again the fatal blow — 

Aims at Thee the fatal blow. 
Virgins fair and matrons grave, 
Those thy conquering arm did save, 
Biiild for thee triumphal bowers — 
Strew your hero's way with flowers!" 

' Page 262. 



366 



THK NATION. 



[1789. 



Washington reached New York on the 23cl of April, 1789. On the 
80th lie appeared uj.on the street-gallery of the old City Hall' in New York, 
and there, in the presence of an immense concourse of people assembled in 
front, the oath of oflBce was administered to him by Chancellor Livingston.' 




After delivering an impressive address to the members of both Houses of Con- 
gress, the President and the rejtresentatives of the people went in solemn pro- 
cession to St. Paul's Church, and there invoked the blessings of the Supreme 
Ruler upon the new government just inaugurated. 

Men were never called upon to perform duties of greater responsibility, than 
those which demanded the consideration of Washington and his compeers. The 
first session of Congress' was chiefly occupied in the organization of the new 
government, and in the elaborating of schemes for the future prosperity of the 
Republic. The earliest eftbrts of that body were directed to the arrangement 
of a system of revenues, in order to adjust and regulate the wretched financial 

' It stood on ttio site of the present Custom House, porncr of Wall and Broad-streeta In the 
picture on pago 3G4, a correct rt'preseiitation of its stroet-palliTy is piven. 

' One of the oonimittoe [note 2, page S.'il] to dnifl. tlio Deoliir:ition of Independence. ITe was 
boni in Now York in 1717, became a lawyer, and was iJwiiys an active public man. He w.is 
minister to France in ISOI. whi'n lie purclia.scd Louisiana for the United States. See page 300. Ho 
joined Robert Fulton in stcamboiit experiments [page 398j, and died in 1813. 

" Members of the House of Representatives are elected to scats for two years, and they 
usually hold two sessions or sittings during that time. Kach full term is called a Congress. 
There are usually two sessions of each Congress, both commencing ou the first Monday in De- 
cember, and the last ending on the 3d of March. Senators are elected by the State Legislatures. 



1797.] WASHINGTON'S ADMINISTRATION. 367 

affairs of the country.' This subject was brought forward by Madison," the 
tacitly acknowledged leader in the House of Representatives, two days after the 
votes for President and Vice-President had been counted. Pursuant to his sug- 
gestion, tonnage duties were levied, and also a tariff, or duties upon foreign 
goods imported into the United States. These duties were made favorable to 
American shipping. This was the commencement of our present, though con- 
siderably modified, revenue system. 

Having made provision for the collection of revenue, Congress next turned 
its attention to the reorganization of the executive departments. Three — Treas- 
ury, War, and Foreign Affairs — were created, the heads of which were to be 
styled secretaries, instead of ministers, as in Europe. These the President 
might appoint or dismiss with the concurrence of the Senate. They were to 
constitute a cabinet council, always ready for consultation with the President, 
on public affairs, and bound to give him their opinions in writing, when 
required. 

It may be instructive to take a brief retrospective view of the progress of 
legislative action concerning the commerce of the United States from the close 
of the Revolution until the time in question. In March, 1783, the younger 
Pitt' proposed in the British Parliament, a scheme for the temporary regulation 
of commercial intercourse between Great Britain and the United States. Its 
chief feature was the free admission into the British West India ports of American 
vessels laden with the products of American industry — the West Lidia people, 
in turn, to be allowed like free trade with the United States. The proposition 
was rejected, and soon an order went forth from the Privy Council, < for the 
entire exclusion of American vessels from West India ports, and prohibiting the 
importation there of several products of the United States, even in British bot- 
toms. Notwithstanding this unwise and narrow policy was put in force, Mr. 
Adams, the American minister at the court of St. James, proposed, in 1785, 
to place the navigation and trade between all the dominions of the British crown 
and all the territories of the United States, upon a basis of perfect reciprocity. 
This generous offer was not only declined, but the minister was haughti'y 
assured that no other would be entertained. Whereupon Mr. Adams imme- 
diately recommended the United States to pass navigation acts for the benefit 
of their commerce. 

Some individual States attempted to legislate upon commercial matters 
and the subject of duties for revenue, but their efforts were comparatively 
fruitless. The importance of having the united action of all the States, in 
framing general navigation laws, was clearly perceived, and this perception was 
one of the chief causes which led to the Convention that formed the National 
Constitution.' The new government was inaugurated in due time, and, as we 
have mentioned, the earliest efforts of Congress, under the new order of things, 
were the consideration of schemes ftr imposing discriminating duties." These 



' Page 353. ' Note 5, page 356. ' Page 217. 

* Note 1, page 400. ' Page 365. ' Page 366. 



868 THE NATION. [1789. 

measures immediately opened the blind eyes of British legislators to the neces- 
sity of a rcciprooity in trade between the two countries. They saw that Amer- 
ican commerce was no longer at the mercy of thirteen distinct legislative bodies, 
as under the old Confederation, nor subject to the control of the king and his 
council. They perceived that its interests were guarded and its strength nur- 
tured, by a central power, of wonderful energy, and soon haughty Britain 
became the suppliant. Soon after the passage of the revenue laws by Con- 
gress, a committee of Parliament proposed to ask the United States to con- 
Bent to an arrangement precisely the same as that suggested by Mr. Adams, 
six years before, which was so scornfully rejected. The proposition was met 
by generous courtesy on the part of tiie United States ; yet it was not until 
1816, when the second war for Independence' had been some time closed, that 
reciprocity treaties fairly regulated the commerce between the two countries. 

During the period here referred to, another great commercial interest, then 
in embryo, was under contemplation and discussion, by a few men of forecast. 
It was that of the production of Cotton. Primarily it is an agricultural inte- 
rest, but now, when a large portion of tlie cotton used in Europe is grown 
in the United States, it has become a great commercial interest. Among the first 
and most powerful advocates of the cultivation of this plant, was Tench Coxe,' of 
Pliiladelpliia, who, as early as 1 TH5, when he was only thirty years of ago, pub- 
lislied the fact that he " felt pleasing convictions that the United States, in its 
extensive regions south of Anne Arundel and Talbot counties, Maryland, -orould 
certainly become a great cotton-producing country." And while the National 
Convention was in sessionin Philadelphia, in 1 787,' Mr. Coxe delivered a powerful 
publicaddress on that and kindred subjects, havingfor his object the establishment 
of a society for the encouragement of manufactures and tlie useful arts. Before 
that time, not a bale of cotton had ever been exported from the United States 
to any other country, and no j)lanter had adopted its cultivation, as a "crop."' 

The Senate was engaged upon the important matter of a National judiciary, 
■while the House was employed on the Revenue bills. A plan, embodied in a 
bill drafted by Ellsworth of Connecticut,' was, after several amendments, con- 
curred in by both Houses. By its provisions, a national judiciary was estab- 
lished, consisting of a supreme court, having one chief justice, and five associate 



' Page 409. 

' Tench Coxe was born in riiiladelphia, in May, 1755, anti, as wc have mentioned in the text, 
was one of the earliest acivocates of the cotton culture. From 1787 until his death, there was 
never an important industrial movement in which he was not greatly interested, or in which his 
name did not appear prominent. In HO-t, while ho w.as the Commissioner of Revenue, at I'liila- 
delpliia, he published a larpo octavo volume, containing his views, as expressed in speecli and 
writing, on the subject of the cotton culture. In 18UG, he published an essay on naval power 
and the encouragement of manufactures. The following year ho published an es.say on the culti- 
vation of cotton, and from time to time thereafter, he wrote and published his views on these 
subjects. Ho died in July, 1S24, at the ago of more than sixty-eight years. See next page. 

• Page 35G. 

* It has been estimated that the entire produce of cotton, in all countries, in 1 791, was four hun- 
dred and ninety millions of poumls, ,ind that the United States produced only oue twenty-tiflh of 
the entire quantity. In the years 1850-(10, the ten cotton-growing States oi^ the Union produced 
four millions, six hundred and seventy-tive thousand, seven hundred and seventy bales, of four 
hundred pounds each, nuiking an aggregate of 1,870,080,000 pounds. The whole world did not 
produce as much cotton as this, annually, previous to the year 1810. ' Page 3G0. 



1197] 



■WASHINGTON'S ADMINISTRATION. 



369 



justices, who were to hold two sessions annually, at the seat of the National 
Government.' Circuit and district courts were also established, which had ju- 
risdiction over certain specified cases. Each State was made a district, as wci c 
also the Territories of Kentucky" and Maine. ^ The districts, except Kentucky 




^^ 



and Maine, were grouped together into three circuits. An appeal from these 
lower courts to the Supreme Court of the United States, was allowed, as to 
points of law, in all civil cases when the matter in dispute amounted to two 
thousand dollars. A marshal was to be appointed by the President, for each 
district, having the general powers of a sheriff, who was to attend all courts, 
and was authorized to serve all processes. A district attorney, to act for the 
United States in all cases in which the National Government might be inter- 
ested, was also to be appointed for each district. Such, in brief outline, and 
in general terms, was the National judiciary, organized at the commencement 
of the Government, and still in force, with slight modifications. 

The next business of importance that engaged the attention of Congress, 



' John Jay [pagje 379] of New York, ono of the most active anrl acute lawyer.'? in the country: 
was apppointed the first Chief .lustice of the United States: and Edmund Randolpli, of Virginia, 
was made Attorney-General. Randolph suoeoeded Patrick Henry as (rovernor of Virginia, in 178(>, 
and was very active in the Convention of 17S7. See note 1, page 3.'j9. He succeeded Jefl'crson as 
Secretary of State, and died in 1813. John Rutledge [pafre 210], of South Carolina; James Wilson, 
of Pennsylvania; 'William Cushim?, of Massachusetts ; Robert H. Harrison, of Maryland ; and John 
Blair, of Virginia, were appointed associate judges. ' Page 377. ^ Page 452. 

24 



370 TIIK NATION. flTSa, 

was tlie proposed amencltnvnts to the Xational Const" tution, made W the minor- 
ities of the several conventions which ratified that instrument. This subject 
was brouglit forward by Madison, in justice to these minorities, and pursuant 
to pledges which he had found it necessary to give, in order to secure its ratifi- 
cation in Virginia. These amounted, in the aggregate, to one hiuidred and 
forty-seven,' besides sei)arate bills of rights proposed by Virginia and New 
York. Many of these amendments were identical in spirit, as, for example, the 
nine propositions by jNIassachusetts were repeated by New Hampshire. And it 
is a singular fact, that of all the proposed amendments, not one, judged by sub- 
sequent experience, was of a vital character. How well this illustrates the 
profound wisdom embodied in our Constitution ! Sixteen amendments were 
finally agreed to by Congress, ten of which were subsequently ratified by the 
States, and became a part of the Supreme Law." After a session of almost 
jix months. Congress adjourned,' on the 29th of September [1789], and Wash- 
ington, having appointed his cabinet council,* made a brief tour through the 
aorthern and eastern States, to make himself better acquainted with the people 
j,nd their resources.'' 

On the 8th of January, 1790, the second session of the first Congi-ess com- 
■jaenced, during which Alexander Hamilton," the first Secretary of the Treasury, 
made some of those able financial reports which established the general line of 
rational policy for more than twenty years. On his recommendation, the gen- 
eral government assumed the public foreign and domestic debt incurred by the 
late war,' and also the State debts contracted during that period. The foreign 
debt, including interest, due to France and to private lenders in Holland, with 
a small sum to Spain, amounted to $11,710,378. The domestic debt, regis' 
tered and unregistered, including interest, and some claims, principally the out' 
standing continental money," amounted to $42,414,085. Nearly one third of 
bhis was the arrears of interest. As the government certificates, continental 

' Tl\o minority of the Pennsylvania Convention proposed 14; of Massachusetts, 9; of Maryland, 
28; of Soutli Carolina, 4; of New Hampshire, 12; of Virginia, 20; of New York, 32. 
' Spe Supplement. 

' A few flays before the adjournment, a resolution was adopted, requesting the President of the 
United States to recommend a day of public thanl<s<rivinp and prayer, to be observed by the people 
of the nation, in aclcnowledgment of the many signal favors of the Almighty, in permitting them to 
establish, in peace, a free gove.-nment. 

' Alexander Hamilton was appoi..t'"d Secretary of the Treai^ur, , 
Henry Knox, Secretary of War; and Tlioma.i J-^f'erson, .Secretary 
of Foreign Aflairs. Jelier-ion was tlicn I'nited States minister at the 
court of France, and did not enter upon his duties until March, 1790. 
Tlie office of Secretary of the Navy was not created until the pres- 
idency of Mr. Adams. Naval affairs were under the control of the 
Secretary of War. General Knox was one of the most efficient 
officers of tlie Revolution, liaving, from the beginning, the chief com- 
maTid of tlie artillery. He entered the army as captain of artillery, 
and rose to tlie rank of major-general. Note 4. page .^50. 

° W;isliincton was everywhere received with great lionors ; and 
Tnimbull, author of ^PFlnl|nl^ wrote to liis friend, Oliver Woicott. 
OGXEEAL KNOX. "We have gone throuvli all tiie popish grades of worship; and the 

President returns all fragrant with the odor of incense." 
• ITote 2, page .SGO. 
Note 2, page 253. In that note the amount given ia the principal, without the interest. 
Page 24 1. 




1797.] WASHINGTON'S ADMINISTRATION.- 371 

bills, and other evidences of debt, were now held chiefly by speculators, who 
had purchased them at reduced rates, the idea had been put forth by prominent 
men, that it would be proper and expedient to apply a scale of depreciation, as 
in the case of the paper money toward the close of the war, ' in liquidating these 
claims. But Hamilton opposed it as dishonest and impolitic, arguing, in sup- 
port of the latter objection, that public credit was essential to the new Federal 
Government. He therefore urged that all the debts of the government should 
be met according to the terms of the contract. He proposed the funding of the 
public debt, in a fair and economical way, by which the public creditors should 
receive their promised six per cent, interest, until the Government should be 
able to pay the principal, the Secretary assuming that, in five years, the 
United States might effect loans at five, and even at four per cent., with which 
these claims might be liquidated. He proposed to have the proceeds of the 
post-office' as a sinking fund, for the gradual extinction of the debt. After 
much debate, the propositions of Hamilton, in general, were agreed to by Con- 
gress, on the 9th of March, 1790.' A system of revenue from imposts and 
internal excise, proposed by Hamilton, was also adopted. A petition from 
the Society of Friends, or Quakers, presented on the 11th of February, on the 
subject of slavery, caused long, and, sometimes, acrimonious debates. An act 
was also passed, during this session, making the District of Columbia the per- 
tiianeut seat of the National Goveminent, after the lapse of ten years from that 
datp. 

The First Congress commenced its third session' in December, 1790, and 
before its close, measures were adopted which laid the foundations of public 
credit and national prosperity, deep and abiding. During the two years in 
"which the new government had been engaged in the business of organization, a 
■competent revenue had been provided for ; the public debt, national and State, 
had been funded, and the interest thereon had been provided for ; a national 
judiciary, wise in all its features, had been established ; and the nation, in 
its own estimation and that of other States of the world, had taken a proud 
position in the great political family. North Carolina [Nov. 21, 1789] and 
Rhode Island [May 29, 1790], had already become members of the Nation.il 
Union, by ratifying the Cousiitutioii ;'*and during this session, Vermont' had been 
admitted [February 18, 1791] as a State. Settlements were now rapidly 
spreading beyond the Aileghanies,' and the subject of territorial organizations 

' Note 3, page 245. '' Pase ?.'2. 

' The President was authorized to borrow $12,000,000, if necessary, to pay off tlie foreign debt; 
and a new loan was to be opened, payable in certificates, of the domestic debt, at their par value, 
and in continental bills of credit, at tlie rate of one hundred for one. Congress also authorized an 
additional loan, payable in certificates of the State debts, to the amount of $21,500,000. These 
certificates were those which had been issued for services or supplies, during the war. A new 
board of commissioners was appointed, with full power to settle all claims on general principles of 
equity. * Note 3, page 366. ' Page 360. 

• Vermont was originally called the New Hampshire Grants, and was claimed by both New 
York and New Hampshire. In 1777, the people met in convention, and proclaimed the territory 
an independent State. After purchasing the claims of New York for $30,000, it was admitted into 
the Union. 

' The first census, or enumeration of the inhabitants of the United States, was completed va 
1791. The number of all sexes and colors, was 3,929,000. The number of slaves was 695,000. 



872 T " '•' NATION. [1789. 

was pressed upon the consideration of Congress. Already tlio Nortli-ivestcrn 
Territory, as wo have seen,' had been established [July, 1787J, and Tennessee 
had l)een constituted [March 20, 1790J the TvrrUorij Houth-wcst of the Ohio? 

The subject of a national currency early engaged the attention of Congress, 
and at the commencement of the last session of the First Congress, a bill for 
the cstal)lislinioiit of a national bank wiis introduced into the Senate, in accord- 
ance with the suggestion and plan of Hamilton. At that time the whole bank- 
ing capital in the United States was only 1*2,000,000, invested in the Bank of 
North America, at riiiladelphia, established by Robert Morris ;° the Bank of 
New York, in New York city, and the Batik of Massachusetts, in Boston. 
The charter was limited to twenty years ; its location was to be in the city of 
Philadelphia, and its management to be intrusted to twenty-five directors. 
Although chartered in January, 1791, the National Bank did not commenco 
its operations, in corporate form, until in February, 17*04, when it began with 
a capital of $10,000,000. 

Early in the first session of the second Congress, the important subject of 
a national mint received the attention of the representatives of the people. That 
subject had been frequently discussed. As early as 1782, the topic of coins 
and currency had been presented to the Continental Congress, by Gouverneur 
Morris, in an able report, written at the retjucst of Robert Morris. In 1784, 
Mr. Jefferson, as chuirnian of a committee appointed for the purpose, submitted 
a report, agreeing with Morris in regard to a decimal system, but entirely dis- 
agreeing with him in the details.'' Ho proposed to strike four coins, namely, 
a golden piece of the value of ten dollars ; a dollar, in silver ; a tenth of a dol- 
lar, in silver; and a hundredth of a dollar, in copper. In 1785, Congress 
adoj)ted IMr. Jefferson's report, and made legal provision, the following year, 
for a coinage upon that basis. Tliis was the origin of our cent, dime, dollar, 
and eaqle. Already several of the States had issued copper coins ;' but the 
National Constitution vested the right of coinage solely in the General Govern- 
ment. The establi.sliment of a Mint was delayed, however, .and no special aet ion 
in that direction was taken until 1790, when Mr. Jefterson, then Secretary of 

' Pago 3G2. 

' The subject of the public \aiv\i of tbo United States has alw.iys been one of interest. The 
first act of Congress, on the subject of hmited s.ales, was in accordance witli a scheme proposed by 
llaiuilton, in 1790, which provided in some degree tor tlio protection of small purchasers. Previous 
to that, not less than a tract of four thousand acres could bo purchased. This was citlculated to 
make labor subservient to wealth, in now settlements. Hamilton's scheme w.is highly approved. 
The niininunn price of jntblic k'ud, jirevious to 1800, was two dollars per acre ; since then, one dol- 
lar and twonty-fivo cents. The extent of tho public domain has greatly increased, by accessions, 
witliin a few years. At the close of 1855, there remained unsold about 96,000,000 of acres of sui;.- 
veycd jiublic domain, and of the unsurveyed, about i:!G,000,000 of acres, worth, in the aggregate, 
abi)ut !i;270,000,000. Since tlien iiwirly 200,000,001) acres Imvo been granted for the aid <i( 
various onteri>rises, notably for tho construction of 15,000 miles of railway. 

" Note 3, page 3(i:5. ^ . ^ 

• Morris attempted to harmonize the moneys of all tho Statea StarUng ■mth an oso^rtamea 
fraction as an unit, for a divisor, he proposed the Ibllowing table of moneys : 

Ten units to be equal to one penny. 

Ten pence to one bill. 

Ten bills ouo dollar (or about soventy-flve cents of our currency). 

Ten dollars ono crown. 

• Note 4, page 122. 



1797,] ■WASHINGTON'S ADMINISTRATION. 37jJ 

State, urged the matter upon the attention of Congress. Still there was delay, 
until on the 2d of April, 1792, laws were enacted tor the establishment of a 
Mint. During three years from that time, its operations were chiefly experi- 
mental, arl long debutes were had concerning the devices for the new coins.' 
Tlie Mint was finally put into full operation, in 1795," and has continued to 
increase in its issues of coin, ever since.' 

A bill for the organization of a post-office system, was passed during the 
same session that measures were adopted for the establishment of a Mint. Verj 
soon after the commencement of the first session of the first Congress, a letter 
was received from Ebenczer llazzard [July 17, 1780J, then postmaster-general 
under the old Confederation, suggesting the importance of some new regula- 
tions for that department. A bill for the temporary establishment of the post 
office was passed soon afterward. The subject was brought up, from time to 
time, until the present system was organized in 1792. The postmaster-general 
was not mide a cabinet officer until the first year [1829] of President Jack- 
son's administration.* 

British agents on the north-western frontier continued to tamper with the 
Indians, and excite them to hostilities against the United States, for several 
years after the peace of 1783.' And, contrary to the terms of that treaty, the 
British held possession of western posts belonging to the United States. These 
facts caused a prevalent belief tli;it the Britisii government, yet hoped for an 
opportunity to bring the new Republic back to colonial dependence. The pub- 
lic mind in America became excited, and the fact, that Sir John Johnston' waa 
tiie British Indian agent on that frontier, and Sir Guy Carlcton (tiien Lord 
Dorchester) was again governor of Canada,' strengthened that opinion and 
apprehension. Finally, in the spring of 1790, the fostered discontents of the 
Indians were developed into open hostilities. Attempts at pacific arrangements 
were fruitless, and General llarmer was sent into the Indian country north of 
the present Cincinnati, with quite a strong force, to desolate their villages and 



' The Senate proposed the head of tho President of the United States who should occupy the 
cliair jit tlic time of tlie coinage. In tlio House, tlio head of Liberty vias suggested, as being less 
aristocratic tliau that of the President — having loss the stamp of royalty. The head of Liberty waa 
linally adopted. 

'' Tlio iirst mint was located in Philadelphia, and remained the sole issuer of coin, in the United 
States, until 18:i5, wlicu a branch waa estahlisliod in caeli of the States of Georgia, North Carolina, 
and Ijouisiana — in Cliarlotte, Dailonega, and New Orleans. These three branches went into oper- 
.ation in tlio years 1837-'.'!8. 

" From 17113 to 171)5, inclusive, the value of tho whole issue was less than half a million ol 
dollars. Previous to the year 1830, almost tho entire supply of gold for our coinage was ftif. 
iiislicd by foreign countries. North Carolina was the first State of the Union that sent gold to 
tho Mint from its mines. Since then, almost every Stale lias made contributions, some very 
small. During the flsoul year ending in June, ISOI, when the Civil War was kindling, the vahio 
of tho entire issue of coin, by tho Government Mini and its branches, was $84,000,000. Tho 
idiscovery of gold in California, in 1.8 18, oprinMl an inimcuso treasury, and, up to the beginning 
of the war, that was the only great gold pniiliicing region within tho Kepublic. Of the entire 
amount of gold, from domestic mines, deposited in tho Mint up to 1800, valued at .$480,311,000, 
$409,400,003 was sent from California. Adjacent territories are now [IBS:;] yielding largely. 

' Pago 459. The operations of tlie post-ollico department increased very rapidly year after 
year. In 1795, the number of post-office routes w.as 453; over 13, 207 miles of travel. Tho 
revenuo of the dep;.rtment was $100,020. When the Civil War began, in 1801, the numlier of 
routes was about 9,000 ; the number of miles traveled, full 260,000; and the revenue nearly 
$9,000,000. ' Page 348. » Note 2, page 278. ' Pago 240. 



/ 



374 THK X ATI ON. [1789. 

crops, as Sullivan did those of the Senecas in 1779.' In this he succeeded, but 

in two battles [Oct. 17 and 22, 1790], near the present village of Fort Wayne, 
ill Indiana, he was defeated, with considerable loss. The following year, an 
"xpodition of Kentucky volunteers, under General Scott, marched against the 
liidians on the Wabash. General AVilkinson led a second expedition against 
tlicm, in July following, and in September, General St. Clair," then governor 
of the North-west Territory, marclied into the Indian country, with two thou- 
sand m^n. While in camp near the northern line of Darke county, Ohio, on 
the borders of Indiana, be was surprised and defeated [N"ov. 4, 1791] by the 
IiKliaus, with a loss of about nine Inindred men, killed and wounded. 

The defeat of St. Clair produced great alarm on the whole north-western 
frontier. Even the people of Pittsburgh did not feel secure, and the border 
settlers called loudly for help. Fortunately the Indians did not follow up the 
advantage they had gained, and for a while hostilities ceased. Commissioners^ 
were appointed to treat with them, but through the interference of British 
officials, their negotiations were fruitless. General Wayne' had been appointed, 
in the mean while, to succeed St. Clair in military command, and apprehend- 
ing that the failure of the negotiations would be followed by an immediate 
attack upon the frontier settlements, he marched into the Indian country in the 
autumn of 1793. He spent the winter at Greenville," near the place of St. 
Clair's defeat, where he built Fort Recovery. The following summer [1794] 
he pushed forward to the Maumee River, and built Fort Defiance f and on the 
St. Mary's he erected Fort Adams as an intermediate post. On the 16th of 
August he went down the Maumee, with three thousand men, and not far from 
the present Maumee City,' he fought and defeated the Indians, on the 20th of 
the same month. He then laid waste their country, and after a successful 
campaign of about ninety days, he went into winter (quarters at Greenville. 
There, the following year, the chiefs and warriors of the western tribes, in all 
about eleven hundred, met [August 3, 1795] commissioners of the United 
States, made a treaty of peace, and ceded to the latter a large tract of land in 
the present States of Michigan" and Indiana. After that, the United States 
had very little trouble with the western Indians until just before the breaking 
out of the war of 1812-15." 

Party spirit, which had been engendered during the discussions of tlio 
National Constitution," gradually assumed distinct forms, and during the second 
Bession of the second Congress, it became rampant among the people, as well as 
in the national legislature. Hamilton and Jefferson, the heads of distinct. 
departments" in Washington's cabinet, differed matci-ially concerning important 
public measures, and then, under the respective leadership of those statesmen, 



' Papp 304. ' P.age 216. ' Pace 205. * Page 298. ' In Darke county, Ohio. 

" At the junction of the Au Glaize with the Maumee River, in the south-east part of Williams 
county, Ohio. 

' In the town of 'Waynesficld. Tlio British then occupied a fort at the Maumee Rapida^. 
near l)y. 

" The British held possession of Detroit, and nearly aU Michigan, until 179G. See page 380. 

» Page 409. » Pago 360. " Page 367. 




"Wayne's Defeat op the Indians. 



n97.] WASHINGTON'S ADMINISTRATION. 377- 

were drawn those lines of party distinction known as Federalist and Repub- 
lican^ which continued for a quarter of a centui'j. The Federalist party was 
composed of those who favored great concentration of power in the general gov- 
ernment. The Republicans, on the contrary, were for diifusing power among 
the people. Here were antagonistic points of great diiference, and the warfare 
between the parties was acrimonious in the extreme. 

Durincr the summer of 1792, very little of public interest occurred, except 
the admission [June 1] of Kentucky' into the Union, but the marshalling of 
forces for the pi'esidential election, which was to take place in the autumn. 
Washington yearned for the quiet of private life, and had e.xpi-essed his deter- 
mination to withdraw from public station on the expiration of his presidential 
term ; but it was made evident to his mind, that the great majority of the 
people desired his continuance in oiBce, and that the public safety demanded 
it. Under these circumstances, he consented to be a candidate, and he and 
Adams were re-elected by large majorities. 

Yet the Republican party was daily gaining strength, partly from develop- 
ments within the body politic of the United States, and partly from events then 
transpiring in Europe. A bloody revolution was in progress in France. The 
people there had abolished monarchy, and murdered their king, and the new 
Republic in name (a political chaos in reality), having the avowed sympathies 
of the Republican party in America,'' sent M. Genet' as its minister to the 
United States, to obtain the co-operation of the American people. The French 
Republic had declared war against England, Spain, and Holland, and needed 
transatlantic assistance. Remembering the recent alliance,'' and sympathizing 
with all efforts for popular freedom, the Republican party here, and also many 
of the Federalists, received Genet (who arrived at Charleston, South Carolina, 
in April, 1793) with open arms, and espoused his cause. 

But Genets zeal outstripped his prudence, and defeated his plans. With- 
out waiting for an expression of opinions or intentions from the government of 
the United States, he began to fit out privateers' in our ports, to depredate 
upon English, Dutch, and Spanish property ;° and when Washington prudently 
issued [May 9, 1793] a proclamation, declaring it to be the duty and the inter- 



' Kentucky, which had been settled chiefly by Virginians, and was claimed as a part of the 
territory of that State, was now erected into a sovereign member of the confederation. Its first 
settlement, as we have seen [note 2, page 300], was at Boonesboro', by Daniel Boone, in 1715. 

^ There was a general burst of enthusiasm in the United States, on receipt of the intelligence of 
the advent of Liberty in France, and public demonstrations of it were made in several places. In 
Boston, an ox, roasted whole, was placed upon a car drawn by sixteen horses, and with the Amer- 
ican and French flags displayed from its horns, was paraded through the streets, followed by carta, 
bearing bread and two hogsheads of punch, which were distributed among the people. A civic 
feast was held at Faneuil HaU, over which Samuel Adams [note 1, page 221] presided. In Phil- 
adelphia the anniversary of the French alliance [page 283] was celebrated by a public dinner, at 
which General Mifflin [page 352] presided ; and in other places festivals were held. 

* Edmund Charles Genet was the son of a distinguished public man in France. He married, in 
this country, a daughter of Governor George Clinton [note 5. page 350], and remained in the 
United States. He died at Greenbush, opposite Albany, in 1834, aged about seventv-two years. 

* Page 283. ' Note \, page 246. 

° These cruisers brought captured vessels into our ports, and French consuls actually held 
courts of admiralty, and authorized the sale of the prizes. AU this was done before Genet was 
recognized as a minister by the American government. 



878 THE NATION. 11789. 

est of the people of the United States to preserve a strict neutrality toward the 
contending powers of Europe, Genet persisted, and tried to excite hostility 
between our people and their government. Washington finally requested and 
obtained his recal, and Fauchet, wlio succeeded him in 1794, was instructed to 
assure the President that the French government disapproved of Genet's con- 
duct. No doubt the prudence and firmness of Washington, at this time, saved 
our Republic from utter ruin. 

A popular outbreak in western Pennsylvania, known in history as The 
Whiskei/ Insurrcctioiu gave the new government much trouble in 1794. An 
excise law, passed in 1791, which imposed duties on domestic distilled liquors, 
•was very unpopular. A new act, passed in the spring of 1794, was equally 
unpopular ; and when, soon after the adjournment of Congress, oflScers were 
sent to enforce it in the western disti-icts of Pennsylvania, they were resisted 
by the people, in arms. The insurrection became general throughout all that 
region, and in the viciinty of Pittsburg many outrages were committed. 
Buildings were burned, mails were robbed, and government officers were in- 
sulted and abused. At one time there were between six and seven thousand 
insurgents under arms. The local militia would have been utterly impotent to 
restore order, if their aid had l)een given. Indeed, most of the militia assem- 
bled in response to a call made by the leaders of the insurgents, and these com- 
posed a largo portion of the " rebels." The insurgent spirit extended into the 
border counties of Virginia ; and the President and his cabinet, perceiving, with 
alarm, this imitation of the lawlessness of French politics, took immediate steps 
to crush the growing hydra. The President first issued two proclamations 
[August 7, and September 25], but without effi^ct. After due consideration, 
and the exhaustion of all peaceable means, he ordered out a large body of the 
militia of Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, who marched to 
the insurgent district, in October [1794], under the command of General 
Henry Lee, then governor of Virginia.' This last argument was effectual ; and 
soon this insurrection, like that of Shays's, of Massachusetts, some years 
earlier,'-' whicli tbreateued the stability of the National Government, was 
allayed. 

Another cloud was now rising in the political horizon. While these inter- 
nal commotions were disturbing the public tranquillity, a bitter ieeling was 
growing up between the American and British governments. Each accused 
the other of infractions of the treaty of 1783,° and the disputes, daily assuming 
a more bitter tone, threatened to involve the two nations in another war. The 
Americans complained that no indemnification had been made for negroes car- 
ried away at the close of the Revolution ;' that the British held military posts 
on their frontiers, contrary to the treaty ;' that British emissaries had excited 
the hostility of the Indians ;' and that, to retaliate on France, the English had 

' PaRP .S.^3. ' Pasro 35S. ' Page 348. 

' During: tlic last two years of the war in the Oarolinas and Georpia, and at the final evacua- 
tion, the British plundered many plantations, and sold the negroes in the West Indies. 

• Note 8, page 374. • Page 373; 



1791.] 



T H K NATION. 



379 



captured our ne«tral vessels, and impressed our seamen into the British service.^ 
The British complained that stipulations concerning the property ot loyalists, 
and also b relation to debts contracted in England before the Revolution, had 
not bean complied with. In order to avert an event so very undesirable as 
a wax- with Great Britain, the President proposed to send a special envoy to the 
British court, in hopes of bringing to an amicable settlement, all matters m 
dispute between the two governments. The National Legislature approved of it. 




M^i^J^^ 



and on the 19th of April, 1794, John Jay' was appointed an envoy extraordi- 
nary for the purpose. 

The special minister of the United States was received with great courtesy 
in England, where he arrived in June ; and he negotiated a treaty which, at the 
time, vfas not very satisfactory to a large portion of his countrymen. It hon- 
estly provided for the collection of debts here, by British creditors, which had 

' This practice was one of tbe causes which finally produced a war between the two nations, 
m 1812. See page 409. 

' The loyalists, or Tories [note 4, page 226], who had fled from the country during the prog- 
ress, or at the close of the War for Independence, and whose property had been confiscated, 
endeavoured to regain their estates, and also indemnity for their other loisses. The British govern- 
ment finally paid to these sufferers more than $15,000,000. 

° John .lay was a descendant of a Huguenot family [page 49], and was born in the city of New 
York in 1745. He was early in the ranks of active patriots, and rendered very important services 
during the Revolution After the war he was one of the most efficient of our countrymen in lajing 
the foundations of our National Government, and of establishing the civU government of his 
native State, of which he was chief magistrate at one time. He retired from public life in 1801, 
and died in 1829, at tlie age of eighty-lour years. His residence was at Bedford, "Westchester 
county. New York. 



380 



; T TI K N A •!' I N . 



[1189. 



been contracted before the Revolution, but it procured no redress for those who 
had lost negroes. It secured indemnity for unlawful captures on the seas, and 
the evacuation of the forts on the.fiontiers (yet hold by the British), by the 1st 
of June, 1796. In order to secure certain points of great importance, Jay waa 




compelled to yield others ; and he finally signed a treaty, defective, in some 
things, aiid objectionable in others, but the best that could then be obtained. 
The treaty gave rise to violent debates in Congress,' and in State Legislatures, 
but was ratified by the Senate on the 24th of June, 1795." The wisdom, 

' The dcbntcs, on that occasion, developed talent of the highest order, and present a memorable 
epoch in the iiistory of American politics and statesmanship. Albert (!allatin then established 
his title to tlio leadership of the opposition in tlie Ilou.'ie of Representatives, while Fisher Ames, in a 
speech of wonderful power, in favor of the treaty and the Administration, won for himself the 
laurels of an unrivaled orator. He was then in feeble health ; and when he arose to speak, thin 
and pale, ho could hardly sup|iort himself on his feet, and his voice was feeble. Strength seemed 
to come as ho warmed with tlio subject, and his eloquence and wisdom poured forth as from a 
mighty and inexhaustible fountain. So powerful was his speech, that a member opposed to him 
moved tljat the question on which he had spoken should be postponed until the next day, " tliat 
they should not act under the intluence of an excitement of which their calm judgment might not 
approve." In allusion to this speech, .John Adams bluntly said: "There wasn't a dry eye in the 
House, e.xcept some of the jackasses that occasioned the necessity of the oratory." P'isher Ames 
was born in Dedham, Massachusetts, in Ajiril, nSK. His healtli was delicate from infancy, lie 
was so precocious that ho commenced the study of Latin when six years of age, and was admitted 
to Harvard College at the age of twelve. Ho chose the law for a profession, and soon stood at the 
head of the bar in his native district. He was a warm advocate of the Federal Constitution. He 
was the first representative of his district in the National Congress. He died on the 4th of 
July, 1 808, at the ago of forty-eight years. 

' Great excitement succeeded. In several ciiies mobs threatened pemuuiU violeuue to tlio rup. 



1797.] -WASHINGTON'S ADMINISTRATION. 381 

and policy, ami true patriotism of Mr. Jay were soon made manifest. In Oc- 
tober following, a treaty was conuhided with Spain, by which the boundaries be- 
tween the Spanish territories of Louisiana and Florida, and the United States, 
■were defined. That treaty also secured to the United States the free naviga- 
tion of the Mississippi, and the use of New Orleans, as a port, for ten years. 

As soon as one excitement was fairly allayed, causes for others appeared ; 
and during the whole time of Washington's administration of eight years, when 
the policy of the new government had to be established, and its machinery put 
in operation, the greatest wisdom, circumspection, and conservative action, on 
the part of oiBcials, were continually demanded. Difficulties apjjcared like 
little clouds on the distant horizon, sometimes as mere specks, at others, in 
alarming shapes. These were chiefly in connection with trade, especially in 
foreign lands. American commerce was rapidly expanding, and now began to 
find its way into the Mediterranean Sea. There it was met by Algerine 
pirates, who seized the merchandise, and held the seamen in captivity, in order 
to procure ransom-money. These depi'edations, which finally gave rise to eff"orts 
to organize a navy, had continued many years before the government took 
active measures to suppress them. President Washington called the attention 
of Congress to the subject, toward the clo.se of 1790 ; and at the same time, 
Jefierson, then Secretary of State, gave many interesting details, in his arnmal 
report, on the subject of these piracies. A commissioner was sent to treat with 
the Dey, or Governor, of Algiers on the subject, but that semi-barbariarr rol)l)er 
argued in reply : " If I were to make peace with everybody, what should I do 
with my corsairs ? what should I do with my soldiers ? They would take oS" 
my head for the want of other prizes, not being able to live on their miserable 
allowance." 

In the spring of 1794, Congress, on account of these depredations, passed 
an Act to provide for a naval armament, and appropriated almost seven hun- 
dred thousand dollars for the purpose. But the United States, in the absence 
of the proposed navy, was compelled to make a treaty of peace in the autumn 
of 1795 [November 28], with the Dey of Algiers, by which an annual 
tribute was to be given for the redemption of captives, in accordance with the 
long-established usages of European nations.' This was humiliating, but could 
not then be avoided. Congress had given the President power to provide by 
purchase or otherwise, and ecj^uip, several vessels. To this end he put forth 
his energies immediately, and in July [1794], he commissioned captains and 
superintendents, naval constructors and navy agents, six each, and orderoil the 
construction of six ships. The treaty with the Dey of Algiers caused work on 

porters of the treaty. Mr Jay was burned in effigy [note 6, page 215], Mr. Hamilton was stoned 
at a public meeting, and tiie British minister at Pliiladclpliia was insulted. 

' Between the years 1785 and 1793, the Algcriiio pirates captured and carried into Algiers, 
fifteen American vessels, used tlio property, and made one hundred and eiglity officers and seamen 
slaves of the most revolting liind. In 1795, tlio United States agreed, by treaty, to pay eight liun- 
dred thousand dollars for captives, then alive, and in addition, to make the dey, or governor, a 
present of a frigate wortli a hundred tliousand (iollars. An aimual tribute of twenty-throe thousand 
dollars was also to bo paid. This was complied witli until the breaking out of the war of 1812. 
See pages 390 and 445. 



382 TIIK X AT ION. [1789. 

these vessels to be suspended in 1795. Soon the folly of not completing the 
little navy, so well begun, was made manifest, when Britisli cruisers commenced 
the practice of taking seamen from American vessels, and impressing them into 
the Kn;j;lisli service.' The ships of the French Republic soon afterward com- 
menced depredations upon American commerce ; and in 1797, when war with 
that government seemed inevitable," Congress, on the urgent recommendation 
of President Adams, caused the frigates United States, Coiistellatinn, and 
Constitution to be completed, equipped, and sent to sea. This was the com- 
mencement of the American navy,' which, in after years, though weak in num- 
bers, performed many brilliant exploits. From this time the navy became the 
cherished arm of the national defense ; and chiefly through its instrumentality, 
the name and power of the United States began to be properly appreciated in 
Europe, at the beginning of the present century. 

Now [1796J, the administration of Washington w;ia drawing to a close. It 
had been one of vast importance and incessant action. All disputes with 
foreign nations, except France,' had been adjusted ; government credit was 
established, and the nation was highly prosperous.' The embryos of new em- 
pires beyond the Alleghanies, had been planted ; and the last year of his admin- 
istration was signalized by the admission [June, 1796] of Tennessee into the 
Union of States, making the number of confederated republics, sixteen. 

During the closing months of Wsishington's administration, the first great 
struggle among the people of the United States, for ascendancy between the 
Federalists ami Re/ i/bl icons,' took place. The only man on whom the nation 
now could possibly unite, was about to retire to private life. He issued his 
admirable Farewell Address to his countrymen — that address so full of wis- 
dom, patriotism, and instruction — early in the autumn of 1796 [September 19], 
and then the people were fully assured that some other man must be chosen to 
fill his place. There was very little time for preparation or electioneering, for 
the choice must be made in November following. Activity the most extraordi- 
nary appeared among politicians, in every part of the Union. The Federalists 
nominated John Adams for the high office of Chief M-agistrate, and the Repub- 
licans nominated Thomas Jefferson for the same. The contest was fierce, and 
party spirit, then in its youthful vigor, was implacable. The result was a vic- 

' Page 401. ' Pago 385. 

* Congre8.s liad created tlie oCBce of Secretary of the Navy, as an executive department, and on 
the 30th of April, 1798, Benjamin Stodert of Georgetown, in the District of Columbia, was 
appointed to that chair. Hitherto the business of the war and navy departments had been per- 
formed by the Secretary of War. 

* The French government was highly displeased because nf the treaty made with England, by Mr. 
Jay, and even adopted hostile measures toward the United States. It wanted the Americans to 
show an active |)artieipation with the French in hatred of the English, and therefore the strict neu- 
traJity observed by Washington, was exceedingly displeasing to tlie French Committee of Public 
Safety. Tlio conclusion of the treaty with Algiers, independently of French intervention, and the 
success of the negotiation with Spain, excited the jealousy of the French rulers. In a word, 
because the United Suites, having the strength, assumed the riglit to stand alone, the French were 
otfended, and threateneii the grown-up child with personal chastisement. 

* Commerce had wonderfully expanded. The exports had, in five years, increased from nine- 
teen millions of dollars to more than lilly-six millioas of dollars, and the imports in about the same 
ratio. • Page 377. 



1801.] 



ADAMS'S ADMINISTRATION-. 



383 



tory for both parties — Adams being elected President, and Jefferson, having 
the next highest number of votes, was chosen Vice-President.' On the 4th of 
March, 1797, Washington retired from ofSce, and Adams was inaugurated the 
second President of the United States. The great leader of the armies in the 
War for Independence was never again enticed from the quiet pursuits of agri- 
culture at Mount Vernon, to the performance of public duties. 



<• » ■» 



CHAPTER II. 

ADAMS'S ADMINISTRATION. [119'? — 1801.] 

John Adams' was in the si.xtj-second year of his age when, dressed in a 
full suit of pearl-colored broadcloth, and with powdered hair, he stood in Inde- 
pendence Hall [March 4, 1797], in Philadelphia, and took the oath of office. 




jiT^jfdmtJ 



The whole number of electoral votes [see note 1, page 361] was one hundred and thirty-eight, 
making seventy necessary to a choice. John Adams received seventy-one, and Jeflerson sixty-seven. 
' John Adams was bom at Braintree, Massachusetts, in October, 1735. He chose the law as a 
profession, but being a good writer and fair speaker, he entered the political field quite early, and 
with Hancock, Otis, and others, he took an active part in the earlier Revolutionary movemeCits, in 
Boston and vicinity. He was a member of the Continental Congress, from which he was trans- 
ferred to the unportant post of a minister to the French and other courts in Europe. He was ons 
of the most mdustrious men in Congress. In the course of the eighteen months preceding his de- 



384 



TUK NATION. 



[1797. 



as President of the United States, administered by Cliief Justice Ellsworth." 
He was pledged, by his acts and declarations, to the general policy of Washinc- 
ton's administration, and he adopted, as his own, the cabinet council left by his 
predecessor." Ho came into office at a period of great trial for the Re{)ublic. 
Party spirit and sectional differences were rife in its bosom, and the relations 
of the United States with France were becoming more and more unfriendly. 




Already Charles Cotesworth Pinekncy, the American mitiister at the French 
court, had been ordered to leave their territory by the Directory, then the su- 
preme executive power in France.' Depredations upon American commerce 
had also been authorized by them ; and the French minister in the United 



parture for Europe, Mr. Adams had been on ninety different committees, and was chairman of 
thirty-five of tliem. Ho was, at one time, intrusted with no less than six missions abroad, namely, 
to treat for peace with Great Britain; to make a commercial treaty willi Circat Britain; to negoti- 
ate the same with the States General of Holland ; the same with the Prince of Orange ; to pledge 
the liiith of the United Stales to the Armed Neutrality; and to nej^otiate a loan of ten millions of 
dollars. He was a signer of the Declaration of Independence; and died on the tiftieth anniversary 
of that great act [lS2t)], with the words ''Independence forever!" upon his lips. He was in the 
ninety-second year of his age. See page 459. ' Pago 360. 

' Timothy Pickering, Secretary of State; Oliver "Wolcott. Secretary of the Treasury; Jamc& 
M'Heiiry, Seeretarj- of War; and Charles Leo, Attoniey-General. 'Washington's first cabinet had 
all resigned during the early part of his second term of office (the President i3 elected for four years), 
and the above-named gentlemen wrre appointed dnring 1795 .ind 1796. 

' The Republican government of France wtL-! administered by a coimcil called the Directmy. It 
waa composed of five members, who ruled in connection with two representative bodies, called, re- 
apectively, the Council of Ancients, and the Council of Five Hundred. The Directory waa the bead, 
or executive power of the government. 



1801.] ADAMS'S ADMlNISTRJiTION. 385 

States had grossly insulted the government. President Adams perceived the 
necessity of prompt and energetic action, and he convened an extraordinary 
session of Congress, on the 15th of May. With the concurrence of the Senate, 
the President appointed [July] three envoys,' with Pinckney at their head, to 
proceed to France, and endeavor to adjust all difficulties. They met at Paris, 
in October, but were refused an audience with the Directory, unless they 
should first pay a large sum of money into the French treasury. Overtures 
for this purpose were made by unofficial agents. The demand was indignantly 
refused; and then it was that Pinckney uttered that noble sentiment, " Mil- 
lions for defense, but not one cent for tribute!" The two Federalist envoys 
(Marshall and Pinckney) were ordered out of the country, while Mr. Gerry, 
who was a Republican, and whose party sympathized with the measures of 
France, was allowed to remain. The indignant people of the United States 
censured Mr. Gerry severely for remaining, lie, too, soon found that nothing 
could be accomplished with the French rulers, and he returned home. 

The fifth Congress assembled at Philadelphia, on the 13th of November, 
1797. Perceiving the vanity of further attempts at negotiation with France, 
Congress, and the country generally, began to prepare for war. Quite a large 
standing army was authorized [May, 1798] ; and as Washington approved of the 
measure, he was appointed [July] its commander-in-chief, with (General Alex- 
ander Hamilton as his first lieutenant. Washington consented to accept the 
■ office only on condition that General Hamilton should be the acting commander- 
in-chief, for the retired President was unwilling to enter into active military serv- 
ice again. A naval armament, and the capture of French vessels of war, was 
authorized; and a naval department, as we have observed,' with Benjamin 
Stodert at its head, was created. Although there was no actual declaratioj 
of war made by either party, yet hostilities were commenced on the ocean, and a 
vessel of each nation suffered capture ;' but the army was not summoned to the 
field. 

The proud tone of the French Directory was humbled by the dignified and 
decided measures adopted by the United States, and that body made overtures 
for a peaceful adjustment of difficulties. President Adams immediately ap- 
pointed [Feb. 26, 1799] three envoys' to proceed to France, and negotiate fo'' 

' Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, Elbridge Gerry, and Jolm Marshall Pinckney was an active 
patriot in South Carolina during the Revoiution. He was born in Charleston, in February, 1746, 
■and was eduated in England. He studied law there, and on his return to his native country, in 
1769, he commenced a successfiil professional career in Charleston. He took part early in Repub- 
lican movements, held military offices during the War for Independence, and when war with France 
seemed certain, in 1797, Washington appointed him next to Hamilton in command He died, in 
August, 1825, in the eightieth year of his age. Gerry was one of tlie signers of tlie Beclaration of 
Independence, and Marshall had been an active patriot and soldier. See page 351. The latter, 
as Chief Justice of the United States, administered the oath of office to several Presidents. 

' Page 382. 

' The United States frigate Constellation, captured the French frigate V Irisurgente, in February, 
li99. That frigate had already taken the American schooner Retaliation. On the 1st of February, 
1800. the Constellatinn had an action with the French frigate La Vengeance, which escaped cap- 
ture after a loss of one hundred and sixty men, in killed and wounded. 

* W. V. Murray, Oliver Ellsworth, and Patrick Henry. Mr. Henry declined, and William R 
J)avie [note 5, page 318], of North Carolina, took his place. 

25 



386 - 1' ■'' N A T I O N. [IIQI. 

peace, but when they arrived, the weak Directory was no more. The govern- 
menl was in tlio hands of Napoleon Bonaparte [Nov. 1799] as First Consul," 
whose audacity and energy now saved France from anarchy and utter ruin. He 
promptly received the United States embassadors, concluded a treaty [Sept. 30, 
1800], and gave such assurances of friendly feelings that, on the return of the 
ministers, the provisional army of the United States, whose illustrious com- 
mander-in-chief had, in the mean while, been removed by death, was disbanded. 

Two unpopular domestic measures were adopted in the summer of 1 798, 
known as the Alien and Sedition laws. The first authorized the President to 
expel from the country any alien (not a citizen) who should be suspected of 
conspiring against the Republic. An apology for the law was, that it was com- 
puted tliat there were more than thirty thousand Frenchmen in the United 
States, all of whom were devoted to their native country, and were mostly asso- 
ciated, by clubs or otherwise. Besides these, there were computed to be in the 
country at least fifty thousand persons who had been subjects of Great Britain, 
some of whom had found it unsafe to remain at home. The Sedition law author- 
\z&\ the suppression of publications calculated to weaken the autiiority of the 
government. At that period there were two hundred newspapers published in the 
United States, of which about one hundred and seventy-five were in favor of the 
National administration ; the remainder were chiefly under the control of aliens. 
These measures were unpopular, because they might lead to great abuses. In 
Kentucky and Virginia, the legislatures declared them to be decidedly uncon. 
stitulional, and they were finally repealed. 

The nation suffered a sad bereavement near the close of the last year of the 
century. Washington, the greatest and best-beloved of its military and civil 
leaders, died at Mount Vernon on the 14th of December, 1799, when almost 
sixty-eight years of age. No event since the foundation of the government, 
had made such an impression on the public mind. The national grief was 
sincere, and party spirit was hushed into silence at his grave. All hearts 
united in homage to the memory of him who was properly regarded as the 
Father of his Country. Congress was then in session at Philadelphia, ami 
when Judge Marshall' announced the sad event, both Houses' immediately 
adjourned for the day. On re-assembling the next day, appropriate resolutions 
were passed, and the President was directed to write a letter of condolence to 
Mrs. Washington,* in the name of Congress. Impressive funeral ceremonies were 

» Bonaparte, Cambaceres, and the Abbe Sicyos bec.ime the rulinpr power in France, with the 
title of Consuls, after the first had overthrown the Diroctory. Bonaparte was the First Consul, and 
was, in feet, an autocrat, or one who rules by hia own will. ' Pa^e 351. ' Note 3, page 366. 

* Martha Dandridtre, who first married Daniel Parke Custis, and afterward, while yet a younp 
widow, wius wcddL'd to Colonel WjLsliinpton. was born in Kent eounty, Virginia, in 1732, about 
three months later than her illustrious husband. Hit first hiisband died when she was about 
twenty-five years of age, leaving her with two children, and a large fortune in lands .-ind money. 
She was married to Colonel 'n^a.shington, in .Tanuary, n.'iO. She w.TS ever worthy of such a hus- 
band ; and while be was President of the United States, she presided with dignity over the execu- 
tive mansion, both in New York and Philadelphia. When her husband died, she said : " 'Tis well ; 
all is now over; I shall soon follow him ; I have no more trials to pass through." In little less 
than thirty months afterward, slie was laid in the famUy vault at Mount Vernon. Her grandson, 
•.ind adopted son of Washington (also the last surviving executor of his wdl), ti. W. P. Custis. 
dijd at Arlington House, opposite Washington City, October 10, 1857. 



1801.] 



ADAMS'S ADMINISTRATION. 



387 



observed by that body, and throughout the country.' General Henry Lee/ of 
Virginia, on the invitation of Congress, delivered [December 26, 1799] an 
eloquent funeral oration before the national legislature; and tlie recommenda- 
tion of Congress, for the people of the United States to wear crape on their left 
arms for thirty days, was generally complied with. The whole nation put on 
tokens of mourning. 




The death of Washington also made a profound impression in Europe. To 
the people there, who were aspiring for freedom, it seemed as if a bright star 
had disappeared from the firmament of their hopes. Rulers, also, joined in 
demonstrations of respect. Soon after the event of his death was known in 
France, Bonaparte, then First Consul," rendered unusual honors to his name. 
On the 9th of February [1800], he issued the following order of the day to 
the army : " Washington is dead ! This great man fought against tjrav.aj ; he 
established the liberties of his country. His memory will always be dear to 
the French people, as it will be to all free men of the two worlds ; aad especially 
to French soldiers, who, like him and the American soldiers, have combatted 
for liberty and equality." Bonaparte also ordered, that during ten days black 
crape should be suspended from all the standards and flags throughout the 
French Republic. Splendid ceremonies in the Champs de Mars, and a 
funeral oration in the Hotel des Invalides, were also given, at both of which 

' OongresB resolved to erect a mausoleum, or monument, at Washington City, to his memory, 
niiirble, is now [1883] in course of erection there, tu be paid for largely by individual sub- 
coriptions. Congress has made a liberal appropriation for completing the niouuraent. 

- Kote 2, page 333. ' N'ote 1, page 395. 



THE JTATION. [ISOl. 

the First Consul, and all the civil and military authorities of the capital were 
present. Lord Bridport, commander of a British fleet of almost sixty vessels, 
lying at Torlmy, on the coast of France, when he heard of the death of AVash- 
ington, lowered his ling half-mast, and this example was followed by the whola 
fleet. And fi'om that time until the present, the name of Washington has 
inspired increasing reverence at homo and abroad, until now it may be said that 
the praise of him fills the whole earth. 

After the close of the difiiculties with France, very little of general interest 
occurred during the remainder of Mr. Adams's administration, e.xcept the 
removal of the seat of the National Government to the District of Columbia,' in 
tlie summer of 1800 ; the admission into the Union [May, 1800] of tlie country 
between the western frontier of Georgia and the Mississippi River, as the ^fis• 
sissippi Territory ; and tlie election of a new President of the United States 
Now, again, came a severe struggle between the Federalists and Republic- 
ans, for political power." The former nominated Mr. Adams and Ciiarlcs 
Cotcsworth Pinckncy,^ for President ; the latter nominated Thomas JeficTson 
and Aaron Burr,' for the same ofiice. In consequence of dissensions among the 
Federalist leaders, and the rapid development of ultra-denioeratic ideas among 
the people, the Republican party was successful. Jefierson and Burr had an 
equal number of electoral votes. The task of choosing, therefore, was trans- 
ferred to the House of Representatives, according to the provisions of the 
National Constitution. The choice finally fell upon Mr. Jefl'erson, after thirty- 
five ballotings ; and Mr. Burr was proclaimed Vice-President. 

During tlie year 1800, the last of Adams's administration, the seconil enu- 
meration of the inhabit.ants of the United States took place. The pojiulation 
was then five millions, three hundred and nineteen thousand, seven hundred and 
sixty-two — an increase of one million, four hundred thousand in ten years. 
The National revenue, which amoimted to four millions, seven hundred and 
seventy-oue thousand dollars in 1790, was increased to almost thirteen millions 
in 1800. 



CHAPTER III. 

JEFFERSON'S ADMINISTRATION. [Isoi — 1809]. 

Thomas Jefferson,' the third President of the United States, was in the 
fifty-eighth year of his age when, on the 4th of March, 1801, he was duly 



' Pafto 371. The District is a tract ten miles square on each side of the Potomac, ceded to the 

United States by Maryland and Virginia in 1790. Tliooity ofWasliiniiton wa.slaid out there in 1791, 
and the erection of tlie Capitol was comnienecd in 1793, when [April 18] President W'asliinpton laid 
the comer stone of ttie north winjr, with Masonic honors. The two winps wen.' completed in 1S08, 
and those were burned by tho British in 1S1+. See paRO 4.^6. The central portion of the Oapitol 
wa.s completed in 1827, tho winffs having been repaired soon after the conHagration. Altogether 
it covered an area of a little more than an acre and a half of ground. In course of time it became 
too small, aiul its dimensions were preatly exteuileil. These were eompleted in 1865. The ndtlilieii 
is in Iho form of winp*, north ami south, projertiii^ both cast and west beyond the main huiltaug. 

3 I'ap* 377. ^ Note I, pn-ii' 3S,'J. * Note -t, pa^e ^241, and jta^e I'Or. 

' Thomas JoiTerson was born iu .\lbemarle county, Virginia, in April, 1713. De was educatoU 



1809.J 



JEFFERSON'S ADMINISTRATION. 



389 



inaugurated the Chief Magistrate of the Republic, in the new Capitol, at Wash- 
ington City. His inaugural speech, which was looked for with great anxiety, 
as a foreshadowing of the jwlicy of the new President, was manly and conserv- 
ative, and it allayed many apprehensions of his opponents. From its tone, they 




imagined that few of the National office-holders would be disturbed ; but in this 
ihov socm found themseh es mistuken. The Federal party, while in power, 
having generally excluded llepublicans from oiBce, Jefferson felt himself justi- 
fied in giving places to his own political friends. He therefore made many 
removals from official station throughout the country ; and then was commenced 
the second act in the system of political proscription,' which has not always 
proved wise or salutary. Ho retained, for a short time, Mr. Adams's Secretaries 
of the Treasury and Navy (Samuel Dexter and Benjamin Stoddart), but called 



at ■William and Mary CoUegp, stiidiert laW with the eminent George Wythe, and had his patriotism 
first iuH;>med by listening to Patrick Henry's famo\is speech [note 1. page 214] against the Stamp Act. 
He first appeared in public life in the Virginia Assembly, in 1769, and was one of the most active 
workers in that body, until sent to perform more important duties in the Continental Congress. 
The inscription upon" his monument, written by himself, tells of the most important of his public 
labors: "Here lies buried Thomas .Teffersom, Author of the Declaration of Independence ; of the 
Statute of Virginia for relidous frcedoni ; and Father of the University of Virginia." He v.'as 
governor of his own State, and a foreign minister. He lived until the fiftieth anniversary of the 
Declaration of Independence [July 4, 1826"], and at almost the same hour when the spirit of Adamsi 
took its flight [page 45"], his also departed from the body, when he was at the age of eighty- 
three years. ' Page 4G1. 



390 THV. S AT ION. fl80l. 

Republicans to fill the other seats in his cabinet.' He set vigorously at work 
to reform public abuses, as far as was in his power ; and so conciliatory were 
his expressed views in reference to the great body of his opponents, that many 
Federalists joined the Kejiublii^an ranks, and became bitter deuouncers of their 
former associates and their principles. 

President Jefferson's administration was signalized at the beginning by the 
repeal of the Excise Act,'' and other obnoxious and unpopular laws. His sug- 
gestions concerning the reduction of the diplomatic corps, hauling up of the 
navy in ordinary, the alwlition of certain offices, and the revision of the 
judiciary, were all taken into consideration by Congress, and many advances 
in jurisprudence were made. A'^igor and enlightened views marked his course ; 
and even his political opponents confessed his forecast and wisdom, in many 
things. During his first term, one State and two Territories were added to the 
confederacy. A part of the North-western Territory" became a State, under 
the name of Ohio,' in the autunni of 1802 ; and in the spring of 1803, Louisi- 
ana was purchased [April] of France for fifteen millions of dollars. This 
result was brought about -without much diificulty, for the French ruler was 
desirous of injuring England, and saw in this an excellent way to do it. In 
violation of a treaty made in the year ITlTj, the Spanish governor of Louisiana 
closed the port of New Orleans in 1802. Great excitement prevailed through- 
out the western settlements ; and a proposition was made in Congress to take 
forcible possession of the Territory. It was ascertained that, by a secrut treaty, 
the country had been ceded to France, by Spain. Negotiations for its purchase 
were immediately opiMied with Napoleon, and the bargain was consummated in 
April, 1803. The United States took peaceal)le possession in the autuum of 
that year. It contained about eighty-five thousand mixed inhabitiints, and 
about forty thousiind negro slaves. When tliis bargain was consummated, 
Napoleon said, j)ro])hetically, " Tliis accession of territory strengthens forever 
the power of the United States ; and I have just given to England a maritime 
rival that will sooner or later humhle her pride." Out of it two Territories 
were formed, called respectively the Tcrrilonj of New Orlean.i and the Dis- 
trict of Loiusiana. 

We have already adverted to the dejiredations of Algerine corsairs upon 
American counncrcc. The insolence of the piratical powers on the .southern 
chores of the Mediterranean," at length became unendurable ; and the United 
States government resolved to cease paying tribute to them. The Bsushaw of 
Tripoli thereuiwn declared war (June 10, 1801] against the United States; 
and Captain Bainbridge was ordered to cruise, in the Mediterranean to protect 

' Jamos Madison, Secrotarv of Stnto; Henry Dearborn, Secretary of War ; Levi Lincoln, Attor- 
•jev General. Before the uieotiiiK of Congress in Deceiubor, ho .appointed Albert Gallatin [note 1, 
jinKO 380, and note G, pii>;o 143], Secretary of tlie Treasury, and Roliert Smitli, Suerot;iry of the Nav-j'. 
They were Imtli Republicans. " Page 378. ° Tage SCi. 

' No section of llin Union liad increased, in populatinu and resonrce.i, so rapidly as Ohio. When, 
in 1800, it was fiinued into a distinct TiM-ritory, tlic residue of the North-western Territory remained 
B.s one until ISO!). Tlicn the Territories of'/;»fci«a and /Winow were formed. When Oliio was 
admitted a." a State, it contained a population of nliout seventy-two ihous:ind souls. 

• Morocco, Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli, in Africa, TUoy are known as the Barbary Powers. 



1809/ 



JEFFERSON'S ADMINISTRATION. 



391 



American commerce." In 1803, Commodore Preble was sent thither to humble 
the pirates. After bringing the Emperor of Morocco to terms, he appeared 
before Tripoli with his squadron. One of his vessels (the Philadelphia), com- 
mauded by Bainbridge," struck on a rock in the harbor, while rec©uuoitering ; 




and before she could be extricated, she was captured [October 31, 1803] bj 
the Tripolitans. The officers were treated as prisoners of war, but the crew 
were made slaves. 



' Captain Bainbridge had been on that coast tlio previous year. 
He arrived at Algiers in September, 1800, in tlio fi'igate George Washing- 
Ion, with the annual tribute money [pai;e 381]. The dey, or governor, 
demanded the u'lo of his vessel to carry an ambassador to Constan- 
tinople. Baiubridi>:a remonstrated, wlien the dey haughtily observed : 
" You pay me tribute, by which you boeome my slaves, and therefore 
I have a right to order yon as I think proper " Bainliridge was 
obliged to comply, for the castle g\ms would not allow him to pass out 
of the harbor. He sailed for the East, and had the honor of first dis- 
playing the .\meriean flag before the ancient city of Constantinople. 
The Sultan regarded it as a favorable omen of future friendship, because 
ftisflag bore a c-escent or half-moon, and the American a group of stars. 

' \Villiam Bainbridge was born in New Jersey, in 1771. TTo was captain of a merchant vessel 
at the age of nineteen years, and entered the naval service in 1798. Ho was distinguished during 
the second War for Independence [page 409], and died in 1833. 




UNITED STATES FRIGATE. 



S92 



T II K N A T 1 () X. 



11801. 




I.IEUTKNANT IIKIUTI'H. 



Tho credit of tlio Amoricaii navy \\nn sonu'wlint iT|ii>irc(l, oiirly in tlio 
ioUdwing yi'iir, wlion Liinitoimiit iK'ciiluv,' witli only sev- 
I'lity-.six voluntoiM'.s, ^sllilod into tlio imrlior of Tri[K)li, in 
tiio I'vi-ninj; of Fel)riiiiry 16, 1 804, and niiiin}; uionj^sidf 
tln> l'fii/<i(t( //>/iiii (wliii'h lay niouivd noar tlir nistlo, and 
<;uiiidi'd liy \\. larj^o nunilior of Tiipolitans), boarded hi-r, 
killt'd or dvovo into tlio sen nil of hiT turbanod ili-fcndors, 
set lier ou iiro, and iindi'i- cover of ii iieavy cannonadu 
from tho Anieriean siiuadron, escaped, witiumt losiiii; n 
man." Aa they lei't tho burnini; vessel, tiie Americans 
raised ii shout, vliieh was answered by tiie fjiins of tho 
batteries on tiio siioni, and by tlie armed vessels at anchor 
near. They wont out into tlio Mediterranean unharnied, saileil for Syracuse, 
and wero receivid lliciv with f^i'cat joy by the American s(|uadron, under Com- 
mculoro Prebh". This bold act Iminlilcd and alarmed the bashaw ;" yet his 
canit4il withstood a heavy bombardment, and his jjun-boats jjallantly unstained iv 
sovero action | Au{!;ust I^J with the Americim vessels. 

In the foUowiiif:; >h''>i'i throuijh the aid of llamet Caramelli, brother of.les- 
8ulT, tho rei;:;iiin<; bashaw (or governor) of Tripoli, favorable terms of |H'aco 
wero secured. Tho bashaw was ii usurper, and llamet, tho rij^htful heir to tho 
throne,* was an exile in I'l.^ypt. He readily concerted, with 
Captjiin AVilliMin Katon, .Viuericau consul at 'I'uiiis, a jilan 
for humbliufi; the ba.shaw, and obtaininj^ his own restoration to 
ri'ditful authority. Captain Eaton ai^ted under tho sanction of 
his p)veriinieiit ; and early in ISlarch | March 0, ISO;')), ho left 
Alexandria, with seventy United States seamen, accompanied 
by llamet and his followers, and a few Egyptian troops. Thoy 
made a ioiirncy of a ihousand miles ])artly across the Harean 
desert, and on liie 27tli of April, captured Dome, a Tripolitan __[ I 
city on thi^ iMcdilonanean. Three wei'ks later [May 18|, they 
bad a successful battle willi Tripolitan troops ; .■mil on llio IHlli mdhammkda!* 

, . II,' ,• , T 1 1 1 SOl.lUKll. 

of .luue lliev ai;:iiu dclialcd iIk- Ioi-itS oI (lie hashau, anil 




' StopliKM rionitiir wn.s Imrii in Miirvlnnil in 17"!). Mc oiiloioil Hio imvy at 11h< uko of iiimaocn 
vonrs. .MtiT liis ImsI oniiso In llio Mi'ciili'rniii.'iiii, !»• su]u'riiiioiuliMl ilu> huilllin^' iil' llu' ^iiii-lnmt.'<. 
til' ro»i' 111 till- niak of nininioihin-; iiiul cliiriiiK' Hi" Mi'i'oiul Wai- lor liiiliiu-nili'iu-i.> [I'liuv 4(l!i|, li.' 
wa.M liisliii^jaisli.il I'oi- liis skill unci liravcry. Ilo artcrwaiil liuniliUvl llu. »arliary rowiis ^nulo !>. 
iiaijo :i'.Mil; and was isli'i'ini'il as oiio iiinonn llio rlioioosl. IIowim-s oI' llio navy. Ilo wan Killoil, iil 
Ulailonslmi-K', in a iliU'l willi I'oninuiiloro Hairiiii, in Muroli. IS'JO, wlion rorly-ono years of 11^0. 

' Wliilo llio .Xniorioan si|imili-oii was on its way lo Syrnciiso, il oaiilnroil 11 Hinull 'l'ri|ui!ilan yes- 
Hol, lionml Id Conslanliiioiilo, with a piwont. of ronialn slavos for llio Siillan. Tliia was lakin into 
Hor'vioo, anil naini'il llio liitr,,ml, and was llio vo.ssol willi wliioh Pwatiir pcrlbniii'd liis t'okl oxploit 
nt 'PripDli. 'riiis not ^roally onrani>d tlio Triiiolilans, ami llio Anu-rioan ivrisonorM woro InMilod wilh 
tlio utniost sovority. 'I'lio' annals ol' Unit day givo sonio lirril)lo piotiiros ol' wliito slavory on llio 
soiilliorn slioros of llio Moililorniiioan Son, 

' llasliaw or I'aolia iras-sliaw], is llio titlo of llio Kovonior of a piwinoo, or town, in tlio do- 
minions of llio Sultan (or oniiuror) ol'Tiirkoy. 'I'lio llarliaiy Slatos (nolo ft, piiKO :i'.IOl aro all nndor 

tlio Sultan's nilo. ,.,,., ■ .,1 

' 'I'lio basluiw, who was a third son, liad iiinrdor.d Ins fiillior and older tirothcr, ouU conipellod 
Huiiiot U) lly lor his lil'o. Willi iinito a liirgo uuuibor of followers, lio Hod into K^ypt 




Decati-k IUkmso niK rniLAiiKuniiA. 



1809.] 



JEFFERSON'S ADMINISTRATION. 



395 



pressed forward toward Tripoli. The terrified ruler had made terms of peace 
[June 4, 1805] with Colonel Tobias Lear, American consul-general' in the 
Mediterranean, and thus disappointed tlic laudable ambition of Eaton, and the 
hopes of Hamet." 

While these hostile movements were occurring in the East, the President 




had. in a confidential message to Congress, in January, 1803, proposed the first 
of those peaceable conquests which have opened, and are still opening, to civil- 
ization and human industry, the vast inland regions of our continent. lie rec- 
ommended an appropriation for defraying the expenses of an exploring expedi- 
tion across tlie continent from tlie Mississippi to the Pacific Ocean. The 
appropriation was made, and presently an expedition, consisting of thirty indi- 
viduals, under Captains Lewis and Clarke, was organized. They left the banks 
of the Mississippi on the 14th of May, 1804, and were absent about twenty-seven 
months. It was very successful, particularly in geographical discoveries, and 

' A consul is an officer appointed by a government to reside in a foroipn port, to have a pcneral 
supervision of the commercial interests of his country there. In some cases they have powers almost 
equal to a minister. Such is the ca.so witli consuls witliin tli(^ ports of Mohammedan countries. Tho 
word consul was applied to Napoleon [paf;o :!.S7] in the ancient Roman sense. It was tlie title of 
i;ho chief magistrate of Rome during the RepubUc. Tho treaty made by Lear provided for an ex- 
change of prisoners, man for man, as far as they would go. .lessuff had about two hundred more 
prisoners than tho Americans held, and for these, a ransom of $60,000 was to be paid. It was also 
stipulated that the wife and children of Hamet should bo given up to him. 

' Hamet afterward came to tiie United States, and api)lied to Congress for a remuneration for 
his services in liivor of the Americans. He was unsuccessful; but Congress voted $2,400 for hia 
temporary relioC 



396 TUK NATION. [1801. 

furnishecl the first reliable information respecting the extensive country between 
the Mississippi and the I'acific Ocean. During the same year, the election for 
President of the United Stutos recurred. Aaron IJurr, having lost tiic confi- 
dence of the Democratic party,' was nut re-nominated for Vice-President. 
George Clinton' was put in his place; and JcffL'r.son and Clinton were elected 
by a great majority' over tlicir Federal ojijionents, Charles Cotesworth Pinck- 
ney,* of South Carolina, who was nominated for President, and Rufus King,' 
of New York, r)r N'ii-f-Pivsident. 

A serious diiliculty coinnienced in the West during the second year [1805] 
of Mr. Jeflferson's second administration. The fertile valleys of the Ohio and 
Mississippi were then very rajiidly filling with adventurers, and the materials 
for new States, strong and ample, were gathering. Miciiigan was erected into 
a Territory in 1805; and all along the Mississippi, extensive settlements were 
taking root and flourishing. Tlie tide of ]iopulation was full and unceasing, and 
was conijiosed, chiefly, of adventurous characters, ready for any enterpiise that 
should offer the result of great gain. Taking advantage of the restless spirit 
of these adventurers, and the general inipre.ssiun that tlie Spanish population of 
Louisiana would not quietly submit to the jurisdiction of the United States," 
Aaron Burr' thought to make them subservient to his own ambitious purposes. 
His murder of Hamilton in a duel," on the 12th of July, 1804, made him 
everywhere detested ; and, perceiving his unpopularity in the fact of his having 
been superseded in the office of Vice-President of the United States, by George 
Clinton," he sought a new field for achieving personal aggrandisement. In 
April, 1805, he departed for the West, with several nominal objects in view, 
but chiefly in relation to pecuniary speculations. These seemed to conceal his 
real design of effecting a strong military organization, for the purpose of invad- 
ing the Spanish possessions in Mexico. General Wilkinson,'" then in the AVest, 
and the commander-in-chief of the National army, became his associate. Wil- 

' Page 377. » Page 350. 

' The great popularity of .Tefferson'a administration was shown by the resnlt of this election. Ho 
received in tlio electoral college [note 1, page 301] one hundred and si-xty-two votes, and Mr. 
I'inckney only fourteen. * Page 38i. 

' Rufus King was born in 1755, and was in Harvard College in 1775, when hostilities with 
Great Britain commenced, and tlic students were dispersed. lie chose the law for a profession, and 
became very eminent as a practitioner, lie was in SulUvan's army, on Rhode Island [page 289], 
in 1778; and in 1784, tlie peojilo, apjjreciating his talents and his oratorical powers, elected liim to a 
seat in the Legislature of ihiasachusetts. Ho was an efficient member of tlie National Convention, 
in 1787, and nobly advocated the Constitution atterward. lie removed to New Vork, was a mem- 
ber of the State Legislature, was also ono of the lirst United States Senators from New York, and 
in 1796 was appointed minister to Great Britain. From 1813 lo 1826 he was a member of the 
United States Senate, and in 1825 was again sent to England as minister plenipotentiary. He 
died, near Jamaica, Long Island, in April, 1827, at the age of seventy-two years. " Page 390. 

' Aaron Burr was bom in New Jersey, in 1756. In his twentieth year ho joined the conti- 
nental army, and accompanied Arnold [note ■i,])age 211] in Iiis expedition again.^t Quebec, in 1775. 
His health compelled liim to leave the army in 1779, and he became a distinguished lawyer and 
active public man. He died on Staten Island, near New York, in 1836, at the age of eighty years. 

" Note 2, page 360. A political quarrel led to fatal n sulLs. Burr had been infonned of some 
remarks made by Hamilton, in public, derogatory to his character, and ho demanded a retraction. 
Hamilton considered his demand unreasonable, and refused compliance. Burr challenged him to 
fight, and Haniiltim reluctantly met him on the west .side of the Hudson, near lloboken, where they 
fought with pistols. Hamilton discharged his woaiKin in the air, but Burr took latal aim, and bis 
antagonist feU. Hamilton died the next day. ' Page 350. " Page 410. 



1809.] 



J E F F E R S N-' S ADMINISTRATION. 



397 



kinsou had just been appointed governor of Louisiana, and his ofiBcial position 
secured precisely the advantage wliicli Burr sought. 

Burr went down tlie Ohio ; and one beautiful morning at the close of April 
[1805], be appeared at the house of Blennarhasset, an Irishman possessed of 




fine education, a large fortune, and an accomplished and enthusiastic wife.' To 
him he unfolded his grand military scheme ; and the imaginations of Blennar- 
hasset and his wife were fired. Dreams of immense wealth and power filled 
their minds ; and when Burr had departed from the quiet home of this 
gentleman, the sunshine of his house faded. Blennarhasset was a changed man. 
He placed his wealth and reputation in the keeping of an unprincipled dema- 
gogue, and lost both. At that time, the brave and noble Andrew Jackson^ was 
in command of the militia of Tennessee. In May, Burr appeared at the door 
of that stern patriot, and before he left it, he had won Jackson's confidence, and 
his promise of co-operation. He also met Wilkinson at St. Louis, and there 
gave him some hints of a greater scheme than he had hitherto unfolded, which, 
that officer alleged, made him suspicious that Burr's ultimate aim was damage 



' His residence was upon an island a little below the mouth of the Muskingum River. There 
he had a fine library, beautiful conservatories, and a variety of luxuries hitherto unseen in that 
wilderness region. His home was an earthly paradise, into which tlie vile political serpent crawled, 
and despoiled it with his slime. Blennarhasset became poor, and died in 1831. His beautiful and 
•ccomphshed wife was buried by the Sisters of Charity, in the city of New York, in the year \84J. 

'Page 460. 



398 



TIIK NATION. 



[1801. 



to the Union. However, the schemer managed the whole matter with great 
skill. lie made friends with some of the dissatisfied military and naval ofiBcers, 
and won their sympathies;' and in the siiunner of 1806, he was very active in 
the organization of a military e.xpetlition in the West. The secresy with 




which it was carried on, e.xcitcd the suspicions of many good men beyond the 
mountains, among whom was Jackson. Burr was suspected of a design to dis- 
member the Union, and to establish an independent empire west of the Alleg- 
hanies, with himself at the head. Those suspicions were communicated to the 

tional Goveniinent, which, having reason to suspect Burr of premeditated 
treason, put forth the strong arm of its power, and crushed the viper in its egg. 
Burr was arrested [February, 1807], near Fort Stoddart, on the Tombigbee 
River, in the present State of Alabama, b}-^ Lieutenant (afterward Major-Gen- 
eral) Gaines,' taken to Eichmond, in Virginia, and there tried on a charge of 
treason. He was acquitted. The testimony showed that his probable design 
was an invasion of Mexican provinces, for the purpose of establishing there an 
independent government. 

AVhile Burr's scheme was ripening, difficulties with Spain were increasing, 
and the United States were brought to the verge of a war with that country. 

' Many in the West impposed tlio povcriiment was socretlv favoring Burr's plans apainst Mex- 
ico, and, having no suspicions of any otlier designs, some of tlio truest men of tlrnt region became, 
some more and some less, involved in the meshes of his schemei * Page 467. 



1809.] JEFFERSON'S ADMINISTRATION. 399 

At the same time, the continued impressment of American seamen into the 
English navy, and the interruptions to American commerce by the British gov- 
ernment, irritated the people of the United States, and caused the President to 
recommend partial non-intercourse with Great Britain. This policy was 
adopted by Congress [April 15, 1806], the prohibition to take effect in Novem- 
ber following. This was one of the first of the retaliatory measures of the 
American government toward that of Great Britain. 

The following year [1807] is remarkable in American history as the era 
of the commencement of successful steamboat navigation. Experiments in that 
direction had been made in this country many years before, but it was 
reserved for Robert Fulton' to bear the honor of success. He spent a 
long time in France, partly in the pursuit of his profession as a portrait-painter, 
and in the study of the subject of steam navigation. Through the kindness of 
Joel Barlow, then [1797] in Paris (in whose family he remained seven years), 
he was enabled to study the natural sciences, modern languages, and to make 
experiments. There he became acquainted with Robert R. Livingston, ' and 
through his influence and pecuniary aid, on his return 
to America, he was enabled to construct a steamboat, 
and to make a voyage on the Hudson from New York 
to Albany, "against wind and tide," in thirty-six 
hours.'' He took out his first patent in 1809. Within 
fifty years, the vast operations connected with steam- 
boat navigation, have been brought into existence. 
Now the puff of the steam-engine is heard upon the f'^lton s s . 
waters of every civilized nation on the face of the globe. 

And now the progress of events in Europe began to disturb the amicable 
relations which had subsisted between the governments of the United States and 
Great Britain since the ratification of Jay's treaty.* Napoleon Bonaparte was 
upon the throne of France as emperor ; and in 1806 he was King of Italy, and 
his three brothers were made ruling monarchs. He was upon the full tide of 
his success and conquests, and a large part of continental Europe was now 

' Robert Fulton was born in Pennsylvania, in 1165, and was a student of "West, the great 
painter, for several years. He had more genius for mechanics than the fine arts, and when he 
turned his efforts in that direction, he became very successful. He died in 1815, soon after launch- 
ing a steamship of war, at the age of fifty years. At that time there were six steamboats afloat on 
the Hudson, and he was building a steamship, designed for a voyage to St. Petersburg, in Russia, 
' Page 366. 

' This was the Clermont, Pulton's experimental boat. It was one hundred feet in length, twelve 
feet in width, and seven in deptli. The engine was constructed by Watt and Bolton, in F^ngland, 
and the hull was made by David Brown, of New York. The following advertisement appeared in 
the Albany Gazette, September 1st, 1807: "The North River Steamboat vn& leave Paulus's Hook 
[Jersey City] on Friday, the 4th of September, at 9 in the morning, and arrive at Albany on Satur- 
day, at 9 in the afternoon. Provisions, good berths, and accommodations are provided. Tho 
charge to each passenger is as follows : 

" To Newburg, dollars, 
" Poughkeepsie, " 
" Esopus, " 

" Hudson, " 

" Albany, " 

* Page 380. 




3, 


time. 


14 hours. 


4, 


" 


17 


a 


6, 


(( 


20 


u 


5i, 


11 


30 


" 


1, 


(1 


36 


u 



400 



THE NATION. 



[1801. 



prostrate at his feet. Although England had joined the continental powers 
ngainst liiiu [11S03|, in order to crush the Democratic revolution commenced in 
France, and the English navy had almost destroyed the French power at sea, 
all Europe was yet trembling in his presence. But the United States, by 




maintaining a strict neutrality, neither covoted his favors nor feared his power-, 
at the same time American shipping being allowed free intercourse between 
English and French ports, enjoyed the vast advantages of a profitable carrying 
trade between them. 

The belligerents, in their anxiety to damage each other, ceased, in time, to 
respect the laws of nations toward neutrals, and adopted measures at once 
destructive to American commerce, and in violation of the most sacred rights 
of the United States. In this matter, Great Britain took the lead. By an 
order in council,' that government declared [May 16, 1806] the whole coast of 
Europe, from the Elbe, in Germany, to Brest, in France, to be in a state of 
blockade. Napoleon retaliated by issuing [November 21] a decree at Berlin, 
which declared all the porta of the Briti.-<h islands to 1>c in a state of blockade. 
This was intended as a blow against England's maritime superiority, and it waa 



' The British privy counoil consists of an indefinite number of gentlemen, chosen by the sover- 
eign, and having no direct conncotion witli tlio c,\Viinct ministers. The sovereign may, under the 
advice of tiiis council, issue orders or prtirlanintions wliiili, if not contrary to existing laws, are 
binding upon the subjects. These are tor temporary purposes, and are called Orders in CouncU. 




1809.] JEFFERSON'S ADMINISTRATION. 401 

the beginning of what ho termed the continental system, the chief object of 
which was the ruin of Great Britain. The latter, by another order [January 
7, 1807J, prohibited all coast trade with France; and 
tlius the gamesters played with the world's peace and 
prosperity. In spite of pacific attempts to put an 
end to these ungenerous measures, American vessels 
■were seized by both English and French cruisers, and 
American commerce dwindled to a domestic coast trade.' 
The United States lacked a navy to protect her conimorce 
■on the ocean, and the swarms of gun-boats^ which Con- 
gress, from time to time, had authorized as a substitute, '' M-LtccA oun-boat. 
were quite inefficient, even as a coast-guard. 

The American merchants and all in their interest, so deeply injured by the 
" orders" and "decrees" of the warring monarchs, demanded redress of griev- 
ances. Great excitement prevailed throughout the country, and the most bitter 
feeling was beginning to be felt against Great Britain. This was increased by 
her haughty assertion and offensive practice of the doctrine that she had the 
right to search American vessels for suspected deserters from the British navy, 
and to carry away the suspected without hinderance." This right was strenu- 
ously denied, and its policy vehemontly condemned, because American seamen 
might be thus forced into the British service, under the pretense that they were 
deserters. Indeed this had already happened.* 

Clouds of difficulty now gathered thick and l)lack. A crisis approached. 
Four seamen on board the United States frigate Chesapeake, were claimed as 
deserters from the British armed ship Mclampiis." They were demanded, but 
Commodore Barron, of the Chesapeake, refused to give them up. The 

' In May, 1806, James Monroe [page 447] and William Pinkney, were appointed to assist in 
the negotiation of a. treaty with Great Britain, concerning the right.9 of neutrals, the imprisonment 
of seamen, right of search, &c. A treaty w;w finally signed, but as it did not offer security to 
American vessels against the aggressions of British ships in searching them and carrying oil' seamen, 
Mr. Jefferson refused to submit it to the Senate, and rejected it. The Federalists condemned the 
course of the President, but subsequent events proved his wisdom. Mr. Pinkney, one of the special 
envoys, wa.s a remarkable man. He was bom at Annapoli.s, Maryland, in March, 1704. Uo was 
admitted to the bar, at tlie ago of twenty -two years, and became one of the most profound states- 
men and brUliant orators of the age. He was a member of the Maryland Senate, iu 1811, wlien 
President Madison appointed him Attorney-trcneral for the United States. He was elected a 
member of Congress, and in 181G was appointed United States minister to St. Petersburg. After 
a short service iu the Senate, his health gave way, and ho died iu February, 1822, in the fifty-nmth 
year of his age. 

" These were small sailing vessels, having a caimon at the bow and stern, and manned by fully 
armed men, for tlie purpose of boarding other vessels. 

' England maintains the doctrine that a British subject can never become an alien. At the 
time in question, she hold that she had the right to take her native-bom subjects wherever found, and 
place them in the army or navy, even though, by legal process, they had become citizens of another 
nation. Our laws give equal protection to the native and adopted citizen, and would not allow 
Great Britain to exercise her asserted privilege toward a Briton who had Ijccomo a citizen of the 
United States. 

* During nine months, in the years 1796 and 1797, Mr. King [page 395], the American minis- 
ter in London, had made application for the release of two hundred and seventy-one seamen (a 
greater portion of whom were Americans), who had been seized on the false charge of being desert- 
ers, and pressed into the British service. 

' A small British squadron, of which the ifelampiis wa-s one, was lying in Lynn Haven Bay, at 
the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, at this time. It was commanded by Admiral Berkeley. 

26 



402 Ti"': sxi'ins. [1801. 

Chesapeake left the capes of Yirginia on a cruise, on the 22(1 of June, 1807, 
and on the same day she w;is chased and attacked by the British fri'Mte 
Leopard. Unsuspicious of danger and unprepared for an attack, Barron sur- 
rendered his vessel, after losing three men killed and eighteen wounded. The 
four men were then taken on board the Leopard, and the CliesapeuLe 
returned to Hampton Heads.' Investigation proved that three of the seamen, 
who were colored men, were native Americans, aiid that the fourth hatl been 
impressed into the British service, and had deserted. 

Forbearance was no longer a virtue. The outrage upon the Chesapeale 
aroused the nation, and provoked retaliatory measures. All parties joined in 
one loud voice of indignation, and many were very an.xious for a declaration of 
war with England. The President, however, proposed a pacific course, as long 
as any hope for justice or reconciliation remained. lie issued a proclamation, 
in July [1807J, ordering all British armed vessels to leave the waters of the 
United States immediately, and forbidding any one to enter until full satisfac- 
tion for the present insult, and security against future aggressions, should be 
made. Although the British government understood the attack on the Chesa- 
peake as an outrage, yet di])lomacy, which is seldom honest, was immediately 
employed to mistify the plain question of law and right.' In the mean while, 
France and England continued to play their desperate game, to the detriment 
of commerce, unmindful of the interests of other nations, or the obligations 
of international law. A British order in council was issued on the 11th 
of November, 1807, forbidding neutral nations to trade with France or licr 
allies, except upon payment of tribute to Great Britain. Napoleon retaliated, 
by issuing, on the 17th of December, a decree at Milan, forbidding all trade 
with England or her colonies ; and authorizing the confiscation of any vessel 
found in his ports, which had submitted to English search, or paid the exacted 
tribute. In other words, any vessel having goods upon which any impost 
whatever should have been paid to Great Britain, should be dcnafionafi'zed, 
and sulject to seizure and condemnation. These edicts were, of course, destruct- 
ive to the principal part of the foreign commerce of the United States. In 
this critical state of affairs, the President convened Congress several weeks 
[Oct. 25, 1807] earlier than usual ; and in a confidential message [December 
18J, he recommended to that body the passage of an act, levying a commercial 
embargo. Such an act was passed [December 22], which provided for the de- 
tention of all vessels, American and foreign, at our ports ; and ordered Ameri- 
can vessels abroad to return home immediately, that the seamen might be 

• Pago 297. 

' Tlio President forwarded instruction.s to Mr. Monroe, our minister to England, to demand im- 
mediate satisfaction for the outrage, and security agaiust similar events in future, dreat Briiain 
tliereupon di!<patchcd an envoy extraordinary (Mr. Kose) to tlio United State's, to setUe llie difli- 
(■ulty in (juestion. The envoy would not enter into negotiations until the President should with- 
draw lii.s proclamation, and so the matter stood until November, 1811 (more than four years), when 
the Brilisli govrmincnt di'ilnred tlio attack on the Chesapeake to have been unauthorized, and pro- 
mised pecuniary aid to the liuuilies of those who were killed at that time. But Britain would not 
relinquish the right of search, and so a cause for quarrel rmuuiued. 

• Note 1, page 400. 



1809.] JEFFERSON'S ADMINISTRATION. 403 

trained for the inevitable wur. Thus the chief commerce of the world was 
brouglit to a full stop. 

The operation of the embargo law was the oueasioii of rrreat distress, especi- 
ally in connueieial eonnnuuitics, yet it was sustained by tlie great body of tliv 




American people. It put patriotism and firmness to a severe test. It bore 
extremely hard upon seamen and their employers, for it spread ruin throughout 
tlie shipping interest. It was denounced l)y tlie Federal party, chiefly for polit- 
ical effect;' and as it failed to obtain from England and France any acknowl- 
edgment of American rights, it y/as repealed on the 1st of March, 1809, three 
days before Mr. Jefferson retired from office. Congress, at the same time, 
passed [March 1, 1809] a law which forbade all conuuercnal intercourse with 
France and England, until tlie '■orders in council" and tlic "decrees'' should 
be repealed. 

Mr. Jofterson truly wrotn to a fripiid: "The Fodrrnlists aro now pl.ayinp; a game of the most 
miscluovou.s tendency, without, perhaps, beinij themselves aware of it. Tlioy aro endeavoring 
to convince England that we .suffer more from the embargo tlian they do, and tliat, if they will 
hold out awhile, wo must aband(m it. It is true, the time will come when wo must abandon it; 
hut if this is before the repeal of the orders in council, we must al>andon it only for a state of war." 
John Quincy Adams, who had resigned his seat in tlie Senate of the United States, because he dif- 
fered from the m,ajority of his constituents in supporting the measures of tlio administration, wrote 
to till- rrosident to the effect, that from information received by him, it was tho determination of 
tho ruling party (FefU<ralists) in M.-i.ssachusetts, and even throughout New I'^ugland, if the embargo 
was persisted in, no longer to submit to it, but to separate themselves from the TTnion ; and that such 
was the prc>s.suro of the embargo upon tho conmiunity. tliat they would bo supported by the peopla 
This was e.xiilicitly denied, in after years, by the Federalist leaders. , 



404 TIIK XATTON. [1809. 

In the midst of the excitement on account of the foreign relations of the 
United States, anotlier i'residential election was Jield. Who should be the Dem- 
ocratic candidate ? was a question of some difficulty, the choice lying between 
Messrs. Madison and Monroe, of Virginia. For some time, a portion of the Dem- 
ocratic ]»i>rty in that State, under the lea(lcrshii)of the eininci.t John Randolph,' 
of lloaiiokc, had difl'crcd from the Administmtion on some points of its foreign 
policy; yet, while they acted with the Federalists on many occasions, they 
studiously avoided identification witli tliat party. ]Mr. Madison was the firm 
adherent of Jefferson, and an advocate and apologist of liis measures, while Mr. 
Monroe' rather favored the views of Mr. Randolph and his friends. The strength 
of the two candidates was tried in a caucus of the Democratic members of the 
Virginia Legislature, and also in a caucus of the Democratic members of Con- 
gress. Mr. Madison, having a large majority on both occasions, was nominated 
for the office of President, and George Clinton for that of Vice-President. 
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney and Rufus King were the Federalist candidates. 
Madison and Clinton were elected. At the close of eight years' service, as 
Chief Magistrate of the United States, Mr. Jefferson left office [March 4, 1809], 
and retired to his beautiful Blonticcllo, in the bosom of his native "N^irginia. 



< I » ■ » 



CHAPTER IV. 

. MADISON'S ADMINISTKATION. [1809 — 1817.] 

When James Madison, the fourth President of the Republic, tool: the 
chair of state, the country was overspread with gloom and despondency. 
Although somewhat highly colored, the report of a committee of the Massachu- 
setts Legislature, in January, 1809, gives, doubtless, a fair picture of the con- 
dition of affairs. It said: "Our agriculture is di.scouraged ; the fisheries 
abandoned; navigation forbidden; our commerce at home restrained, if not 



' John Randolph was seventh in descent from Poc.ihonta.s [papc G6], the beloved daughter of 
the emperor of the I'owhatans. lie wa.s born at Pctcr-sburg, in Virginia, in Jinie, 177."!. lie was 
in delicate healtli from infancy, lie studied in (iolunibia College, New York, and William and 
Mary College, in Virginia. Law was his chosen jiroli',«sion ; yet lie wa.s too fond of literature and 
politics to bo confined to its practice. He entered public life in 1799, wlien he was elected to a 
seat in Congress, where lie w;is a representative of liis native State, in the lower House, for tliirty 
years, with the exception of three intervals of two years each. During that time he was a member 
of the Senate for two year,i. Ho opposed the war in 1812. His political course was erratic. 
Jack.son appointed him minister to St. Petersburg in 18:i0. His health would not permit him to 
remain there. On his return ho was elected to Congress, but consumption soon laid him in tho 
grave. He died nt Philadelphia, in May, 1 8S3. Mr. Randolph was n strange compound of moral 
nud intellectual qualities, Ho was at times almost an atheist ; at others, he was imbued with tho 
deepest emotions of piety and reverence for Deity. It is said that, on one occasion, ho a-scended a 
lofly spur of the Blue Ridge, nt dawn, and from that magnificent observatory saw the sun rise. As 
its light burst in beauty and glory over the vast panorama before him, he turned to his .sen-ant and 
eaid, with deep emotion, "Tom, if any body says there is no God, tell them they liol" Thus be 
expressed the deep sense which his soul felt of tho presence of a Great Creator. 

* Pago. 447. 



1817. 



MADISON'S ADMINISTRATION. 



40i 



annihilated ; our commerce abroad cut off; our navy sold, dismantled, or 
degraded to the service of cutters, or gun-boats;' the revenue c.'ctiiiguished ; 
the course of justice interrupted; and tiie nation weakened bj internal animos- 
ities and divisions, at the moment when it is unnecessarily and improvidently 
exposed to war with Great Britain, France, and Spain." This was the lan- 
guage of the opponents of the aihuinistration^ and must be taken with some 
allowance. That party was strongly opposed to Mr. Madison, because they 




',^-€^-^ ^^,^^:^/^ 



ff^A^ 



believed that he would perpetuate the policy of Mr. Jefferson. But when, 
dressed in a suit of plain black, he modestly pronounced his inaugural address 
[March 4, 1809], the tone and sentiment of which fell like oil upon the 
troubled waters, those of his most im[)lacal)le political enemies who heard him, 
could not refrain from uttering words of approbation ; and hopes were enter- 
tained by the whole nation, that his measures might change the gloomy aspect 
of affairs. 

To all unbiassed minds, no man appeared better fitted for the office of Chief 
Magistrate of the Republic, at that time of general commotion, than Mr. Mad- 
ison." He had been Secretary of State during the while administration of Mr. 



' Page 401. 

" James Madison was born in Virginia, in March, IITjI. Tie was edncatetl at Princeton, Now 
.Jersey, and was diverted from the intended practice of tlie law by the charms and excitements of 
political life. He assisted in framinfr the first Constitution of Virginia, in 1776. He was a mem- 
ber of his State Legislature and of the Executive ronncil, and in 1780 was a delegate in the Conti- 
nenUU Congress. In public life, there, and in his State councils, ho was ever tlie champion of 
popular liberty. As a member of the National Convention, and supporter of the Constitution, ho 



406 THK X AT ION. [180D. 

Jefferson, and wa«. fiimiliar with every event which had contributed to produce 
the existing hostile relations between the United States and Great Britain. 
His cabinet was composed of able men,' and in the eleventh Congress, which 
convened on the '22d of May, iNOt), in consequence of the critical state of 
affairs," there was a majority of his political friends. Yet there was a powerful 
party in the covintry (the Federalists) hostile to his political creed, and opposed 
to a war with England, which now seemed probable. 

At the very beginning of Madison's .administration, light beamed upon the 
future. Mr. Erskine, the British minister, as.surcd the President, that such 
portions of the orders in council' as affected the United States, should be 
repealed by the 10th of June. He also assured him that a special envoy would 
soon arrive, to settle all matters in dis[)ute between the two governments. 
Supposing the minister to l)e authorized by his government to make these 
assurances, the President, as empowered by Congress, issued a proclamation 
[April 19, 1809J, permitting a renewal of commercial intercourse with Great 
Britain, on that day. But the government disavowed Erskine's act, and the 
President again [August 10] proclaimed non-intercourse. Tho light had 
proved deceitful. This event caused great excitement in the public mind ; and 
had the President then declared war against Great Britain, it would doubtless 
have been very popular. 

Causes for iri'itiition between the two governments continually increased, 
and, for a time, political intercourse was suspended. France, too, continueTl 
its aggressions. On the 23d of March, 1810, Bonaparte issued a decree at 
Bambouillet, more destructive in its oj)erations to American commerce, than any 
measures hitherto employed. It declared forfeit every American vessel which 
had entered French ports since March, 1810, or that might thereafter enter; 
and authorized the sale of t'Nc same, together with the cargoes — the money to 
be placed in the French treasury. Under this decree, many American vessels 
were lost, for which only partial remuneration has since been obtained.' Bona- 
parte justified this decree by the plea, that it was made in retaliation for the 
American decree of non-intercourse.'' Three months later [May, 1810], Con- 
gress offered to resume commercial intercourse with either France or England, 
or both, on condition that they should repeal their obno.xious orders and 
decrees, before the 3d of March, 1811." The French emperor, who was always 
governed by expediency, in defiance of right and justice, feigned compliance, 
and by giving assurance [August] that such repeal should take effect in Novem- 

was one of the wisest and ablest; and his voluminous writings, purchased by Congress, display tho 
most sagacious sfcitesmanship. As a Repulilioan, ho wa.s couscrvntive. For eight years he was 
Prt-sident of tho United States, wlicn ho retired to private life. He died in June, 183G, at the ago 
of eighty-Hve years. 

' Rohert Smith, Secretarj' of State; Albert Oallalin, Secretjiry of tlie Treasury; William Kustis, 
Secretary of War; Paul Hamilton, Secretary of tho Navy; Csesar Rodney, Attorney-General. 

' Its session Listed only about five weeks, because peace seemed probable. 

" Note 1, patre 4nO. « Page 468. ' Page 402. 

' The act provided, that if either government should repeal its obnoxious acts, and if the other 
government sliould not do tho same within three months thereafter, tlien tho first should enjoy 
commercial intercourse with the United States, but the other slioulu not. 



1817.] MADISON'S ADMINISTRATION. 407 

ber, caused the President to proclaim such resumption of intercourse. It was 
a promise intended to be broken at any moment when policy should dictate. 
American vessels continued to he seized by French cruisers, as usual, and con- 
fiscated; and in March, 1811, Napoleon declared the decrees of Berlin' and 
Milan' to be the fundamental laws of the empire. A new envoy from France, 
who arrived in the United States at about this time, gave oiBcial notice to the 
government, that no remuneration would be made for property seized and con- 
fiscated. 

The government of Great Britain acted more honoralily, though wickedly. 
She continued her hostile orders, and sent ships of war to cruise near the prin- 
cipal ports of the United States, to intercept American merchant vessels and 
send them to England as lawful prizes. While engaged in this nefarious busi- 
ness, the British sloop of war' Little Belt, Captain Bingham, was mot [ilay 
16, 1811], off the coast of Virginia, by the American frigate President, Com- 
modore Rogers.' Tliat officer hailed the commander of the sloop, and received 
a cannon shot in reply. A brief action ensued, when Captain Bingham, after 
having eleven men killed and twenty-one wounded, gave a satisfactory answer 
to Rogers. The coniluct of both officers was approved by their respective gov- 
ernments. That of the United States condemned the act of Bingham as an 
outrage without palliation ; and the government and people felt willing to take 
up arms in defense of right, justice, and honor. Powerful as was the navy of 
(jrreat Britain, and weak as was that of the United States, the people of the 
latter were willing to accept of war as an alternative for submission, and to 
measure strength on the ocean. The l^ritish navy consisted of almost nine 
hundred vessels, with an aggregate of one hundred and forty-four thousand 
men. The American vessels of war, of large size, numbered only twelve, with 
an aggregate of about three hundred guns. Besides these, there were a great 
number of gun-boats, Init tiiosc were hardly sufficient for a coast-guard. Here 
was a great disparity ; and for a navy so weak to defy a navy so strong, 
seemed madness. It must be rememliered, however, that the British navy was 
necessarily very much scattered, for that government had interests to protect in 
various parts of the globe. 

The protracted interruption of commercial operations was attended with 
very serious effect upon the trade and revenue of the United States, and all 
parties longed for a change, even if it must be brought about by war with 
European governments. The Congressional elections in 1810 and 1811, proved 
that the policy of Mr. Madison's administration was sustained by a large ma- 
jority of the American people, the preponderance of the Democratic party 
being kept up in both branches of the National Legislature. The oj)position, 
who, as a party, were unfavorable to hostilities, were in a decided minority; 
and the government had more strength in its councils than at any time during 
Jefferson's administration. 

For several years war with England had seemed inevitable, and now [1811] 

' Page 400. ' Page 402. ' Page 415. 

* He died in the Naval Asylum, Philadelphia, in August, 1838. 



408 TlIK NATION. [1809. 

manj causes were accelerating the progress of events toward such a result. 
Among these, the hostile position of the Indian tribes on the north-western 
frontier of the United States, was one of tlie most powerful. They, too. had 
felt tlio pressure of ]5onaparte's commercial system. In consequence of the 
exclusion of their furs from the continental markets, the Indian hunters found 
their traffic reduced to tlie lowest jioint. The rapid extension of .settlements 
north of the Ohio was narrowing their hunting-grounds, and producing a rapid 
diminution of game; and the introduction of whiskey, by the white people, was 
spreading denioralizatidn, disease, and death among tlie Indians. These evils, 
coml)ined with the known influence of British emissaries, finally led to open 
hostilities. 

Ill tiie spring of 1811, it was known that Tecuratha, a Sliawnoe' chief, 
who was crafty, intrepid, unscrupulous, and cruel, and who possessed the qual- 
ities of a great leader, almost equal to those of Poiitiac," was endeavoring to 
emulate that great Ottawa by eonfcderating the tribes of the north-west in a 
war against the people of the United States. Those over whom himself and 
twin-brother, tlie Prophet,' exercised the greatest control, were the Delawares, 
Shawnoese, Wyandots, Miamies, Kickapoos, Winnebagoes, and Chip])ewas. 
During the summer, the frontier settlers became so alarmed by the continual 
military and religious exercises of the savages, that General Harrison,' then 
governor of the Indiana Territory," marched, with a considerable force, toward 
the town of the Prophet, situated at the junction of tlie Tippecanoe and 
Wabash Rivers, in the upper part of Tippecanoe county, Indiana. The 
Prophet appeared and proj)Oscd a conference, liut Harrison, suspecting treach- 
ery, caused his soldiers to sleep on their arms [Nov. 6, 1811J that niglit. At 
four o'clock the next morning [Nov. 7] the savages fell upon the American 
camp, but after a bloody liattle until dawn, the Indians were re]iulsed. The 
hattle of Tippecanoe was one of the most desperate ever fought with the Indians, 
and the loss was heavy on both sides.' Tecumtha was not present on this occa^ 
sion, and it is said the Prophet took no part in the engagement. 

These events, so evidently the work of British interference, aroused the 
spirit of the nation, and throughout the entire West, and in the Middle and 
Southern States, there was a desire for war. Yet the administration fully 
upjireciated the deep responsibility involved in such a step; and having almost 
the entire body of the New England peo])le in opjiosition, the President and his 
friends hesitated. The British orders in council* continued to be rigorously 
enforced ; insult after insult was offered to the American flag ; and the British 
press insolently boasted that the United States " could not be kicked into » 

■ Pago 19. ' Page 204. 

' In 1809, Governor Harrison liafl noROtiated a treaty with the Miamies [pase 19] ami other 
t^ibe^ by whicli they solil to tlie TTiiitetl States a largo tract of land on both sides of the \Vaba.sh. 
The Prophet was present and made no objection ; but Tecumtha, who was absent, was greatly 
dissatisfied. The British eniiiwaries took advantage of tliis dis.satisfaetion, to inflame him and his 
people against the Americans. 

« Tftge 17. ' Page 474. " Note 4, page 390. 

' Harrison had upward of sixty killed, and more tlian a hundred wounded. 

■ Note 1, page 400. 



1817.] MADISON'S ADMINISTRATION. 409 

war." Forbearance became no longer a virtue ; and on the 4th of April, 1812, 
Congress laid another embargo' upon vessels in American waters, for ninety 
days. On the 1st of June, the President transmitted a special message to 
Congress, in which he reviewed the difficulties with Great Britain, strongly 
portrayed the aggressions inflicted upon us by that nation, and intimated the 
necessity of war. The message was referreil to the Committee on Foreign 
Relations, in the House of Representatives, a majority of whom' agreed upon, 
and reported a manifesto [June 3], as the basis of a declaration of war. On 
the following day [June 4, 1812], a bill, drawn up by Mr. Pinckney, the 
Attorney-General of the United States," declaring war to exist between the 
United States and Great Britain, was presented by Mr. Calhoim. During the 
pi-oceedings on this subject. Congress sat with closed doors. Tlie measure was 
finally agreed to, by both Houses, by fair majorities. It passed the House of 
Representatives by a vote of 79 to 49. On the 17th it passed the Senate by a 
vote of 19 to 13, and on that day it received the signature of the President.' 
Two days afterward [June 19], the President issued a proclamation which 
formally declared war against Gr.at Britain." This is known in history as The 
War of 1812 ; or 

THE SECOND WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE.' 

Congress, having authorized the President to declare war, took immediate 
measures to sustain that declaration. It passed an act which gave him author- 
ity to enlist twenty-five thousand men, to accept fifty thousand volunteers, and 
to call out one hundred thousand militia for the defense of the sea-coast and 
frontiers. Fifteen millions of dollars were appropriated for the army, and 
almost three millions for the navy. But at the very threshhold of the new order 

' Page 402. Four days after tliis [.\pril 8] Louisiana was admitted into the Union as a State. 

' John C. Calhoun, of South Carolina ; Feli.x Grundy, of Tennessee ; John Siiiilic, of Pennsyl- 
vania ; John A. Harper, of New Hampshire ; Joseph Desha, of Kentucky ; and Ebenezer Seaver, 
of Massachusetts. ^ Page 400. 

' The following are the words of that important bill : " Be it enacted, etc., That war he, and the 
same is hereby declared to exist between tlie United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and 
the dependencies thereof and the United States of America and their Territories; and that tha 
President of the United States is hereby authorized to use the whole land and naval force of tiie 
United States to carry the same into effect, and to issue to private armed vessels of the United 
States, commissions, or letters of marque, and general reprisal, in such form as he shall think proper, 
and under the seal of the United States, against the vessels, goods, and effects of the government 
of the said United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and the subjects thereof." 

' The chief causes for this act were the impressment of American seamen by the British ; the 
blockade of French ports %vithout an adequate force to sustain the act; and the British Orders in 
Council. The Federalists in Congress presented an ably-written protest, which denied the necessity 
or the e.'cpediency of war. 

^ This is an appropriate title, for, until the termination of that war, the United States were only 
nominally free. Blessed with prosperity, the people dreaded war, and sulimitted to many at'ts of 
tyranny and insult from Great Britain and France, rather than become involved in another cotiHict. 
Socially and commercially, the United States were dependent upon Europe, and especially U|«iri 
England ; and the latter wa.s rapidly acquiring a dangerous political interest here, when the war 
broke out. The war begun in 1775 wm really only the first great step toward independence; the 
war begun in 1812, first thoroughly accomplished it. Franklin once heard a por.son speaking of 
the Revolution as the War of Independence, and reproved him, saying, "Sir, you mean tlio Revolu- 
tion ; the war of Independence is yet to come. It was a war for Independence, but not of Inde- 
pendence." 



410 THK NATION. [1809. 

of things, the administration was met by determined opposition. Tiie Federal 
members of the House of Representatives published an address to their con- 
stituents, in which they set forth the state of the country at that time, the 
course of the administration and its supporters in Congress, and tlie reasons of 
tiie minority for opposing the war. This was fair and honorable. But outside 
of Congress, a party, composed chiefly of Federalists, with some disaffected 
Democrats, was organized under the name of the Peace party. Its object was 
to cast such obstructions in the way of the prosecution of the war, as to compel 
the government to make peace. This movement, so unpatriotic, the offsjiring 
of the lowest elements of faction, was frowned upon by the most respectable 
members of the Federal party, and some of them gave the government their 
hearty support, when it was necessary, in order to carry on the war with vigor 
and effect. 

The first care of the government, in organizing the army, wiia to select 
eflScient officers. Nearly all of the general officers of the Revolution were in 
their graves, or were too old for service, and even tliose of sulwrdinate rank in 
that war, who yet re:naiiied, were far advanced in life. 
Yet upon tliem the chief duties of leadership were 
devolved. Henry Dearborn' was appointed major- 
general and commander-in-chief; and his principal 
brigadiers were James AVilkinson,' Wade Hampton,' 
William Hull,* and Joseph Bloomfield — all of them 
esteemed soldiers of the Revolution. 

Hull was governor of the Territory of Michigan, 
and held the commission of a brigadier-general. When 
war was declared, he was marchin<r, with a little more 
GENERAL DEAEBORN. than two tliousaud tToops, from Ohio, to attempt the 

subjugation of the hostile Indians.' Congress gave 
him discretionary powers for invading Canada , but caution and preparation 
■were necessary, because the British authorities, a long time in expectation of 
war, had taken measures accordingly.' Feeling strong enough for the enemy, 
Hull, on the 12th of July, 1812, crossed the Detroit River with his whole 
force, to attack Fort Maiden, a British post near the present village of Amherst- 
burg. At Sandwich, he encamped, and by a fatal delay, lost every advantage 
■which an immediate attack might have secured. In the mean while, Fort 

' Henry Dearborn was a native of New Ilnmpstiire, and a meritorious officer in the continental 
army. Ho accompanied Arnold to Qu"l)pc, and was distincni.slicd in tlie battles which ruined 
Burpoyno [page 2811 He held civil olfioes of trust after the Revolution. Ho returned to private 
life in 1815, and died at Roxburv. near Boston, in 1829, at the age of seventy-eight years. 

' Pages 39G and 426. ' Note 3, page 427. * Note 4, page 411. '' Page 408. 

' Canada then consisted of two provinces. The old French settlements on the St. Lawrence, 
with a popuUition of about three hundred thousand, constituted Lower Canada: while the more 
recent settlements above ^fontreal, and chiefly upon the northern shore of Lake Ontario, including 
about one lumdrod thousand inliahitants, composed Upper Canada. These were principally the 
families of American loyalists, wlio were compelled to leave the States at the close of the Kevolu- 
tion. Then each province had its own governor and Legislature. The regular military force, which 
was scattered over a space of more than a thousand miles, did not exeee<l two thousand men; 
hence the British commanders were compelled to call for volunteers, and they used the Indians 
to good effect, in their fevor. 





Lr.-5 ' ^vAj^liffU'.^ P-CtlD K "i 



n m.: 



;ajruiL< 



1817.] MADISON'S ADMINISTRATION. 411 

Mackinaw, one of the strongest posts of the United States in the north-west, ' 
was surprised and captured [July 17, 1812] by an allied force of British and 
Indians ; and on the 5th of August, a detachment under Major Van Ilorne, 
sent by Hull to escort an approaching supply-party to camp, were defeated by 
some British and Indians near Brownstown, on the Huron River." These 
events, and the reinforcement of the garrison at Maiden, by General Brock, 
the British commander-in-chief, caused Hull to recross the river on the 7th of 
August, abandon the expedition against Canada, and take post at Detroit, much 
to the disappointment of his troops, Avho were anxious to measure strength with 
the enemy. 

On the 9th of August, General Brock crossed the river with seven hundred 
British troops and six hundred Indians, and demanded an instant surrender of 
Detroit, threatening at the same time to give free rein to Indian cruelty in the 
event of refusal. Hull's excessive prudence determined him to surrender, 
rather than expose his troops to the hatchet. When the assailants approached, 
and at the moment when the Americans were hoping for and expecting a com- 
mand to fire, he ordered his troops to retire within the foit, and hung a white 
flag upon the wall, in token of submission. The army, fort, stores, garrison, 
and Territory, were all surrendered [August 16, 1812], to the astonishment of 
the victor himself, and the deep mortification of the American troops. Hull 
was afterward tried by a court-martiaP [1814], on charges of treason and cow- 
ardice. He was found guilty of the latter, and sentenced to be shot, but was 
pardoned by the President on account of his revolutionary services. The whole 
country severely censured him ; and the rage of the war party, increased by 
the taunts of the Federalists, because of the disastrous termination of one of the 
first expeditions of the campaign, was unbounded. The difiiculties with which 
Hull was surrounded — his small force (only about eight hundred effective men) ; 
the inexperience of his officers, and the rawness of his troops ; his lack of infor- 
mation, because of the interception of his communications ; and the number and 
character of the enemy — were all kept out of sight, while bitter denunciations 
were poured upon his head. In after years, he was permitted fully to vindicate 
his character, and the sober judgment of this generation, guided by historic 
truth, must acquit him of all crime, and even serious error, and pity him as a 
victim of untoward circumstances.* 

' Formerly spelled Michilimackinac. It was situated upon an island of that name, near the 
Straits of Mackinaw or Michilimalcinac. 

^ On the 8tli, Colonel Miller and several hundred men, sent by Hull to accomplish tho object or 
Van Home, met and defeated Tecumtha [page 408] and liis Indians, with a party of British, neat 
the scene of Van Home's failure. 

3 He was talcen to Montreal a prisoner, and was afterward exchanged for thirty British cap. 
tives. He was tried at Albany, New York. 

' Hull published his Vindication in 1824; and in 1848, his grandson pubhshed a large octavo 
volume, giving a full and thorough vindication of tlie cliaracter of the general, the material for 
which was drawn from official records. Hull's tliorough knowledge of tlie character of the foe who 
menaced him, and a humane desire to spare his troops, was doubtless his sole reason for surrender- 
ing the post. A good and brave man has too long suflered the reproaches of history. William 
Hull was born in Connecticut in 1753. He rose to the rank of major in the continental army, and 
was distinguished for his bravery. He was appointed governor of the Michigan Territory in 1805. 
After the close of his unfortunate campaign, he never appeared in public life. He died near Boston 
m 1825. 



412 THE X AT ION. [1809. 

At about this time, a tragedy occurred near the head of Lake Michigan, 
■which sent a thrill of horror through the laud. Captain Ileald, with a com- 
pany of fifty regulars, occupied Fort Dearborn, on the site of the present 
large city of Chicago.' Hull ordered him to evacuate that post in the deep 
■nilderness, and hasten to Detroit. He left the public property in charge of 
friendly Indians, but had proceeded only a short distance from the fort, along 
the beach, when he was attacked liy a body of Indians. T\venty-si.\ of the reg- 
ular troops, and all of the militia, were slaughtered. A number of women and 
children were murdered and scalped : and Captain Ileald, with his wife, though 
severely wounded, escaped to Micliilimackinac' Ills wife also received six 
■wounds, but none proved mortal. This event occurred on the day before Iluirs 
surrender [Aug. 15, 1812] at Detroit, and added to the gloom that overspread, 
and the indiy-natiou tliat flashed tlirouirh, the length and breadth of the land. 

While these misfortunes were befalling the Army of the North-west,'' the 
opponents of the war ■were casting obstacles in the way of the other divisions of 
the American troops operating in the State of New York, and pre{)aring for 
another invasion of Canada.' The governors of Massachusetts, New Hamp- 
shire, and Connecticut, refused to allow the militia of those States to march to 
the northern frontier on the requisition of the President of the United States. 
They defended their unpatriotic position by the plea that such a requisition was 
unconstitutional, and that the war was unnecessary. The British government, 
in the mean tinje, had declared the whole American coast in a state of block- 
ade, except that of the New England States, whose apparent sympathy with 
the enemies of their country, caused them to be regarded as ready to leave the 
Union, and become subject to the British crown. But there was sterling 
patriotism sufficient there to prevent such a catastrophe, even if a movement, 
so fraught with evil, had been contemplated. Yet the effect was chilling to the 
best friemls of the country, and the President felt the necessity of extreme cir- 
cumspection. 

Unmindful of the intrigues of its foes, however, the administration perse- 
vered; and during the summer of 1812, a plan was matured for invading Can- 
ada on the Niagara frontier. The militia of the State of New York were 
placed, by Governor Tompkins, under the command of Stephen Van Rensselaer,' 



' Chicago i.s built upon the verpje of Lalvo Michigan and the l)ordora of a great prairie, and i3 
one of the wonders of tlio material and social progress of tlie United States. The Pottawatomie 
Indians [page 18], by treaty, left that spot to the white people in 1833. The city was laid out in. 
1830, and lots were first sold in 1831. In 1840, the population was 4,470. Now [1883] it is 
more than 500,000. n'ago411. 

' The forces under General Harrison were called the Army of the North-west; those under Gen- 
eral Stephen "V'an Rensselaer, at Lewiston, on the Niagara River, the Army of the Center; and 
those under General Dearborn, at Plattsburg and at Greenbush, near Albany, the Army of the 
Nwth. * Page 410. 

° Stephen "Van Rensselaer, a lineal descendant of one of the earliest and best knomi of the 
Patroons [note 10, page 139] of the State of New York, was born at the manor-house, near Albany, 
in November, 1764. The War for Independence had just closed when he came into po.>*es.=ion of 
his immense estate, at the age of twenty-one years. He engaged in politics, was a warm siipporter 
oftheXationalConstitution, and was elected Lieutenant-Governor of New York in 179.S. lie was 
yery little engaged in politics after the defeat of the Federal party in 1800 [page 388]. After 
the Second War for Independence, he was elected to a seat in Congress; and, by his casting vote 
in the New York delegation, he gave the Presidency of the United States to John Quincy Adama. 



1817.] 



MADISON'S ADMINISTRATION. 



413 



who was commissioned a Major-General. Intelligence of the surrender of Hull' 
had inspired the Americans with a strong desire to wipe out the disgrace ; and 
the regiments were filled without much difficulty. These forces were concen- 
trated'chiefly at Lewiston, on the Niagara frontier, under Van Rensselaer, and 
at Plattsburg, on Lake Champlain, and Greenbush. near Albany, under General 
Dearborn. 




The first demonstration against the neighboring province was made on the 
Niagara, in mid-autumn. In anticipation of such movement, British troops 
were strongly posted on the heights of Queenstown, opposite Lewiston ; and on 
the morning of the 13th of October [1812J, two hundred and twenty-five men, 
under Colonel Solomon Van Rensselaer," crossed over to attack them. The 
commander was severely wounded, at the landing; but his troops pressed for- 
ward, under Captains Woor and Ogilvie, successfully assaulted a battery near 

Here closed his political life, and he passed the remainder of his days in the performance of social 
and Christian duties. He was for several years president of the Board of Canal Commissioners, 
and, while in that office, he died in January, 1840, in the seventy-fifth year of his age. 

' Page 411. 

' Solomon Van Rensselaer was one of the bravest and best men of his time ; and to his efforts, 
more than to those of any other man, the salvation of the American army on the northern frontier, 
at tliis time, was due. He died at Albany on the 3d of April, 1852. 

' John B. Wool, afterwards Major-General in the army of the United States. 



.^l^ THE NATION. [1809. 

the summit of the hill, and gained possession of Queenstown Heights. But the 
victory was not yet com[)lete. General Sir Isaac Brock liad come from Port 
George, and with six hundred men attempted to regain the battery. The 
British were repulsed, and Brock was killed.' In the mean while, General 
Stephen Van Rensselaer, who had crossed over, returned to Lewiston, and was 
usini'' his most earnest efforts to send reinforcements ; but only about one thou- 
sand troops, many of them quite undisciplined, could be induced to cross the 
river. These were attacked in the afternodii [Oct. 1.3, 1812] ty fresh troops 
from Fort George, and some of their Indian ailics. Many were killed and the 
rest were made prisoners, while at least fifteen hundred of their companions-hi- 
arms cowardly refused to cross to their aid. The latter excused their conduct by 
the plea, i)Ut into their months by the opponents of the war, that they considered 
it wrong to invade the enemy's country, the war being avowedly a defensive one. 
The enemies of the administration applauded them for their conscientiousness, 
while a victory that might have led to reconciliation and peace, was lost at the 
winnin" moment. General Van Rensselaer, disgusted with the inefficiency 
everywhere displayed, left the service, and was succeeded by General Alex- 
ander Smyth, of Virginia This officer accomplished nothing of importance 
during the remainder of the season ; and when tlie troops went into winter 
quarters [Dec], there appeared to have been very few achievements made by 
the American army worthy of honorable mention in history. 

While the army was suffering defeats, and became, in the mouths of the 
opponents of the administration, a staple rebuke, the little navy had acquitted 
itself nobly, and the national honor and prowess had been fully vindicated upon 
the ocean. At this time the British navy numbered one thousand and sixty 
vessels, while that of the United States, exclusive of gun-boats,'' numbered only 
twenty. Two of these were unseaworthy, and one was on Lake Ontario. Nine 
of the American vessels were of a class less than frigates, and all of them could 
not well compare in appointments with those of the enemy. Yet the Americana 
were not dismayed by this disparity, but went out boldly in their ships to meet 
the war vessels of the proudest maritime nation upon the earth." Victory after 
victory told of their skill and prowess. On the 19th of August, 1812. the 
United States frigate Constitution., Commodore Isaac Hull,' fought the British 
frigate Guerriere," Captain Dacres, off the American coast, in the present track 
of ships to Great Britain. The contest continued about forty minutes, when 

' Sir Isaac Brock was a brave and generous officer. There is a fine moiuuncnt erected to his 
memory on Queenstown HoiRhta, a short distance from the Niagara River. ' Page -401. 

' At the tiino of the declaration of war, Commodore Ropers [page 407] was at Sandy Uook, 
New York, with a small squadron, conaistiuK of Iho friiiatos J'resM-nt, Congress, United Slates, and 
the sloop-ol-war Ilnrnet. Me put to sea on the 21st of June, in pursuit of a British squadron which 
had sailed as a convoy of the West India fleet. Aaor a slight enpagemcnt, and a chase of several 
hours, the pursuit was abandoned at near midnight. The frigate ^sses [page 4301 went to sea on 
the 3d of July; the Con-ttitution, on the 12th. The brigs Naittilu.^ Vipet; and Viaxn were then 
cruising off tlie coast, and the .sloop Wasp was at sea on her return from France. 

* Isaac Hull was made a lieutenant in the navy in ITOS, and was soon distinguished for skill 
and bravery. He rendered important service to liis country, and died in Philadelphia in February, 
1843. 

' This vessel had been one of a British squadron which gave the Conslitutton a long and close 
thase about a month before, during which the nautical skill of Hull was most signally displayed. 




1817.] MADISON'S ADMINISTRATION. 415 

Dacres surrendered ;' and his vessel was such a complete wreck, that the victor 
burned her. The Constitution, it is said, was so little damaged, that she was 
ready for action the following day. This victory had a powerful eflect on the 
public mind in both countries. 

On the 18th of October, 1812, the United States sloop-of-war, Wasp, 
Captain Jones, captured the British brig Frolic, off the 
coast of North Carolina, after a very severe conflict for 
three-quarters of an hour. The slaughter on board the 
Frolic was dreadful. Only three officers and one seaman, 
of eighty-four, remained unhurt. The others were killed 
or badly wounded. The Wasp lost only ten men. Her 
term of victory was short, for the same afternoon, the 
British seventy-four gun ship Poictiers captured both 
vessels. A week afterward [October 25], the frigate sloop-ok-war. 

United States, Commodore Decatur," fought the British 

frigate Macedonian, west of the Canary Islands, for almost two hours. After 
being greatly damaged, and losing more than one hundred men, in killed and 
wounded, the Macedo?iiau surrendered. Decatur lost only five killed and 
seven wounded ; and his vessel was very little injured. A few weeks after- 
ward [December 29, 1812], the Constitution, then commanded by Commodore 
Bainbridge,' became a victor, after combatting the British frigate Java for 
almost three hours, off San Salvador, on the coast of Brazil. The Java had 
four hundred men on board, of whom almost two hundred were killed or 
wounded. The Constitution was again very little injured ; but she made such 
havoc with the Java, that Bainbridge, finding her incapable of floating long, 
burned her [January 1, 1813], three days after the action. 

The Americans were greatly elated by these victories. Nor were they con- 
fined to the national vessels. Numerous privateers, which now swarmed upon 
the ocean, were making prizes in every direction, and accounts of their exploits 
filled the newspapers. It is estimated that during the year 1812, upward of 
fifty British armed vessels, and two hundred and fifty merchantmen, with an 
aggregate of more than three thousand prisoners, and a vast amount of booty, 
were captured by the Americans. These achievements wounded British pride 
in a tender part, for England claimed the appellation of "mistress of the seas." 
They also strengthened the administration ; and at the close of the year, naval 
armaments were in preparation on the lakes, to assist the army in a projected 
invasion of Canada the following spring. 

At the close of these defeats upon land, and these victories upon the ocean, 
the election of President and Vice-President of the United States, and also of 
members of Congress, occurred. The administration was strongly sustained by 
the popular vote. Mr. Madison was re-elected, with Elbridge Gerry' as Vice- 
President — George Clinton having died at Washington in April of that year." 



' On the Guerriere were seventy-nine killed and wounded. The ConstUution loi?t seven killed 
and seven wounded. ' Pag:e 392. 

' Page 391, ■• Note 1, page 385. ' Note 5, page 350. 



416 TIIK X ATI ox. [1813. 

A fraction of tlie Democratic party, and most of the Federalists, voted for De 
^Vitt Clinton' for President, and Jarud Ingersoll. for Vice-President. Not- 
■witlistiinding the niemliers of Congress then elected, were chiefly Democrats, it 
was evident that the opposition was powerful and increasing, particularly in the 
eastern States, yet tlie President felt certain that the great body of the people 
were favorable to his war policy. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE SECOND WAR FOB INDEPENDENCE. [1813.] 

DuKiNG the autumn of 1812, the whole western country, incensed by 
Hull's surrender, seemed filled with the zeal of the old Crusaders.'' IMichigan 
had to be recovered,^ and the greatest warlike enthusiasm prevailed. Volun- 
teers had gathered under local leaders, in every settlement. Companies were 
formed and eijuipped in a single day, and were ready to march the next. For 
several weeks the volunteers found employment in driving the hostile Indians 
from post to post, in the vicinity of the extreme western settlements. They 
desolated their villages and plantations, after the manner of Sullivan, in 1779,' 
and the fiercest indignation against the white people was thus excited among 
the tribes, which, under the stimulus of their British allies, led to terrible 
retaliations.' So eager were the people for battle, that the snows of winter in 
the great wilderness, did not keep them from the field. The campaign of 1813 
opened with the year. Almost the entire northern frontier of the United 
States was the chief theatre of operations. The army of the West,' under 
General Harrison,' was concentrating at the head of Lake Erie ; that of the 
Cetifre," now under Dearborn, was on the banks of the Niagara River ; and 
that of the North,' under Hampton, was on the borders of Lake Champlain. 
Sir George Prevost was the successor of Brock'" in command of the British 
army in Canada, assisted by General Proctor in the direction of Detroit," and 
by General Sheaffe in the vicinity of Montreal and the lower portions of Lake 
Champlain. 

Brave and experienced leaders had rallied to the standard of Harrison in 
the north-west. Kentucky sent swarms of her young men, from every social 

' Page 4.')6. ' Note 5, page 38. ' Page 411. ' Pago 304. 

' Harrison early took steps to relieve the frontier posts. These were Fort Harrison, on tht 
Wabasli; Fort Wayne, on the Miami of tlie lakes; Fort Defiance [Note 6, page 374]; and Fort 
Deposit, to which tlie Indians laid siege on the 12th of September. Generals Winchester, Tupper, 
and Payne, and Colonels Wells, Scott, Lewis, Jennings, and AUcn, were the chief leaders against 
the .salvages. Operations were carried on vigorously, further west. Early in October, almost four 
thousand volunteers, chiefly mounted riHomen, under Oeneral Hopkins, had collected at Vincennes 
[page 303] for an expedition against the towns of the Peoria and other Indians, iu the Wabash 
country. It was this formidable expedition, sanctioned by Governor Shelby, which produced the 
greatest devastation in the Indian country. ' Note 3, page 412. ' I'age 474. 

' Note S, page 412. ' Note 3, page 412. " Page 411. " Page 412. 



1813.] 



THE SECOND WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 



41T 



raak, led by the veteran Shelby,' and the yeomanry of Ohio and its neighbor- 
hood hastened to the field. So numerous were the volunteers, that Harrison 
was compelled to issue an order against further enlistments, and many a warm 
heart, beating with desire for military glory, was chilled by disappointmtsnt. 
General Harrison chose the west end of Lake Erie as his chief place of muster, 




■with the design of making a descent upon the British at Maiden and Detroit,* 
and by securing possession of those posts, recover jSIichigan and the forts west 
of it. Early in January [10th, 1813], General Winchester, on his way from 
the southward, with eight hundred young men, chiefly Kentuckians, reached 
the Maumce Rapids.^ There he was informed [January 13, 1813] that a 
party of British and Indians had concentrated at Frenchtown, on the river 
Raisin,' twenty-five miles south of Detroit. He i'umediately sent a detachment, 

' Isaac Shelby was born in Maryland, in 1150. He entered military life in 1774, and went to 
Kentucky as a land-surveyor, in 1775. He engaged in the War of the Revolution, and was dis- 
tinguished in the battle on King's Mountain [page 319] in 1780. He was made govenjor of Ken- 
tucky in 1792. and soon afterward retired to private Ufe, from which he was drawn, first in 1812, to 
the duties of Chief Magistrate of his State, and again, m 1813, to lead an army to the field against 
his old enemy He died in 1826, when almost seventy-six years of age. " Page 412. 

' Note 7, page 374. 

' Now a portion of the flourishing village of Monroe, Michigan, two or three miles from Lake 
Erie. The Raisin derived its name from the fact, that in former years great quantities of grapes 
«lustere(i, upon its banks. 

27 



418 



T IT F, N A T I N . 



[1813. 



under Colonels Allen and Lewis, to protect the inhabitants in that direction. 
Finding Frciichtown in tiio possession of the enemy, they successfully attacked 
[January 18J and routed tliein, and held possession until the arrival of Win- 
chester [January 20], with almost three hundred men, two days afterward. 

General Proctor, wlio was at Maiden, eij^hteen miles distant, heard of the 
advance of Winchester, and j)rocceded immediately and secretly, with a com- 
bined force of fifteen hundred Eritish and Indians, to attack him. They fell 
upon the American camp at dawn, on the morning of the 22d of January. 
After a severe battle and heavy loss on both sides, Winchester,' who had been 
made a prisoner by the Indians, surrendered his troops on the condition, agreed 
to by Proctor, that ample protection to all should be given. Proctor, fearing 
the approach of Harrison, who was then on the Ijower Sandusky, immediately 
marched for Maiden, leaving the sick and wounded Americans behind, without 
a guard. After following him some distance, the Indians turned back [January 
23], murdered and scalped' the Americans who were unable to travel, set fire 
to dwellings, took many prisoners to Detroit, in order to procure exorbitant 
ransom prices, and resei'ved some of them for inlniman torture. The indiffer- 
ence of Proctor and his troops, on this occasion, was criminal in the highest 
decree, and gave just ground for the dreadful suspicion, that they encouraged 
the savages in their deeds of blood. Oftentimes after that, the war-cry of the 
Kentuckians was, " Remember the River Raisin!" The tragedy was keenly 
felt in all the western region, and especially in Kentucky, for the slain, by bul- 
let, arrow, tomahawk, and brand, were generally of the most respectable fam- 
ilies in the State ; many of them young men of fortune and distinction, with 
numerous friends and relations. 

Harrison had advanced to the Maumce Rapids, when the intelligence of the 
affair at Frenchtown reached him. Supposing Proctor would 
press forward to attack him, he fell back [January 23, 1813] ; 
but on hearing of the march of the Eritish toward Maiden, he 
advanced [February 1] to the rapids, with twelve hundred men, 
established a fortified camp there, and called it Fort Meigs,' in 
honor of the governor of Ohio. There he was besiege<l 
by Proctor several weeks afterward [May 1], who was 
at the head of more than two thousand British and Indians. 
On the fifth day of the siege. General Clay' arrived [May 5] 
with twelve hundred men, and dispersed the enemy. A large 
portion of his troops, while unwisely pursuing the fugitives, were 
surrounded and captured ; and Proctor returned to the siege. 
The impatient Indians, refusing to listen to Tecumtha," their leader, deserted 

' .Tnmes 'Winchostor wna liom in Mnrvland in 175G. Ho vraa made brifradier-genenJ in 1812; 
resiftncMi liia commii<,-)ion in ISLI; and died in Toiinoasi'o in 18'JG. ' Note 4, page U. 

' Fort Moigs was crectf<l on tlio sotith aide of tlio Manmeo, nearly opposite the former British 
post Tnote 8, page 374], and a sliort distance tiom tlie present village of Perrysburg. 

• Green Clay was bom in Virginia in 1"57, was made a brigadier of Kentucky volunteers early 
in 1813, and died in October, 182G. 

• Pago 108. Tecumtha came with the largest body of Indians ever collected on the northem 

frontier. 





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1813.] THE SECOND WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 419 

the British on the eighth day [May 8] ; and twenty-four hours afterv/ard, 
Proctor abandoned the siege and returned to Ahilden ['SLiy 9], to prepare for 
a more foi-midable invasion. Thus terminated a siege of thirteen days, during 
which time the fortitude and courage of the Americans wero wonderfully dis- 
played in the presence of the enemy. The Americans lost in the fort, eighty- 
one killed, and one hundred and eighty-nine wounded. 

For several weeks after the siege of Fort Meigs, military operations were 
suspended by both parties. Here, then, let us take a brief retrospective glance. 
Congress assembled on the 2d of November, 1812, and its councils were divided 
by fierce party spirit, which came down from the people. The Democrats had 
a decided majority, and therefore the measures of the administration were sus- 
tained. The British government now began to show some desire for reconcilia- 
tion. Already the orders in council had been repealed, and' the Prince Regent' 
demanded that hostilities should cease. To this the President replied, that being 
now at war, the United States would not put an end to it, unless full provisions 
were made for a general settlement of differences, and a cessation of the practice 
of impressment, pending the negotiation. At about the same time a law was 
passed, prohibiting the employment of British seamen in American vessels. The 
British also proposed an armistice, but upon terms which the Americans could 
not accept. Indeed, all propositions from that quarter were inconsistent with 
honor and justice, and they were rejected. When these attempts at reconcilia- 
tion had failed, the Emperor Alexander of Russia offered his mediation. The 
government of the Unitea States instantly accepted it," but the British govern- 
ment refused it ; and so the war went on. Congress made provision for prose- 
cuting it with vigor ; and the hope lighted by Ale.xandcr"s offer, soon faded. 

The American troops in the West had remained at Fort Meigs and vicinity. 
Toward the close of July [July 21, 1813J, about four thousand British and 
Indians, under Proctor and Tecumtha,' again appeared before that fortress, then 
commanded by General Clay. Meeting with a vigorous re- 
sistance, Proctor left Tecumtha to watch the fort, while he 
marched [July 28], with five hundred regulars and eight 
hundred Indians, to attack Fort Stephenson, at Lower San- 
dusky,' which was garrisoned by about one hundred and fifty 
young men,' commanded by Major Croghan, a brave soldier, 



' "When, in consequence of mental infirmity, George the Tliird bcc.artio incompetent to reign, in 
February, 1811, bis son, George, Prince of Wales, and afterward George the Fourtli, was made 
regent, or temporary ruler of tlie realm. He retained the ofBce of king, pro temjm-e, untU tiie death 
of his father, in 1820. 

' Tlio President appointed, as commissioners, or envoys extraordinary, to negotiate a treaty of 
peace with Great Britain, under tlie Russian mediation, Alljert Gallatin, John Quincy Adams, and 
James A. Bayard. Mr. Adams was tlien American minister at the Russian court, and was joined 
by Messrs. Gallatin and Bayard in June following. ' Page 408. 

* On tlio west banlc of tlic Sandusl<y River, about fifteen miles south from Sandusky Bay. Tha 
area witliin the pickets [note 1, page 127] was about an acre. The fort was made of regular em- 
bankments of earth and a ditcli; with bastions and block-houses [note 3, page 192] and some rude 
log buildings within. The site is in the village of Fremont, Ohio. 

* The greater portion of the garrison were very young men, and some of them were mero 
youths 





420 T U '•; NATION. [18ia 

then only twenty-one years of age." Proctor's demand for surrender was accom- 
panied by tlie usual menii,ce of Indian massacre ; but it 
did nut intimidate Croglian.' After a severe cannonade' 
had made :i breach, about five hundred of the besieijers 
attempted to rush in and take the place by assault [Aug. 
2, 1813] ; but so terrildy were they met by grape-shot' 
from tlie only cannon in the fort, that they recoiled, panic- 
j,^ stricken, and the whole body fled in confusion, leaving 
~\ one hundred and fifty of their number killed or woun<led. 
' The Americans lost only one man killed, and seven 
wounded. This gallant defense was universally ap- 

"' '■ plauded,' and it had a powerful effect upon tiie Indians. 

Proctor and Tecumtha left for Detroit, after this noble defense of Fort 
Stephenson, and the British abandoned all hope of capturing these western 
American posts, until they should become masters of Lake Erie. But while 
ihe events just narrated were in progress, a new power appeared in the conflict 
in the West and North, and complicated the difficulties of the enemy. In the 
autumn of 1812, Commodore Chauncey had fitted out a small naval armament 
at Sackett's Harbor, to dispute the mastery, on Lake Ontario, with several 
British armed vessels then afloat.' And during the summer of 1813, Commo- 
dore Oliver Ilazzard Perry had prepared, on Lake Erie, an American squadron 
of nine vessels,' mounting fifty-four guns, to co-opera+e with the Army of the 
West. The British had also fitted out a small squadron of si.x vessels, carrying 
Bi.\ty-threc guns, commanded by Commodore Barclay. Perry's fleet was ready 
by the 2d of August, but some time was occupied in getting several of his ves- 
sels over the bar in the harbor of Erie. The hostile fleets met near the west- 
ern extremity of Lake Erie on the morning of the 10th of September, 1813, 
and a very severe battle ensued. The brave Perry managed with the skill of 
an old admiral, and the courage of the proudest soldier. His flag-ship, the 
Lawrence, had to bear the brunt of the battle, and very soon she became an 
unmanageable wreck, having all her crew, except four or five, killed or 
■wounded. Perry then left her, in an open boat, and hoisted his flag on the 
Niagara at the moment when that of the Lawrence fell. With this vessel he 

' George Croghan was a nephew of George Rogers Clarke [page .300]. lie afterward rose to 
the rank of colonel, and held the office of inspector-general. He died at New Orleans in 1849. 

' In reply to Proctor's demand and threat, ho said, in substance, that when the fort should be 
taken there would be none left to massacre, as it would not bo given up while there was a man kit 
to fight. 

" The British employed six si.\ -pounders and a howitzer, in the siege. A howitzer is a piece 
of ordnance similar to a mortar, for hurling bomb-shells. * Note 4, page 242. 

' Major Croghan was immediately promoted to the rank of lieutenant- colonel; and the ladies 
of Chillicotho gave him an elegant sword. 

' Chauncey's squadron consisted of six vessels, mounting thirty-two guns, in all. The Briti.sh 
squadron consisted of the same number of ve.s.scl.'s, but mounting more than a hundred puns. Not- 
withstanding this disparity, Chauncey attacked them near Kingston [note 5, page 180] early in 
November, damaged them a good deal, and captured and carried into Sackett's Harbor, a schooner 
belonging to the enemy. He tlien captured another schooner, which had $12,000 in specie on boaid, 
and the baggage of the deceased General Brock. See page 414. 

' iajWCTjce (flag-ship), 20 guns; Niagarn, 20; Caledonian, 3; shooner Ariel, 4; Scorpion, 2; 
Samers, 2 guns and 2 swivels ; sloop Trippe, and schooners Tigress and Porcupine, of 1 guu euca. 




Perry on Lake Ereb. 



1813.] 



THE SECOND WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 



423 



passed through the enemy's line, pouring broadsides, right and left, at half 
pistol-shot distance. The remainder of the stjuadron followed, with a fair wind, 
and the victory was soon decided. At four o'clock in the afternoon, every 
British vessel had surrendered to him ;' and before sunset, he had sent a mes- 
senger to General Harrison with the famous dispatch, " We have met the 
enemy, and they are ours." This victory was hailed with unbounded demon- 




strationf. of joy. For a moment, party rancor was almost forgotten ; and bon- 
fires and illuminations lighted up the whole country. 

Perry's victory was followed by immediate and energetic action on the part 
of Harr-?on. The command of Lake Erie now being secured, and a reinforce- 
ment of four thousand Kentucky volunteers, under Governor Shelby, tlie old 
hero of King's Mountain,^ having arrived [Sept. 17, 1813], the general pro- 
ceeded to attack Maiden and attempt the recovery of Detroit. The fleet con- 
veyed a portion of the troops across the lake [Sept 27], but on their arrival at 
Maiden, it had been deserted by Proctor, who was fleeing, with Tecumthn and 
his Indians, toward the Moravian village, on the Thames, eighty miles from 



' The carnapre was very frreat, in proportion to the numbers enprapred. The Amcrieana lost 
twenty-seven killed, and ninety-six woiind.'d. The British lost about two hundred in killed and 
wounded, and six hundred prisoners. Perrv's treatment of his prisoners received the hiirhcst ap- 
plause. ("Commodore Barclay declared tliat his humane conduct was sufficient to innuortali/.c him. 
That bravo commander was born at Newport, Rhode Island, in 1785. He entered the service as 
niid.slupman, in 1798. He continued in active service after the close of the Second Vi''ar for Inde- 
pendence, and died of yellow fever, in the West India Seas, in 1819. It was his brother, ticm- 
modore M. C. Perry, who, as we shall observe, efl'eeted a treaty with Japan. ' Page 411. 



424 T" ''■ NATION. ri813L 

Detroit.' A body of Americana took possession of Detroit on the 29th of Sep- 
tember ; and on the 2d of October, Harrison and Shelby, with Colonel Richard 
M. Johnson and his cavalry (thirty-five hundred strong), started in pursuit of 
the enemy. ^ They overtook them [Oct. 5] at the Moravian town, when a des- 
perate battle ensued. Tecumtha was slain ;° and then his dismayed followers, 
who h.ad f mgiit furiously, broke and fled. Almost the whole of Proctor's com- 
mand were killed or made prisoners, and the general himself narrowly escaped, 
with a few of his cavalry. Here the Americans recaptured six brass field- 
pieces which had been surrendered by Hull, on two of which were engraved the 
words, " Surrendered by Burgoync at Saratoga.'" These pieces are now at 
the United States military post of West Point, on the Hudson.' 

The battle on the Thames was a very important one. By that victory, all 
that Hull" had lost was recovered ; the Indian confederacy' was completely 
broken up, and the war on the north-western borders of the Union was termi- 
nated. The name of Harrison was upon every lip ; and throughout the entire 
Republic, there was a general outliurst of gratitude. He was complimented by 
Congress, and by various public bodies ; and a member of the House of Repre- 
sentatives asserted, in his place, that his victory was -'such as would have 
secured to a Roman general, in the best days of the republic, the honors of a 
triumph." Security now being given to the frontier. General Harrison dis- 
missed a greater portion of the volunteers ; and leaving General Cass, with 
about a thousand regulars, to garrison Detroit, proceeded [Oct. 23, 1813] to 
Niagara, with the remainder of his troops, to join the Army of the Center,* 
which had been making some endeavors to invade Canada. In the mean while, 
an Indian war had been kindled in the South f and on ths ocean, the laurel 
wreaths of triumph won by the Americans during 1812,'° had been interwoven 
with garlands of cypress on account of reverses. Let us turn a moment to the 
operations of the Army of the North." 

Hostilities were kept up on portions of the northern frontier, during the 
winter, as well as in the West. In February [1813], a detachment of British 
soldiers crossed the St. Lawrence on the ice, from Prescott to Ogdcnsburg, and 
under pretense of seeking for deserters, committed robberies. Major Forsyth, 
then in command of riflemen there, retaliated. This was resented, in turn, by 



' In the present town of Orford, West Canada. 

' Commodore Perry and General Cass (late United States Senator from Michip.-.n) accom- 
j)anied General Ilarrison as volunteer aids. Tlie Americans moved with such rapidity Iliat 
Ihey traveled twenty-six miies tlie first day. 

' Tecumtlia was tlien only about forty years of ag-e. lie was a man of great ability, and had 
he been bom and educated in civilized society, his powerful intellect would have made him one of 
the most distinfruished characters of the ape". He possessed preat diprnity, and always maintained 
it in his deportment. On one occasion he was to attend a conference lield with Harrison. A circle 
of the company had been formed ; and when ho came and entered it, there was no seat for him, 
Harrison's aid 'li.avinR taken the one bv the side of the peneral, intended for him. Harrison per- 
ceived tliat Tpcumtha was offended, and told his aid to invito the chief to the seat near him. The 
aid politely said to Tecumtha. "Your father requests you to take a seat by his side." The nfiended 
chief drew his lilanket around him, and, with an air of great dignity, said, "The Great Spirit is my 
fether, and I will repose on the bosom of mv mother;" and then sat down upon the prround. 

♦ Pajre 281. » Note 2, page '324. ' Pajre 411. ' Pago 408. 

' Page 412. ^Page 428. "" Page 415. " Page 412. 



1813.] THE SECOND WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 425 

a British force of twelve hundred men, who crossed on the 21st of Feljruary, 
and after a conflict of an hour, drove out the few military defenders of Ogdens- 
burg, plundered and destroyed a large amount of property, and then returned 
to Canada.' These events accelerated the gathering of the militia in that quar- 
ter. Bodies of new levies arrived, almost daily, at Sackett's Harbor, but these, 
needing discipline, were of little service, as a defense of the country between, 
that point and Ogdensburg. 

Being unable to afford assistance to the exposed points in that region. Gen- 
eral Dearborn, the commander-in-chief,^ resolved to attempt the capture of 
York (now Toronto), the capital of Upper Canada, and the principal depository 
of British military stores for the supply of western garrisons. He embarked 
seventeen hundred troops on board the fleet of Commodore Chauncey,' at Sack- 
ett's Harbor, on the 25th of April ; and two days afterward [April 27], they 
landed on the beach at York, about two miles west from the British works, in 
the face of a galling fire from regulars and Indians, 
Under General Sheaffe. These were soon driven back to 
their fortifications, and the Americans, under General 
Pike,* pressed forward, captured two redoubts, and were 
advancing upon the main work, when the magazine of the 
fort blew up,' hurling stones and timbers in every direc- 
tion, and producing great destruction of life among the 
assailants. General Pike was mortally wounded, but he 
lived long enough to know that the enemy had fled, and 

, ° • n 1 • ■ , 1 ,- UENKKAL PIKE. 

that the American flag waved in triumph over the fort 

at York." The command then devolved on Colonel Pearce ; and at four o'clock 
in the afternoon, the town was in possession of the Americans. General Dear- 
born, who had remained with the fleet, landed soon after the fall of Pike, but 
did not assume the immediate command until after the surrender of the town. 

"When the victory was completed, the fleet and troops returned [May 1] to 
Sackett's Harbor, but soon afterward proceeded to attack Fort George, on the 
western shore of Niagara River, near its mouth. After a brief defense [JMay 
27, 1813], the garrison fled to Burlington Heights, at the western e.xtreniity of 
Lake Ontario,' thhty-five miles distant, closely pursued by a much larger force, 

' The Americans lost, in killed and wounded, twenty men. The British loss was about double 
that number. = Page 410. ^ Page 420. 

' General Dearborn had given the command of this expedition to Brigadier-General Zebulou M. 
Pike, a brave and useful officer, who had been at the head of an expedition, a few years earlier, to 
explore the country around the head waters of the Mississippi. He was born in New Jersey, in 
1719. He died on board the flag-ship of Commodore Chauncey, with tlie captured British" flag 
■under his head, at the age of thirty-four years. In the burial-ground attached to Madison barracks, 
at Sackett's Harbor, is a dilapidated wooden monument erected over the remains of (Jeneral Piki' 
and some of his companions in arms. When the writer visited the spot, in 1860, it was wasting 
with decay, and falling to the earth. Such a neglect of the burial-place of the illustrious dead, is :« 
disgrace to our government. 

' The British had laid a train of wet powder communicating with the magazine, for the purpose, 
and when they retreated, they fired it. 

' General Sheaffe escaped, with the principal part of the troops, but lost all his baggage, books, 
papers, and a large amount of public property. 

' At the head of Burlington Bay, in Canada. 




426 TUK NATION. [1813. 

under Generals Chandler' and Winder.' In this affair, Colonel (now Lieutenant- 
General) Scott was distinguished for his skill and bravery. On the night of 
the 6th of June, the Britisli fell upon the American camp, at Stony Creek," but 
were repulsed. It was very dark, and in the confusion both of the American 
generals were made prisoners. 

A British squadron appeared biiforc Sackett"s Harbor on the same day 
[May 27J that the iVniericaiis attacked Fort George : and two days afterward 
[May 29] Sir George Prevost and a thousand soldiers landed in the face of a 
severe fii-e from some regulars* stationed there. The regular force of the Amer- 
icans consisted of only a few seamen, a company of artillery, and about two 
hundred invalids — not more than five hundred men in all. General Jacob 
Brown, the commander at that station, rallied the militia, and their rapid 
gathering, at and near the landing-place, back of Horse Island, so alarmed 
Prevost, lest they should cut off bis retreat, that he hastily re-embarked, leaving 
almost the whole of his wounded l)chind. Had be been aware of the condition 
of his opposors, he could have made an easy con(iU('st of Sackett's Harbor. The 
raw militia had become panic-stricken at the first, and when Prevost retreated, 
they, too, were endeavoring to make tlioir way to jilaccs of safety in the 
country. 

A change in the administration of military affairs occurred soon after the 
event at Sackett's IIarl)or. For some time, the infirmities of General Dearborn, 
the conuiiander-in-chief," had distjualified him for active participation in the 
operations of the army, and in June [1813] he withdrew from the service. He 
w^as succcc'dud in command by General James AVilkinson,' who, like Dearborn, 
had been an active young officer in the War for Indei)endence. General John 
Armstrong,' then Secretary of War, had conceived another invasion of Canada, 
by the united forces of the armies of the Center and North." Fortius purpose 
a little niDvc than seven thousand men were concentrated at French Creek on 
the 5th of November, 1813, and on that morning went down the St. Lawrence 
in boats, with the intention of co-operating with al)out four thousand troops 
under 1 lampton," in an attack upon iMontreal. They landed the same evening, 
a few miles abave the British fort at Prescott, opposite Ogdensburg. It being 
foggy, Wilkinson attempted to pa.ss down the river uj)on the flotilla commanded 
by General Brown. The fog cleared away, and the moon revealed the Amer- 



' John Cliandlor wa.'! a native of Massaclnisctt.?. Soiiir yi-.rrs afiir llio w-ir he was United 
States Seiiali>r from Maine, lie died at Aupust,!, in that State, in 1S41. " Page 4'M\. 

' In ilie ]>resent township ofSaltHeet, Canada West. lutliis allair the Americans lost, in killed, 
wounded, and inissinp, one hundred and fifty-four. 

* Not" li, pafre 18r>. * Page 410. 

" James Wilkinson was bom in Jf.arvland. in 1757, and studied medicine. He joined the con- 
tinental .army at (janihridire, in 1775, and continued in service during the war. He commanded 
the western division of the United Stales army at the beginning of the century, and became some- 
what involved, as we have seen [page .19G], in Hurr's scheme, in 1806. He died near the city of 
Mexico, in 1825. at the age of sixty-eight yi-ars. 

' Note ■!, pasre 349. John .\rmstroni: was a son of Colonel John Armstrong, of Pennsylvania 
[page 191], and was born at Ciirlisle, in that State, in 1758. He scn'cd in the War of the Hcvolu- 
tion; was Secretary of the State of Pennsylvania; minister to France in 1804; Secretary of War 
in 1813 ; and died in Duchess county, New York, in 1843. ' Note 3, page 412. 

" Pago 410. 



1813.] THE SECOND WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 427 

icans to the garrison of the fort. The latter immediately opened a heavy fire, 
and being thus annoyed by the enemy on shore, and by gun-boats' in his rear, 
Wilkinson landed Brown and a strong detachment to go forward and disperse 
([uite a largo force near Williamsburg, and to cover the descent of the boats. 
A severe battle ensued [November 11] in which the Americans lost more tlian 
three hundred men in killed and wounded, and the British about two hundred. 
This ia known as the battle of Chrysler's Field. The locality is on the northern 
shore of the St. Lawrence, a little more than thirty miles below Ogdensburg, 
and about ninety above Montreal. 

General Wilkinson arrived at St. Regis' the next day, with the main body, 
■when he was informed that no troops from the army of the North would join 
him.' He therefore abandoned the c.xjiedition against JMontreal, and went 
into winter quarters at French Mills (now Fort Covington, in St. Lawrence 
county), about nine miles east of St. Regis. A little later, some stirring events 
occurred on the Niagara frontier. General M'Clure, commander at Fort 
George,* burnt the Canadian village of Newark on the 10th of December. 
Two days later [December 12, 1813] he was 
compelled by the British to abandon Fort 
George. A strong force of British and Indians 
then surprised and captured [December 19J 
Fort Niagara, on the east side of the Niagara 

River, near its mouth ;" and in retaliation for ,.f,irr niagaha, 1813. 

the burning of Newark, they laid Youngstown, 

Lewiston, Manchester (now Niagara Falls), and the Tuscarora Indian village, 
in Niagara county, in ashes. On the 30th, the little villages of Black Rock 
and Buffalo" were also ciiiisumed, and a large amount of pulilic and private 
property was destroyed. With these events ended the campaign of 1813, in 
the North. 

Aifairs in the extreme South assumed a serious aspect during the summer 
of 1813. In the spring of that year, Tecumtlia (who was slain on the Thames 
a few months later)' went among the Southern tribes, to arouse them to wage 
war upon the white people. The powerful Creeks' yielded to his persuasions; 
ind late in August [30th J, a large party of them surprised and captured Fort 
Mimms, on the Alabama River," and massacred about four hundred men, 




' Tiigo 4U1. 

' Tliw is an old French and Indian settlement on the St. Lawrence, at the month of the St. 
Regis River, about fitly miles below Ogdensburg. The dividing line (45th degree) between the 
United States and Canada, passes tlirongh the center of the village. 

' There w.os an enmity between Will<inson and Hampton, and Armstrong resolved to command 
the expedition himself, io prevent trouble on account of precedence. He joined the army at 
Sackett's Harbor, but soon returned to Washington, for he and Wilkinson could not agree. To tlie 
jealousies and bickerings of these old officers, must the disasters of tlie land troops be, in a gre.at 
degree, attributed. General Hampton did move forward toward Canada, lint linally fell back to 
Plattsburg, and leaving the command with General Izard, returned to South Carolina. lie died at 
Columbia, South Carolina, in 1835, aged eiglity-one years. * Page 414. " Page 200. 

' Buffalo was then a small village, containing about fifteen hundred inhabitants, and was utterly 
destroyed. It is now [1883] one of the stateliest coraracroial cities on tlie continent, with a popu- 
lation of more than one hundred and lifly thousand. ' Page 424. ' Page ;!0. 

' On the east side of the Alabama, about ten miles above its junction with the Tombigbeo. 



428 THE X A T ION. [1813. 

■women, and children. This event aroused the whole South. General Andrew 
Jackson,' accompanied by General CofTee, marched into the Creek country, with 
twenty-five hundred Tennessee militia, and prosecuted a sulyugating war against 
them, with great vigor. 

On the 3d of November, General Coffee,' with nine hundred men, sur- 
rounded an Indian force at Tallushatchee,' and killed two hundred of them. 
Not a warrior escaped. Within ten weeks afterward, bloody battles had been 
fought at Talladega' [November 8J, Autossee" [November 29], and Emucfau' 
[January 22d, 1814J, and several skirmishes had also taken place. The 
Americans were always victorious, yet they lost many brave soldiers. At 
leni'th the Creeks established a fortified camp at the Great Horseshoe Bend of 
the Tallapoosa l\ivcr,' and there a thousand warriors, with their women and 
children, tleterniined to make a last defensive stand. The Americans sur- 
rounded them, and Jackson, with the main body of his army, attacked them on 
the 2Tth of March, 1814. The Indians fought des])erately, for they saw no 
future for tlienist-lves, in the event of defeat. Almost si.\ hundred warriors 
were slain, for they disdained to surrender. Oidy two or three were made 
prisoners, with about three hundred women and children. This battle crushed 
the power and spirit of the Cretk nation, and soon afterward the chiefs of the 
remnant signified their submission.' It was a sad scene to the eyes of the 
benevolent and good, to see these ancient tribes of our land, who were then 
makin"'- rajiid strides in the progress of civilization, so utterly ruined by tho 
destroying hand of war. They found that might made light, in the view of 
their subjugators, and they were compelled to make a treaty of peace upon tho 
terms dictated by their conquerors. Tiius, time after time since the advent of 
the white people here, have the hands of the stronger been laid upon the weaker, 
until now notliing but rcinintnls of once j)Owerful nations remain. 

The naval operations upon the ocean, during the year 1813, were very im- 
portant. Many and severe conflicts between public and private armed vessels 
of tho United States and Great Britain, occurred ; and at the close of the year, 
the balance-sheet of victories showed a preponderance in favor of the former.* 
Toward the end of February, tho United States sloop of war Hornet, Cap- 



' Pago 460. 

» .Tolin CofVco was a native of Tirp;inia. TIo did pood sorvico dunng the second TVar for Inde- 
pendoneo, and in aubsoqucnt c;ini]>aiKiis. Ho died in 1S31. 

' South side of Tallushatchco Croclv, uoar tlio viUago of Jacksonville, in Benton county, Ala- 
bama. 

* A little ca.stof the Coosa River, in the present Talladega county. 

' On tho bank of the Tallapoos,'^ twenty miles Irora its junction with the Coosa, in Macon 

county. 

• On the west bank of tho Tallapoosa, at the mouth of Knuicfau Creek, in Tallapoosa county. 
' Called Tohoprka bv tho Indians. Near tho north-east corner of Tallapoosa county. 

" .Vniong those wlio tmwod in submission was Wcatlierslbrd. their greatest leader. He appeared 
suddcidy before Jackson, in his tent, and standing creet, he said: " 1 am in your power; do with 
me wliat you jilease. I have done the white people all the harm I could. I have Ibuglit them, 
and founlit them bravelv. Mv warriors are all gone now, and I can do no more. When there was 
a chance for success, I iiovor asked for peace. There is none now, and I ask it for the renmiuit of 

my nation." , , , . . j . » 

" • More than seven hundred British vessels were taken by Uie American navy and pnvatoeT". 

during the years 1812 and 181.1. 




1S13.] THE SECOND WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 429 

tain Lawrence, fought [Feb. 24, 1813] the British brig Peacock, off tlie 
mouth of Demarara River, South America. The Peacock surrendered, after a 
fierce conflict of fifteen minutes, and a few moments afterward she sank, carry- 
inT down with her nine I>riti.sh seamen and three Americans. The loss of the 

o 

Peacock, in killed and wounded, was thirty-seven ; of the Honicl only five. 
The generous conduct of Captain Lawrence, toward his enemy on this occasion, 
drew from the officers of the Peacock, on their arrival in New York, a public 
letter of thanks.' This, of itself, was a wreath of honor for the victor, more 
glorious than his triumph in the sanguinary conflict. 

On his return to the United States, Captain Lawrence was promoted to the 
command of the frigate Chesapeake ; and on the 1st 
of June, 1813, he sailed from Boston harbor, in search 
of the British frigate. Shannon, which had recently 
appeared off the New England coast, and challenged 
any vessel, of equal size, to meet her. Lawrence 
found the boaster the same day, about thirty miles 
from Boston light; and at five in the afternoon, a 
furious action began. The two vessels soon became 
entangled. Then the Britons boarded the Chesapeake, 
and after a desperate hand-to-hand struggle, hoisted ^-^''-^'-^ lawrencb. 
the British flag. Lawrence was mortally wounded at the beginning of the 
action ; and when he was carried below, he uttered those brave words of com- 
mand, which Perry afterward displayed on his flag-ship on Lake Erie, " Don't 
give up the ship .'" The combat lasted only fifteen minutes ; but in that time, 
the Chesapeake had forty-eight killed and ninety-eight wounded ; the Shannon 
twenty-three killed, and fifty-six wounded. The body of Lawrence," with that 
^f Ludlow, the second in command, was carried to Halifax, in the victorious 
Shannon, and there buried with the honors of war. This event caused great 
eadness in America, and unbounded joy in England.' 

Another disaster followed the loss of the Chesapeake. It was the capture 
of the American brig Argus, Captain Allen, in August. The Argus, in the 
spring [1813], had conveyed Mr. Crawford, United States minister, to France, 
and for two months had greatly annoyed British shipping in the English Chan- 

' They said, " So much was done to alleviate the uncomfortable and distressing situation in 
which we were placed, when received on board tlie ship you command, that we can not better 
Bxpress our feelings than by saying, we ceased to consider ourselves prisoners ; and every thing 
that friendship could dictate, was adopted by you and the officers of the Hornet, to remedy the 
inconvenience we •otherwise should have e.vperienced, from the unavoidable loss of the whole of 
our property and clothes, by the sudden smking of the Peacock." The crew of the Uoriiel divided 
their clothing with the prisoners. 

' Captain James Lawrence was a native of New Jersey, and received a midshipman's warrant 
at the age of sixteen years. He was with Decatur at Tripoli [page 392]. He died four days after 
receiving the wound, at the age of thirty-one years. A beautiful monument, in the form of'a trun- 
cated column and pedestal, was erected to his memory in Trinity churcn-yard. New York. Tliis, in 
time became dilapidated, and, a few years ago. a new one, of another form, was erected near the 
south entrance to the church, a few feet from Broadway. 

' A writer of the time observed: "Never did any victory — not those of Wellington in Spain, 
nor even those of Nelson — cull tbrth such expreasious of joy on the part of the British; a proof 
that our naval character had risen somewhat in their estimation." 



430 TTTE ITATION-. [1813. 

ncl. Several vessels were sent out to capture her ; and on the 14th of August, 
tlie slooj) of war' Pcllcmi, after a brief, but severe action, defeated tlie Aiyns. 
In less than a month afterwaid [Sept. lOJ, Perry gained his great victory on 
Lake Erie ;" and the British brig Boxer, Captain Blythe, had surrendered 
[Sept. 5, 1813], to the United States brig Enterprise, Lieutenant Burrows, 
after an engagement of forty minutes, off the coast of Maine. Blythe and Bur- 
rows, young men of great promise, were both slain during the action, and their 
bodies were buried in one grave at Portland, with military honors. 

A distressing warfare upon the coast between Delaware Bay and Charleston, 
•was carried on during the spring and summer of 1813, by a small British 
squadron under the general coTiimand of Admiral Cockburn. His chief object 
was to draw the American troops from the northern frontier to the defense of 
the seaboard, and thus lessen the danger that hung over Canada. It was a sort 
of ampliibious warfare — on land and water — and was marked by many acts of 
unnecessary cruelty. The British had talked of " ciiastising the Americans 
into submission," and the method now employed was the instrument. On the 
4th of February, 1813. two shij)s of the line, three frigates, and other British 
vessels, made their appearance at the capes of Virginia." At about the same 
time, another British squadron entered the Delaware River, destroyed the 
American shij)ping there in March, and in April cannonaded the town of 
Lewiston. In May, Frenchtown, Havre do Grace, Georgetown, and Frederick- 
town, on the Chesapeake, were plundered and burned ; and then the combined 
British fleet entered Hampton Roads,* and menaced Norfolk. While attempt- 
ing to go up to that city, the enemy were nobly repulsed [Jan. 22, 1813] by 
the Americans upon Craney Island,' under the command of Major Faulkner, 
assisted by naval officers. The British then fell upon Hampton [Jan. 25) ; and 
having surfeited themselves with plunder, withdrew. Cockburn" sailed down 
the North Carolina coast, marauding whenever opportunity offered, and carried 
away a large number of negroes and sold them in the West Indies. In pleas- 
ant contrast to this, was the deportment of Commodore ilai'dy, whose squadron 
was employed' during the same season, in blockading the New England coast. 
Although he landed uj)on our shores freeiucntly, yet his conduct was always 
that of a high-minded gentleman and generous enemy.' 

During the year 1813, the United States frigate Essex, Captain Porter, 
made a long and successful cruise in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. It oc- 
cupied the time from April until October. The Essex carried at her mast- 
head the popular motto, '^ Free Trade and Sailor's Righ/s ;" and, while in 

' Pace 4 1 r>. " I'afx 42H. ' Pago G4. « Note S, page 297. 

' Craney Island is low anil Ijarc, and lies at tlie mouth of tlie Klizabeth River, about five 
miles below Xorlolk. At the lime in question, there were some unfinished tort ilicat ions iijion 
it. These were strengthened and added lo by the insurgents during the late Civil War. 

' Cockbuin died in England in 1 R.'iS, at an advanced age 

' Congress had passed an act, on<'ring a reward of half their value for the destruction of British 
ships, by other means than those of the armed ves-wls of tlie United States. This \v,is to encourage 
the use of torpedoes. The enicl forays upon the southern coasts seemed to warrant this species 
of dishonorable warfare. It was employed against Hardy's squadron. He was justly indignant 
and protested against it aa unmanly. 



1814.] THE SECOND WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 431 

the Pacific, she captured twelve British whale-ships, with an aggregate of 
throe hundred and two men, and one hundred and seven guns. Tlic Esfsex 
was finally captured in the harbor of Valparaiso [^Nlarch, 
28, 1814 J, on the western coast of South America, by 
the British fiiwatc Phcebc, and slooo of war Cherub, 
after one of the most desperately fought battles of the 
war. It is said that thousands of the inhabitants of 
Valparaiso covered the neigliboi'ing heights as spectators 
of the conflict. Perceiving the overpowering advantage 
of the British, their sympathies were strongly elicited 
in favor of the Essex. When any thing in her favor 
appeared, loud shouts went up from the multitude ; and -' „ ■ 
when she was finally disabled and lost, they expressed wM>'""o>'ii i-outer. 
their feelings in groans and tears. The Essex lost one hundred and fifty- 
four, in killed and wounded. Captain Porter' wrote to the Secretary of the 
Navy, " We have been unfortunate, but not disgraced." 




CHAPTER VI. 

SECOND WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE, CONTINUED. [1814, 1815.] 

During the year 1814, the war was prosecuted by both parties with more 
zeal and vigor than hitherto. The means for supporting it were much aug- 
mented by the government of the United States, notwithstanding the public 
credit was much depreciated, and treasury notes fell as low as seventeen per 
cent, below par. At the same time, Great Britain seemed to put forth increased 
energy, and her vessels of war hovered along our entire coast, and kept the sea- 
port towns in a state of continual alarm. Early in that year, the victorious 
career of Napoleon, in Europe, was checked by the allied powers. Almost all 
of the governments of continental Europe, with that of England, had combined 
to crush him, and sustain the sinking Bourbon dynasty. Their armies were 
allied in a common cause. These, approaching from different directions, reached 
Paris, at the close of March, 1814, when the Russian and Prussian emperors 
entered the city." Hoping to secure the crown to his son. Napoleon abdicated 
in hia favor on the 4th of April, and retired to Elba. Peace for Europe 

' Commodore David Porter wa-s among tlie most distinp:uishpd of the American naval com- 
manders. He was a resident minister of tlie United States in Turkey, and died, near Constantin- 
ople, in March, 1843. 

' Russians, one hundred and fifty thousand strong, advanced from Switzerland; Blucher led 
one hundred and thirty thousand Prussians from Germany ; Bernadotte, the old companion-in-arms 
of Napoleon, was at the head of one hundred thousand Swedes, and marched through Holland; and 
the English, in great power, advanced from Spain, under Wellington. A battle at Montmartre left 
'_'aris exposed to the enemy, and Alexander and Frederic took possession of the capital on the 3] at 
of March. 




432 TUK NATluX. [1814. 

seemed certain. British troops were withdrawn from the continent, and early 
in tlic .'iuniiuer of 1814, fourteen thousand of Welhngton's veterans were sent 
to Canada' to operate against the United States. Considering the moral and 
material weakness of the American army, hitherto, the circumstjince of the 
coHtiimal employment of the British troops on the continent, was higlily favor- 
able to the United States. Had Europe been at peace, the result of this second 
War for Independence might have been quite different. 

The favorite project of the public authorities continued to be the invasion of 
Canada •'' and to oppose it, was the chief solicitude of the Biiti.sh officers on 
our northern frontiers. The principal force of the enemy in Upper Canada, 
was placed under the chief conniiand of Lieutenant-General Drummond, late in 
the season ; while the American army on the Niagara 
frontier was commanded by General Brown, at the 
same time. General Wilkinson was still in the 
vicinity of the St. Lawrence, and toward the close of 
February, he broke up his camp at French Mills,' and 
retired to Plattsburg; while General Brown, with two 
thousand men, mai-ched to Sacketts Harbor, prepara- 
tory to his departure for the Niagara. Late in March, 
Wilkinson proceeded to erect a battery at Rouse's 
Point, at the foot of Lake Champlain ; and at La 
GESERAL BROWN. Collo, three miles below, he had an unsuccessful 

engagement [March SO] with the British. The disas- 
trous result of this affair brought Wilkinson into disrepute, and he was tried by 
a court-martial, but acquitted of all charges alleged against him. He had been 
suspended from all command, in the mean while, and the charge of the troops 
was given to General Izard. 

Preparations had been making on Lake Ontario, during the winter arid 
spring, by both parties, to secure the control of that inland sea. Sir James 
Yeo was in command of a small British squadron, and on the 5th of May 
[1814], he appeared before Oswego, accompanied by about three thousand land 
troops and marines.' Oswego was then defended by only about three hundred 
troops under Colonel Mitchell, and a small flotilla under Captain AVoolsey. 
The chief object of the expedition was to capture or destroy a large quantity of 
naval and military stores, deposited at Oswego Falls," but the gallant band of 
Americans at the harbor defeated the project. They withstood an attack, by 
land and water, for almost two days, before they yielded to a superior force. 
Afraid to penetrate the country toward the Falls, in the face of such deter- 
mined opponents, the British withdrew on the morning of the 7th [May, 1814], 

' These were embarked at Bounieaux, in France, and sailed directly for the St LanTenco^ 
without even touching the shores of England. 

' Page 410. " Pape -JS?. 

* The fort on the east side of the river was then in quite a dilapidated state, and formed but a 
feeble defense for the troops. It w.is strenprthoned after this attack. 

' At the present rilla^ of Fulton, on the east aide of Oswego Kiver, and about twelve miieB 
from the harbor. 



1815.1 THE SECOND WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 433 

after losing two hundred and thirty-five men, in killed and wounded. The 
Americans lost si.xty-nine. 

Toward the close of June, General Brown marched from Sackett's Harbor' 
to the Niagara frontier ; and on the morning of the 3d of July, Generals Scott 
and Ripley' crossed the river, with a considerable force, and captured Fort 
Erie, which was situated on the Canada side of the Niagara River, nearly 
opposite Black Rock. The garrison withdrew to the intrenched camp of the 
British General Riall, then at Chippewa,' a few miles below. On the morning 
of the 4th [July, 1814], Brown advanced, and on the 5th the two armies had a 
sanguinary battle in the open fields at Chippewa. The British were repulsed, 
with a loss of about five hundred men, and retreated to Burlington Heights,' 
where thby were reinforced by troops under General Drummond, who assumed 
the chief command in person. The Americans lost a little more than three 
hundred. 

General Drummond was moi'tified by this discomfiture of his veteran troops 
by what he considered raw Americans, and he resolved to wipe out the stain. 
Collecting every regiment from Burlington and York, with some from Kingston 
and Prescott, he prepared for a renewal of combat. With a force about one 
third greater than that of Brown,' he immediately advanced to meet the Amer. 
leans. The latter had encamped at Bridge water, near Niagara Falls ; and 
there, at the close of a sultry day, and within the sound of the great cataract's 
thunder, one of the most destructive battles of the war began." It commenced 
at sunset and ended at midnight [July 25, 1814], when the Americans had 
lost eight hundred and fifty-eight men in killed and wounded, and the British 
twenty more than that. The Americans were left in quiet possession of the 
field, but were unable to carry away the heavy artillery which they had cap- 
tured.' Brown and Scott being wounded,' the command devolved on Ripley, 
and the following day [July 26] he withdrew to Fort Erie, where General 
Gaines,' a senior officer, who arrived soon afterward, assumed the chief com- 
mand. 

Having recovered from his wound, Drummond again advanced, with five 

' Page 432. 

■■' The late "Wiafield Scott was Lieutenant -General, and commander-in-chief of the army of the 
United States, in ISGl, when he PL'tired from the service. General James Ripley remained in 
the army after the war, and died on the 'Jd ol March, 1839. 

' On the Canada shore, about two miles above Niaeara Falls. * Page 4 25, 

' Jacob Brown was born in Pennsylvania, in i'iln. He engaged in his country's service in 
1813, and soon became distinguished. He was made Major-General in 1814. He was Geiieral- 
in-chief of tlie United States army in 1821, .-lud lield tliat rank and office when he died, in 1828. 

* The hottest of the fight was in and near an obscure road known as Lundy's Lane. This battls 
is known by the respective names of Bridgewater, Lundy's Lane, and Niagara Falls. 

' After the Americans liad withdrawn, a party of the Brittsh returned and carried off their 
artillery. This event was so magnified, in the English accounts of the battle, as to make the victory 
to appear on the side of the British. 

" The British Generals Drummond and Riall were also wounded. General Scott led the advance 
in the engagement, and for an hour maintained a most desperate conflict, when he was reinforced. 
It was quite dark, and General Riall and his suite were made prisoners by the galhint Major Jesup. 
A British battery upon an eminence did terrible execution, for it swept the whole field. Tliis was 
assailed and captured by a party under Colonel Miller, who replied, when asked by General Brown 
if he could accomplish it, "I'll try, sir." Three times the British attempted to recapture this bat- 
tery. In the last attempt, Drummond was wounded. ' Page 398. 

28 



434 



TIIK X AT I ON. 



[1811. 




NIAGARA FRONTIER. 



thousand men, and on the 4th of August appeared before Fort Erie, and coiii- 
nicnccd preparations for a siege. From the 7th until the 
14th, there was an almost incessant cannonade between 
the besiegers and the besieged. On the loth, Drunimond 
made a furious assault, but was repulsed, with a loss of 
almost a thousand men. Very little was done by either 
party for nearly a month after this aifair, when General 
Brown, who had assumed command again, ordered a sor- 
tie [Sept. 17J from the fort. It was successful; and the 
Americans pressed forward, destroyed the advanced works 
of the besiegers, and drove them toward Chippewa. In- 
formed, soon afterward, that General Izard was apjjroach- 
ing,' with reinforcements for Brown, Drummond retired 
to Fort George.' The Americans abandoned and destroyed Fort Erie in No- 
vember [November 5], and, crossing the river, went into winter-quarters at 
Buffalo, Black Rock, and Batavia. 

Let us consider the military operations in northern New York, for a mo- 
ment. Very little of interest transpired in the vicinity of Lake Champlain 
until toward the close of summer, when General Izard' marched [August, 
1814] from Plattsburg, with five thousand men, to reinforce General Brown on 
the Niagara frontier, leaving General Macomb' in command, with only fifteen 
hundred men. Taking advantage of this circumstance, General Prevost, who 
led an army of fourteen thousand men, chiefly Wellington's veterans, to the 
invasion of the United States, marched for Plattsburg. During the spring and 
summer, the British and Americans had each constructed a small fleet on Lake 
Champlain, and those were now ready for operations ; the former under Com- 
modore Downie, and the latter under Commodore Macdonough.' 

General Prevost arrived near Plattsburg on the 6th of September, when 



' Note 3, page 427. ' Page 425. 

' George Izard was horn in South Carolina, in 17TI, and made military life his profession. 
After the war lie left tlie army. Ho was governor of Aikausas Territory in 1825, and died at 
Little Rock, Arkansa.s. in 1828 

' -Vlexander Wacomh was born in tJie fort in Detroit, in 1782, and entered the army at the age 
of sevenleen years. He was made a brigadier in 1814. In 1835, he was General-in-chief of the 
armies of the United States, and died in 1811. 

' Thomas Macdouoiigli was a native of Delaware. He was twenty-eight years of age at the 
time of the engagement at riatt.-^b.irg. The State of New York gave him one thousand acres of 
land on Plattsburg Bav. for his services. He died in 1825, at tlie age of thirty-nme years. Mac- 
donough was alwavs remarkable for cool courage. On one occasion, while hrst lieutenant of .i 
vessel lying in tho'harbor of Gibraltar, an armed boat from a Briti.'^h man-of-war boarded an Amer- 
ican brig anchored near, in the absence of the commander, and carried oft a seaman. See page 
401. Maedonougli manned a gig, and with an infiTior force, made chase and recaptured the 
seaman The captain of the man-of-war came aboard Macdonough's vessel, and, m a creat rau'e. 
asked him how ho dared to take the man from his majesty's boat. " He was an American seama- 
and I did mv duty," was the reply. "I 'U bring my shii. alongside, and sink you. angrily crud 
the Briton ' "That you can do," coolly responded Macdonough; "but while she swims, that man 
you wiU not have." The captain, roaring with rage, said, "Supposing / had been m the boat, 
would you have dared to commit such an act?" "I should have made the attempt, sir, was the 
cahn reply " What I" shouted the captain, " if I were to impress men from that brig would you 
interfere 7" " You have onlv to trv it, sir," was Macdonough s tantalizing reply. The haughty 
Briton was over-matched, and he did not attempt to try the metal of such a brave young man. 
There were cannon-balls in his coolness, fiill of danger. 



1815.] 



THE SECOND VT XT. FOR INDEPENDENCE. 



435 



Macomb's little armj, and quite a large body of militia under General Mooers, 
retired to the south side of the Saranac, and prepared to dispute its passage by 
the invaders. On the morning of the 11th, the British fleet came around 
Cumberland Head, -with a fair wind, and attacked ^lacdonough's squadron in 
Plattsburg Bay.' At the same time, the British land troops opened a heavy 
cannonade upon the Americans. After a severe engagement of two hours and 




twenty minutes, Macdonough became victor, and the wliolo British fleet was 
surrendered to him.^ The land forces fought until dark, and every attempt of 
the British to cross the Saranac was bravely resisted. During the evening, 
Prevast hastily retreated, leaving his sick and wounded, and a large quantity 
of military stores, behind him. The British loss, in killed, wounded, and de- 
serted, from the 6th to the 11th, was about twenty-five hundred ; that of the 
Americans, only one hundred and twenty-one. The victory was applauded with 
the greatest enthusiasm throughout the land, and gave emphasis to the eflect 
of another at Baltimore, which had been recently achieved. 

' Wlieu the British squadron appeared off Cumberland TTead, Macdonough knelt on the deck of 
the Saratoga (his flag-ship), in the midst of his men. and pr.ayed to the God of Battles for aid. A 
curious incident occurred during the engagement that soon followed. A British ball demolished a 
hen-coop on board the Saratoga. A cock, released from his prison, flew into the rigging, and 
crowed lustily, ,at the same time flapping his wings witli triumphant vehemence. The seamen re- 
garded the event as a good omen, and they fought like tigers, while the cock cheered them on with 
his erowings, until the British flag was struck and the firing ceased. 

■' The Americans lost, in killed and wounded, one hundred and si.xteen ; the British, one hun- 
dred and uiuety-fonr. Among them was Commodore Uownie. whose remains lie under a monu- 
ment iu a cemetery at Plattsburg, with those of several of his comrades. 



436 Till': NATION. [18U 

So wide waa the theater of w;ir, tluit in our rapid view of it, tlie shiftin" 
scenes carry us alternately from the northern frontier to the western and south- 
ern borders, and then upon the Atlantic and its coasts. The latter were expe- 
riencing much trouble, while the whole frontier from the Niagara to the St. 
Lawrence was in connnotion. The principal ports from New York to Maine 
were blockaded by British war-vessels ; and early in the spring, a depredating 
Avarfare again' commenced on the shores of the Chesapeake. These were but 
feebly defended by a small flotilla," under the veteran. Commodore Barney ;° and 
when, about the middle of August, a British s(juadron, of almost si.xty sail, 
arrived in the bay, with six thousand troops, under General Ross, destined for 
the capture of Washington city, it proved of little value. Ross landed [Aug. 
19, 1814] at Benedict, on the Patuxcnt (about twenty-five miles from ita 
mouth), with five thousand men, and marched toward Washington city.* Bar- 
ney's flotilla, lying higher up the stream, was abandoned and burned, and hia 
marines Joined the gathering hind forces, under General Winder. Ross waa 
one of Wellington's most active commanders, and Winder had only three thou- 
sand troops to oppose him, one half of whom were undisciplined militia. -A 
sharp engagement took place [Aug. 24] at Bladensburg,' a few miles from 
Washington city, when the militia fled, and Barney, fighting gallantly at the 
head of his seamen and marines, was made prisoner.' Ross pushed forward to 
Washington city tho same day, burned the capitol. President's house, and 
other public and private buildings [August 24], and then hastily retreated 
[August 25] to his shipping.' 

The Briti.'sh ministry were greatly elated by tho destruction of the public 
buildings and property at W.ushington, but their jubilant feelings were not 
shared by the best of the English people at large. The act was denounced, in 
severe terms, on the floor of the British House of Commons ; and throughout 
civilized Europe, it was considered a disgrace to the j)erpetrators and abettors. 
General Ross, however, seemed to glory in it as heartily as did the marauder, 
Cockburn ; and, flushed with success, he proceeded to .attack lialtimore, where 
the veteran, General Smith, ^ was in command. That ofiicer, in connection with 

■ Pape 4. so. 

' It con.sistcil of a c\itter (a vessel with one mast), two gun-boats [page 401], and nine barges, 
or boats propelleti by oars. 

' lie wa-s born in Baltimore in 1759. He entered the naval service of the Revolution in 1776, 
and was active during tlui whole war. He bore the American flag to the French National Con- 
vention in nofi, and entered the French service. Ho returned to America in 1800, took part in 
tUo War of 1812, and died at Pittsburg in 1818. 

• Anotlier small squadron was sent up the Potomac, but effected little else than plunder. 

• Note 1, page :i92. ' 

' Until the latest moment, it was not known whether Washington or Baltimore waa to be at- 
tacked. Winder's troops, employed for tlie defense of botii cities, were divided. The loss of tho 
British, in killed, wounded, and by desertion, was almost a thoiisaml men ; that of the Americans 
wa.s about a hundred killed and wounded, and a hundred and twenty tnken prisoners. The Pres- 
ident and his Cabinet were at Bladonsburg wlien tho Britisli approaclicd, but returned to the city 
when tho conflict began, and narrowly escaped capture. 

' Wa-shington then contained aliout nine hundred houses, scattered, in groups, over a surface 
of three miles. Tlie Great Bridge acros-s the Potom.ic was also burnt. The light of the conflagra- 
tion was distinctly seen at Baltimore, forty miles distant. 

• Samuel Smith, the brave commander of Fort MilBin [page 275] in 1777. Ho was bom in 



1815,] THE SECOND WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 437 

General Strieker, rallied the militia of the city and vicinity, and soon almost fif- 
teen thousand men were under arms, to defend the town. Ross landed [Sept. 12, 
1814], with almost eight thousuiid troops, at North Point, fourteen miles from 
the city, while a portion of the fleet went up tlic Fatapsco to bombard Fort 
M'Heury. He immediately pressed forward, but was soon met by the advanced 
corps of General Strieker, and a sliglit skirmish ensued. Ross was killed, and 
the command devohx-d on Colonel Brooke, who continued to advance. A severe 
battle now commenced, which continued an hour and a cjuarter, when the 
Americans i'cll back, in good oi'dcr, toward tlio city. In this engagement the 
British lost about three hundred men ; the Americans, one hundred and si.xty- 
tliree. Both parties slept on their arms that night ; and the following morn- 
ing [Sept. 1-3J, the British advanced, as if to attack the city. The fleet, in the 
mean while, had opened its bombs and cannons upon the fort, whose garrison, 
under Major Annistead, made a most gallant defense. The bombardment con- 
tinued most of the day and night, and no less than fifteen hundred bombshells 
were tiirown. Tlie people in the city felt in immediate danger of an attack 
from the land tiooj^s ; but toward the morning of the 14th, these silently em- 
barked, and the disheartened and discomfited enemy withdrew.' This defense 
was hailed as an important victory." 

The whole Atlantic coast, eastward from Sandy Hook,' was greatly annoyed 
by small British squadrons, during the summer of 1814. These captured 
many American coasting vessels, and sometimes menaced towns with bombard- 
ment. Finally, in August, Commodore Hardy' appeared before Stonington, 
and opened a terrible storm of bombshells and rockets' upon the town. The 
attack continued four successive days [August 9-12], and several times land 
forces attempted to debark, laut were always driven back by the militia. The 
object of this unpi'ovoked attack seems to have been, to entice the American 
forces from New London, so that British shipping might go up the Thames, 
and destroy some American frigates, then near Norwich. The expedient sig- 
nally failed, and no further attempt of a similar kind was made on the Connecti- 
cut coast. 

Further eastward, that part of Maine which lies between the Penobscot 
River and Passamaquoddy Bay, became a scene of stirring events. On the first 

Pennsylvania in 1152 ; entered the revolutionary army in 1770 ; afterward represented Baltimore 
in Congress many years; and died in April, 183U. 

' General Suiitii estimated the entire loss of the British, in their attack upon Baltimore, at 
" between six and seven Inmdred." 

'' An event, connected with tljis attaclc on Baltimore, was tlie origin of the stirring song, Tlie 
Star-Sjmnglcd Banner, whicli was written by Francis S. Key, of Georgetown, to the air of 
" Anacreou iu Heaven." With anotlier f;entlenian. Key went, with a fiag of truce, to attenip. 
tlie release of a friend on board the Britii-h fleet. They were not allowed to return, lest tliey 
should disclose the intended attack on tiic eit_v. From a Briti.sh vessel they saw the bom- 
bardment of Fort ilclleury. They watched the American liag over the fort, all day, with great 
anxiety, until the darkness of the night hid it from view. With eager eyes, they looked in that 
direction at dawn, and, to their great joy, they saw the atar-spangkd ianner yet waving over 
the ramparts. It inspired the poet. " Page 289. * Page 4aO. 

' Rockets used for setting fire to towns and shipping, are made similar to the common "sky- 
rockets," but filled with inflammable substances, which are scattered over buildings and the 
rigging of ships. 



438 T U K NATION. [1814. 

of September [1814], the governor of Nova Scotia and Admiral Griffith 
entered the Penobscot River, seized the town of Castine, and, by proclamation, 
took possession of the country, tlien inhabited by about thirty thousand people. 
A few days afterward, the United States frigate ,J()hn Ada/iis entered the 
Penobscot after a successful cruise, and ran upon the rocks. While having 
her injuries repaired, she was attacked by several of the British sailing vessels 
and barge.s, manned by about a thousand men. Finding resisUmce to be vain, 
Captain Morris, her commander, fired her magazine, and blew her up. 

Difficulties again appeare(l in the south-west. We have already considered 
Jackson's successful warfare upon the Creek Indians.' In the course of the 
summer of 1814, he wrung from them a treaty, which completed their downfall, 
as a nation, and the war at the South was considered ended. They agreed to 
surrender a large portion of their beautiful and fertile country, as indemnity 
for the expenses of the war ; to allow the United States to make roads through 
the remainder ; and also not to hold intercourse with any British or Spanish 
posts. But the common enemy, favored by the Spaniards at Pensacola, soon 
appeared, and the Creeks again lifted their heads in hope, for a moment. A 
British squadron, cruising in the Gulf of Mexico, took possession of the forts 
at Pensacola, by permission of the Spanish authorities, and there fitted out an 
expedition against Fort Bower (now Fort Morgan), at the entrance to Mobile 
Bay,' then commanded by Major Lawrence. Genei-al Jackson then had his 
head-quarters at Mobile. The enemy appeared off ^lobile Point on the 15th 
of September, and commenced the attack, by land and water, at about four 
o'clock in the afternoon. Fort Bower was garrisoned by resolute men, and was 
armed with twenty pieces of cannon. Lawrence and his little band made a 
gallant defense ; and soon the British were repulsed, with the loss of a ship 
of war and many men. Among the British land troops on the occasion, were 
two hundred Creek warriors. 

Jackson, now a Major-General in the army, and commander of the south- 
western military district, assuming all the authority he was entitled to, held 
the Spanish governor of Florida responsible for the act of giving shelter to the 
enemies of the United States. Failing to obtain any satisfactory guaranty for 
the future, he marched from Mobile with about two thousand Tennessee militia 
and some Choctaw warriors, against Pensacola. On the Tth of November 
[1814J he stormed the town, drove the British to their shipping, and finally 
from the harbor, and made the governor beg for mei'cy, and surrender Pensa- 
cola and all its military works, unconditionally. The British fleet disappeared 
the next day [November 8], and the victor retraced his steps [November 9]. 
His return was timely, for he was needed where extreme danger was menacing 
the whole southern country. On his arrival at Mobile, he found messages from 
New Orleans, begging his immediate march thither, for the British in the Gulf 
of Mexico, reinforced by thousands of troops from England, were about to 
invade Louisiana. Jackson instantly obeyed the summons, and arrived there 

' Page 427. ' On the east side, about thirt7 miles south from Mobile. 



1815.] THE SECOND WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 439 

on the 2d of December. He found the people of New Orleans in the greatest 
alarm, but bis presence soon restored quiet and confidence. By vigorous, and 
even rigorous measures (for he declared martial law),' he soon placed the city 
m a state of comparative security," and when the British squadron, bearing 
General Packenham and about twelve thousand troops, many of them Welling- 
ton's veterans, entered Lake Borgne, he felt confident of success, even against 
such fearful odds. 

On the 14th of December, a British fleet of barges, about forty in number, 
and conveying twelve hundred men, captured a flotilla of five American gun- 
boats, in Lake Borgne, which were under the command of Lieutenant (late Com' 
modore) Thomas Ap Catesljy Jones. In the engagement the Americans lost, 
in killed and wounded, about forty ; the British loss was about three hundred. 
The destruction of these gun-boats gave the enemy power to choose his point of 
attack ; and eight days afterward [Dec. 22], about twenty-four hundred of the 
British, under General Keane, reached the Mississippi, nine miles below New 
Orleans. An American detachment, led by Jackson in person, fell upon their 
camp the following night [Dec. 23, 1814], but withdrew to a stronger position, 
after killinrf or woundino- four hundred of the British. The Americans lost 

O O 

about one hundred. 

And now preparations were instantly made for the great battle which soon 
afterward ensued. Jackson concentrated his troops (about three thousand in 
number, and mostly militia) within a line of intrenchments' cast up four miles 
below the city of New Orleans, where they were twice cannonaded by the Brit- 
ish, but without much efiect. Finally, on the morning of the 8th of January, 
1815, General Packenham, the Brit- 
ish commander-in-chief, advanced with 
his whole force, numbering more than 
twelve thousand men, to make a gen- 
eral assault. Having been reinforced 
by about three thousand militia (chief- 
ly Kentuckians), Jackson now had 
six thousand expert marksmen con- 
cealed behind his intrenchments, or 
stationed at the batteries on his ex- 
tended line. A deep and ominous 
silence prevailed behind these defenses-, until the British had approached within 
reach of the batteries, when the Americans opened a terrible cannonade. Yet 
the enemy continued to advance until within range of the American muskets 
and rifles. Volley after volley then poured a deadly storm of lead upon the 

' Note 8, page 170. 

' All the inlets, or bayous, were obstructed, and the banks of the Mississippi were so fortified 
as to prevent the ascent of vessels. A battery was erected on Chef Menteur, at the entrance to 
Lake Pontchartrain. 

' These intrenchments were a mile in lenfrth, extending from the river so far into the sw.arap, 
as to be impassable at the extremity. Along this lino were eight distinct batteries, with heavy 
cannons; and on the opposite side of the river was a battery with fifteen cannons. 



I Cavalry' 



jtwIisansE. £.rs. -^ — ^ - — .isr - 



^J^-^ 



SWAM p:;^-, 







BATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS. 



440 



TllK X ATI ON. 



[1814. 



invaders. The British cyluimi soon w;ivored ; General Packenham fell in front 
of his troops, with not less than a thousand dead and wounded lying around 
him; and, utterly amazod liy the terrihle fire of tlie Americans, the entire 
army lied in confusion, leuvins seven hundred dead, and more tlian a thousand 
wounded, on the field. The fugitives hastened to their encampment [Jan. yj, 




^^^■^^^ ^ ;^ ^^^^'^C 



Cn^cJ^ 



and finally to their ships [Jan. 18], and escaped.' The Americans were so 
safely intrenched, that they lost oidy seven kUled and six ivoiindtd, in this 
victorious battle. It was the crowning victory,' and last land battle of moment, 
of the Second War for Ixdepenmience.' 

While the victory of the Americans at New Orleans saved that city from 
plunder and destruction, ^ and tiio whole Southern country from invasion, the 



' Wliile these operations were in proprres."! on tiie Jlisiiipsippi, the British fleet had not been in- 
active. Some vessels bonibnrded Fort St. Pliilip, below Now Orleans, on the 11th of .lannarv, and 
coiitiiiued the attack for rijilit days without sncce.ss. lii the moan while, Admiral Cockbiini fpajte 
4:f0j was pursuing his detestable warfare alotijr the Carolina and (leorfria coasts, mennoinjrt^liarles- 
ton and Savannah with destruction, and landinjr at obscure points to plunder the inhabitants. 

- During 1811, the war continued on the ocean, yet there were no battles of groat importance. 
The Penror!,- captured the British brip Epervier. on the 29th of April, olTthe coast of Florida. The 
Wasp, Captain Hlakely, also ma<le a successful cruise, btit after capturinir her thirteenth prize, disi- 
appeared, and was never heard of apiin. Probably lost in a storm. The President, Commodore 
Pocatur, was captured oil' Lour Island, on the Ifilh of January, 1S15; and on the 20th of February 
foUowincT, the Cntixtitution. Commodore Stewart, had a severe action with the British frijrate Oyane, 
and sloop-of-war Levant, and captured both. Soon after this, the British brig Penguin w.as captured, 
but the proclamation of peace had then ended the war. ' Pafje 409. 

* It is as,serted. upon pood aiitlioritv, that Packonliara's w.atchword, as he led liis troops toward 
the city, wa,s "Booty and Beautv." thereby indicatinp: that plimiler and ravishment should be tha 
soldiers' reward! We can hardly beUeve Sir Kdward really contemplated suoh barbarity. 



1815.J THE SECOND WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 443 

brave Jackson, wbose skill and prowess bad been cbiefly instrumental in pro- 
ducing tbat result, was mercilessly assailed by some persons in official station, 
■wbo could not appreciate bis pure motives and sturdy patriotism. Perceiving 
the necessity of prompt and vigorous action, Jackson bad taken all power into 
his bands, on his arrival at New Orleans, and declared martial law.' Governor 
Claiborne'' wisely and generously seconded the measure, and surrendering all 
authority into the bands of General Jackson, led a large body of the militia of 
his State to the field. Three days after the battle, the news of peace arrived ; 
and Jud'Te Hall immediately ordered the arrest of Jackson, on a charge of con- 
tempt of court.' Ho was tried; and the judge fined him a thousand dollars. 
The people hissed the official ; bore the brave general upon their shoulders from 
the court-i-oom to the street, and then the immense crowd sent up a shout, such 
as went over the land with emphasis thirteen years later, when he was a candi- 
date for the Chief Magistracy of the nation* — "Huri-ah for Jackson!" The 
blow aimed at him recoiled with fearful force upon his persecutors. 

The country was made vocal with rejoicings on account of the victory 
at New Orleans ; and Congress honored General Jackson with thanks and a 
gold medal. A little more than a month after the battle, a proclamation by 
the President [Feb. 18, 1815], tliat peace had been secured by treaty, spread a 
smile of tranquillity and happiness over the whole Union.'' For more than a 
year, efforts toward that end bad been put forth. As early as December, 1813, 
the British government bad sent overtures of peace to that of the United 
States. They were forwarded ))y the British schooner Bramble, which arrived 
at Annapolis, in Maryland, on the 1st of January, 1814, bearing a flag of 
truce. The President at once informed Congress of the fact, and immedi- 
ate action was had. The overtures were promptly met, in a conciliatory 
spirit, by the government of the United States, and commissioners were ap- 
pointed by the two powers to negotiate a treaty." For a long time the Amer- 
ican commissioners were treated with neglect by the British government. They 

' Note 8, page 170. 

" 'William C. C. Claiborne was born in Virginia in 1715, and was educated at William and Mary 
College. He became an assistaiitclerk of the National House of Representatives at the age of six- 
teen years; and at the age of twenty-nine, President JeU'erson appointed liim governor of the 
Louisiana Territory. He had already become conspicuous as a law.yer in the West ; and at the age 
of twenty-two he was a judge of the Supreme Court of Tennessee. He was elected to Congress tlio 
following year, and was a distinguished man in that liody. He was elected governor of Louisiana 
when it became a State in 1812, and was acting in that capacity when the British menaced New 
Orleans. He left that ofBce in 1817, when he was elected to the United States Senate. But his 
death was near, and he never entered that assembly. Ho died in November, 1817, in the forty- 
second year of his age. 

° A member of the Louisiana Legislature assailed Jackson by a newspaper pulilication. Jack- 
son ordered his arrest. Judge Hall granted a writ of habeas corpus. Jackson, in the proper exer- 
cise of his power under martial law, not only refiised obedience to the mand.ites of the writ, but 
arrested the judge, and sent him out of the city. For this " contempt of court" Jackson him.self 
was arrested. His noble defense was written by Edward Livingston. * Page 459. 

' As we have observed, intelUgence of the signing of the treaty reached New Orleans three 
days after the battle. It was not formally proclaimed until more than a month afterward. 

° The United States commissioners were John Quincy Adams, James A. Bayard, Henry Clay. 
John Russel, and Albert Gallatin. Those of Great Britain were Admiral Lord Gambler, Henrj' 
Goulbourn, and William Adams. These commissioners are aU dead. Mr. Clay, who died in 1852- 
was the last survivor. 



444 T n K NATION. [1814. 

"were suffered to remain in England unnoticed, for raonths, and then tlie ministry, 
proposing first one place, and then another, ior the negotiations, e.xhibited a trifling 
spirit, derogatory to true dignity. For half a year the treaty wiis jiolonged 
in this way, until, finally, the commissioners of the two governments met in the 
city of Ghent, in Belgium, in the month of August, 1814. On the 24th of 
December following, a treaty was signed, which both governments speedily 
ratified. It stijiulated a mutual restoration of all places and possessions taken 
during the war, or which might be taken after signing the treaty ; declared that 
all captures at sea should be relinquished, if made within specified times there- 
after, in different parts of the world ; and that each party should mutually put 
a stop to Indian hostilities, and endeavor to extinguish the traflSc in slaves. 
The boundaries, imperfectly adjusted by the treaty of 1783,' were all settled; 
but the subject of impressment of seamen, which was the chief cause of the war,' 
of paper blockades,' and orders in council,' were all passed by without specific 
notice, in the treaty. With this treaty ended the war, which had been in iirog- 
rcss for two years and eight months; and the proclamation of the fact was an 
occasion of the most sincere rejoicing throughout the United States and Great 
Britiun, for it was an unnatural contest — a conflict between brethren of the 
same blood, the same religion, the same laws, and the same literature. 

During these negotiations, the war, as we have seen, was vigorously prose- 
cuted, and the opposition of the Federalists grew more intense.'' It reached its 
culmination in December, when delegates, appointed by several New England 
Legislatures," met [Dec. 15, 1814] in convention at Hartford, for the purposes 
of considering the grievances of the people, caused by a st;ite of war, and to de- 
vise speedy measures for its termination.' This convention, whose sessions were 
secret, wa.s denounced as treasonable by the administration party ; but patriot- 
ism appears to have prevailed in its councils, whatever may have been the de- 
signs of some. Its plans for disunion or secession, if any were formed, were 
rendered abortive soon after its adjournment, by the proclamation of peace, fol- 
lowed liy the appointment of a day for national thanksgiving to the Almighty 
for the blessed event. That day was observed throughout tlie Union. 

The short time which remained of the session of Congress, after the proclam- 
ation of peace, was occupied by that body in adapting the affairs of the govern- 
ment to the new condition of things. The army was reduced to a peace .stab- 
ment of ten thousand men, and various acts, necessary for the public good 
during a state of war, were repealed. The naval establishment, however, was 
kept up ; and the depredations of Algerino cruisers caused Congress to author- 

■ Page 348. ' Note 5, page 409. 

' A port being blockaded by proclamation, without ships of war being there to maint.iin it 
This practice is no longer in vogue. * Note 1, page 400. * Page 410. 

' New Hampshire and Vermont were unrepresented, except by three county dolcgatesj. The 
Federalists in Vermont, especially, were now in a weak majority; anil Govenior Oilman, of New 
Hampshire, the members of whose council were Democratic, could not call a meeting of the Legis- 
lature to appoint delegates. 

' George Cabot was appointed President of the Convention, and Theodore Dwight, a former 
member of Congress from Connecticut, and then editor of the Hartfurd Union, was its secretaiy. 
The Convention was composed of twenty-six members. 



3815.] THE SECOND WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 445 

izc the President to send a squadron to the Mediterranean Sea. The results of 
the war, though apparently disastrous to all concerned at the time, were seen, 
subsequently, to have been highly beneficial to the United States, not so much 
in a material as in a moral aspect. The total cost of the war to the United 
States was about one hundred millions of dollars, and the loss of lives, by bat- 
tles and other casualties incident to the war, has been estimated at thirty thou- 
sand persons. The cost of blood and treasure to the British nation was much 
greater. During the war, the Americans captured, on the ocean and on the 
lakes, fifty-six British vessels of war, mounting 886 cannons ; and 2,360 mer- 
chant vessels, mounting 8,000 guns. There were also lost on the American 
coast, during the war, by wreck or otherwise, twenty-nine British ships of war, 
mounting about 800 guns. The Americans lost only twenty-five vessels of war, 
and a much less number of merchant-ships than the British.' 

Tlie clouds of an almost three years' war had scarcely disappeared from the 
firmament, when others suddenly arose. The contest with England had but 
just ended, when the United States were compelled to engage in a brief 

WAR WITH ALGIERS. 

As we have observed,' the United States had paid tribute to Algiers since 
1795. Every year, as his strength increased, the ruler of that Barbary State 
became more insolent,' and, finally, believing that the United States navy had 
been almost annihilated by the British in the late contest, he made a pretense 
for renewing depredations upon American commerce, in violation of the treaty. 
The American government determined to pay tribute no longer, accepted the 
challenge, and in May, 1815, Commodore Decatur' proceeded with a squadron 
to the Mediterranean, to humble the pirate. Fortunately, the Algerine fleet 
■was cruising in the Mediterranean, in search of American vessels. On the 17th 
of June [1815], Decatur met and captured the flag-ship (a frigate) of the Al- 
gerine admiral, and another vessel with almost six hundred men, and then sailed 
for the Bay of Algiers. He immediately demanded [June 28] the instant sur- 
render of all American prisoners, full indemnification for all property destroyed, 
and absolute relinquishment of all claims to tribute from the United States, in 
future. Informed of the fate of a part of his fleet, the Dey' yielded to the 
humiliating terms, and signed a treaty [June 30] to that effect. Decatur then 
sailed for Tunis, and demanded and received [July, 1815] from the bashaw, 
forty-six thousand dollars, in payment for American vessels which he had 
allowed the English to capture in his harbor. The same demand, on the same 
account, was made upon the bashaw of Tripoli,' and Decatur received [August] 
twenty-five thousand dollars from him and the restoration of prisoners. This 
cruise m the Mediterranean gave full security to American commerce in those 



' For details, see Lossing's Pictorial Field-Book of the War q/1812. 

' Page 381. 

* Page 381. In 1812. the Dey compelled Mr. Lear, the American consul [page 395], to pay 
him ,$27,000 for the safety of himself, family, and a few Americans, under the penalty of all 
being made slaves. ' Page 392. ' Note 3, page 392. ' Page 392. 



44G THE NATION. [1817. 

seas, and greatly elevated the character of the goverament of the United States 
in the opinion of Europe. Now was accomplished, during a single cruise, what 
the combined powers of Europe dared not to attempt. 

Now the eventful administration of Mr. Madison drew to a close, and very 
little of general interest occurred, except the chartering of a new United States 
Bank.' with a capital of $35,000,000, to continue twenty years ; and the admis- 
sion of Indiana [December, 1816] into the union of States. On the 16th of 
March, 1816, a caucus of Democratic members of Congress, nominated James 
Monroe of Virginia (who had been Madison's Secretary of War for a few months), 
for President of the United States, and Daniel D. Tompkins' of New York, 
for Vice-President. The Fcffeni/is/s; whose power, as a party, was now 
rapidly passing away, nominated Ilufus King" for President, and votes were 
given to several persons for Vice-President. Monroe and Tompkins were elected 
by large majorities. Mr. Monroe's election was by an almost unanimous vote 
of the electoral college.' Only one (in New Hampshire) waa cast against him. 



CHAPTER VII. 

MONROE'S ADMINISTRATION. [1817—1825]. 

Ox the 4th of March, 1817, James Monroe,'' the fifth President of the 
United States, was inaugurated at Washington City. The oath of office was 
administered by Chief Justice Marshall,' in the presence of Mr. Madison, the 
judges of the Supreme Court, and a large congregation of citizens. His address 
on that occasion was liberal and temperate in its tone, and gave general satis- 
faction to the people. The commencement of his administration was hailed as 
the dawn of an era of good feeling and national prosperity.' He selected his 
cabinet fi-om the Republican party, and never since the formation of the gov- 

' Page .^72. 

' Dauiel D. Tompkins was bom in 1774. He was a prominent Democrat when Jefferson waa 
elected [page 389] President of the United States. He was chief justice of New York and also 
Governor of the State. He died on Staten Island, in 1825. 

' Page 395. • Note 1, page 361. 

' James Monroe was bom in TVestmoreland county, Virginia, in April, 1759. He was edu- 
cated at William and Mary College, and his youth was spent amid the political excitements, when 
the War for Independence was kindling. He joined the Continental army, under '"'ashington. in 
1776, and during the campaigns of 1777 and 1778, he was aid to Lord Stirling. Ati^- the battle 
of ifnnmonth, he loft the army and commenced the study of law under Jeflerson- He was again 
in the tiold when Arnold and Phillips invaded his State, in 1781 [page 330]. The next year, 
he was a member of the Virginia Legislature, and at the age of twenty-five, was elected a delegate 
to the Continental Congres3. He was in active life as a legi.slator. foreign minister. Governor of 
Virginia, and President of the United States, until his retirement from the latter office in 182.5. 
He died in the city of New York, on the 4th of , July, 1831, when in the seventy-second year oihis 
age. His remains lie unmarked by any monument, except a simple slab, in a cemetery on the 
north side of Second-street, in the city of New York. ' Page 351. 

' President Monroe, soon after his inauguration, made a long tour of observation, extending to 
Portland, in Maine, on the east, and to Detroit, on the west, in which he was occupied more than three 
month.i. He was everywhere received with the kindest attentions and highest honors, and his 
journey was conducive to the national good. 



1825.] 



MONROE'S ADMINISTRATION. 



447 



ernment, Iiad a President been surrounded with abler counselors.' MonroD 
was a judicious and reliable man ; and when we reflect upon the condition of the 
country at that time — in a transition state from war and confusion to peace and 
order — his elevation to the presidency seems to have been a national blessing. 




^,^^^^^^2.^^^*^ /^^^iL^cr'T^-y ^^^ 



The administration of Mr. Monroe was marked by immense expansion in 
the material growth of the United States. During the war, a large number of 
manufacturing establishments had been nurtured into vigorous life by great 
demands and high prices ; but when peace returned, and European manufac- 
tures flooded the country at very low prices, wide-spread ruin ensued, and 
thousands of men were compelled to seek other employments. The apparent 
misfortune was a mercy in disguise, for the nation. Beyond the Alleghanies, 
millions of fertile acres, possessing real wealth, were awaiting the tiller's indus- 
try and skill." Agriculture beckoned the bankrupts to her fields. Homes in 



' His cabinet conaister] of John Qiiincy Adams, Secretary of State; TVilliam IT. Crawford, Sec- 
retary of the Treaiiiiry; Jolm C. Ciilhoun,' Secretary of AVar; Benjamin Crowninshield, Sc(,Tetary of 
the Navy ; and William Wirt, Attorney-General. He otTered the' War Department to the vcnoriiblo 
Governor Slielby, of Kentucky [pac;e 417], who declined it. Callioun was appointed in December, 
1817. Crowninshield, who was in Madison's cabinet, continued in office until the close of Novem- 
ber, 1818, when Smith Thompson, of New York, was appointed in liis place. 

' The progress of the States and Territories west of the Alleghanies [note 3, page Iti], in weattti 
and pojiulation, is truly wonderful. A little more than seventy years ago, those immense 
lakes, Ontario, Eric, Michigan, Huron, and Superior, were entirely witliont c.omracree, and 
an Indian's canoe was almost the only cratt seen upon thcni. In "1883, Ihe value of t)-affic 
upon these waters and the navigable rivcr.s, is jiroljablv not less tlian fil'lecn hundred million 
<iollars. Fifty years ago [1831] there were less than fi\e thousand white people in tlie vast 



448 TllK NATlOy. [1817. 

the East were deserted ; emigration flowed over the mountains in a broail and 
vitrorous stronin ; and before tiie close of Monroe's administration, four new 
sovereign States had started into being' from the wilderness of the great West, 
and one in the East.' 

The hrst year of Monroe's administration was ehiefly distinguished by the 
admission [December 10, I^ITJ of a jiortion of the Mississijijii Territory into 
tlie Union, as a State,' and the suppression of two jiiratical and .slave-dealing 
establishments near the southern and south-western borders of the Republic. 
One of them was at the moutli of the St. Mary's, Florida, and the other at 
Galveston, Texas. In adilition to a clandestine trade in slaves, these bucca- 
neers,' under prett'iise of authority from some of the Spanish republics of 
South America," were endeavoring to liberate the Floridius from the dominion 
of Spain. l;i November, 1817, United States troops proceeded to take pos- 
session of Amelia Island, the rendezvous of the pirates on the Florida coast, and 
the Galveston establishment soon disajipeared for want of support. 

Other serious diiliculties arose at about the same time. A motley host, 
composed chiefly of Seminole Indians,' Trecks dissatisfied with the treaty of 
1814,' and runaway negroes, commenced murderous depredations upon the 
frontier settlements of Georgia and the Alabama Territory, toward the close of 
1817. (leneral Gaines" was sent to suppress these outrages, and to remove 
every Indian from the territory which the Creeks had eede<l to the United 
States, in 1814. His presence aroused the fiercest ire of the Indians, who, it 
was ascertained, were incited to hostilities by British subjects, protected by the 
Spanish authorities in Florida. Ciaineswas j)laccd in a perilous position, when 
General Jackson, with a thousand mounted Tennessee volunteers, hastened 
[.January, IRlRj to his aid. In March, 1818, he invaded Florida, took pos- 
session [April] of the weak Spanish post of St. Mark, at the head of Apa- 
lacheo Bay," and sent the civil authorities and troops to Pensacola." At St. 
Mark he secured the jiersons of Alexander Arbuthnot and Robert C. Ambrister, 
who, on being tried [A\)n\ 2('>] by a court martial, were found giiilty of being 
the principal emissaries among the southern Indians, inciting them to hostilities. 



rcpion between Tvaltp ISFichijran and the Pnciflp Oooaii; now [18^3] tlio niimbor is fully eight 
nnllion. ('liieiij;i) wms tlifii a inoro liaiiili^l; now 1 188:!] it is a iiiio city, a prcat railway 
centre, nnil eonlaiiis iiKire lliaii five luiinlri'il tliousaiul iiihabitanl.s. And never was llio 
growlli of llie (ircal West more nipiil tlian al the present. 

' Mis,sissippi, Deoembor 10, 1817; Illinoi.s, Peoenilier .t, 1S18; Alabama, Deecmber 14, 181!); 
and Mi.ssouri, Mnreh 2, 1821. " Maine, Mareh 3, 1820. 

' The Territory wa.s divided. Tlio western portion was made a State, and tlie eastern was 
ereeted into a Terr'ilorv, named Alabama, after its principal river. It inelnded a portion of 15 eorpia, 
given for a eonsideniti.'>ri. See paKO 465. ' Note 6, pape 149. 

" Diirinn the lirst ipiarter of tlie present eentnrv, nearly all of tlie eountries in Central and South 
America, wliieli, sinee the eonqnest.s of Oi>rte7. jpa'tje 4;!] 'and I'izarro [note 4, pnpo 44], had been 
under the ."^pani.sh yoke, rebelled, mid forming n'publie.s. became independent of l^pain. It was tlio 
policy of our povernment to encourage these republics, by iireventinc; the establishment of monarch- 
ical power on the .\merie,an continent. This is known as tlio " Monroe doctrine," a term frequently 
used in political circles. 

• rape 30. ' Note 8, pape 428. 

" Papo 398. Kdmund P. flaines was born in Virpiiiia, in \'l11. He entered the army in 1199, 
and ro.se pradimllv until he was m:i<ic Miijor-iiencral lor his pidlnntry at Port Erie [papo 433] in 
1814. He romaiiied iu the army until hia death, in 1849. ' Pago 44. » Pope 438. 



1825.] MONROE'S AD M INI STH -TI ON. 451 

They were both executed on the 30th of the sam — ?onth.' Jackson soon after- 
■ward marched for Pensacola, it being known that the Spanish authorities there 
had encouraged the Indians in making depredations in Alabama. The Spanish 
governor protested against this invasion of his territory ; but Jackson, satisfied 
of his complicity with the Indians, pushed forward and seized Pensacola on the 
24th of May. The governor and a few followers fled on horseback to Fort 
Barrancas, at the entrance to I'ensacola, Bay. This fortress was captured by 
Jackson three days afterward [May 27], and the Spanish authorities and troops 
were sent to Havana. 

For this invasion of the territory of a friendly power, and his summary pro- 
ceedings there, General Jackson was much censured. His plea, in justification, 
was the known interference of the Spanish authorities in Florida, in X)ur domes- 
tic affairs, by sheltering those who were exciting the Indians to bloody deeds; 
and the absolute necessity of prompt and efficient measures at the time. He 
was sustained by the government and the voice of the people. These measures 
developed the necessity for a general and thorough settlement of afiairs on the 
southern boundary of the Republic, and led to the important treaty' concluded 
at Washington City, in February, 1819, by which Spain ceded to the United 
States the whole of the Floridas, and the adjacent islands. That country was 
erected into a Territory in February, 1821 ; and in March ensuing. General 
Jackson was appointed the first governor of the newly-acquired domain. 

We have observed that the v:ist region of Tvouisiana, purchased from France 
in 1 803, was divided into two TerritorieB.' The Louisiana Territory was 
admitted into the Union as a State, in 1812 ;* and while the treaty concern- 
ing Florida was pending, the southern portion of the remainder of the Ter- 
ritory extending westward to the Pacific Ocean, which was erected into the 
"Missouri Territory" in 1812, was formed into a separate government in 
1819, and called Arkansas. In December, the same year, Alabama was 



' Arbut.hnot was a ScotcVi trader from New Providence, one of the Bermuda Island.?. He had 
a store on tlie Suwaney River, where many of tlio hostilii IniUans and nofjroes con^Tef^'ated. Am- 
bristcr wa.s a young jlnglishman, about twenty-one years (jf ago, wrio had borne a lieutenant's 
commission in the British service. IXo was also at the Suwaney settlements, and put himself at the 
head of the Indians and negroes. 

' Made by John Quincy Adams for the United States, and Don Onis, the Spanish embassador 
at Washington. I litlierto, the United States had claimed a large portion of Texas, as a part of 
Louisiana. By this treaty, Texas was retained Ijy tlio Spaniards. Tho cession w:w made as an 
eq\iivalent for all claims against Spain for injury done tlie American commerce, to an amount not 
exceeding live millions of dollars. The treaty was not finally ratified until February, 1821. 

» Page 390. 

' The admirable penal code of Louisiana, whieli has ever stood tlio test of severe criticism, is 
the worl< of Edward Livingston, who was appointed the principal of a commission appointed to 
codify the laws of that State. Tho code, of which ho was tlie solo author, was adopted in 1824. 
Mr. Livingston was born upon the "M.anor," in Oolumbia county. New York, in I7(it. He was 
educated at Princeton, studied law under Chancellor Lansing, and became emiiK^nt in his profc'ssion. 
H(3 became a member of Congress in I7i)4, then attorney for tho district of New York, and finally, 
he went to New Orleans to retrieve a broken fortune. He was an aid to Oeiieral Jackson, in tlio 
battle at New Orleans, in January, 1815. and his pen wrote the noble defense of tli.at soldier, when 
.ho was persecuted by civil officers in that city. See page 443. When the last p.agc of his manu- 
script code of laws for Louisiana was ready for tlie press, a fire consumed the whole, and he was 
two years reproducing it. Th.at work is his monument. Mr. Livingston was Secretary of State 
under President Jackson ; and in 1833, ho was sent to Prance, .as tho resident minister of the 
tluited States. He died in Duchess county. New York, in May, 1837. 



452 



THE X A T 1 N. 



[IS17 



admitted into the Union; and at the same time, Missouri and Maine were 
making overtures for a similar position. Maine was admitted in March, 1820,' 
but the entrance of Missouri was delayed until August, 1821, hj a violent nnd 
protracted debate which sprung up l)ctween the Northern and the Southern 
members of Congress on the subject of slavery, elicited by the proposition for 
its admission. 




It was during the session of 1818-19, that a bill was introduced into Con- 
gress, which contained a provision forbidding the existence of slavery or invol- 
untary servitude in the new State of Missouri, when admitted. Heated debates 
immediately occurred, and the subject was postponed until another session. 
The whole country, in the mean while, was agitated by disputes on the subject ; 
and demagogues, as usual at the North and at the South, raised the cry of JJis- 
union of the Confederation ! Both parties prepared for the great struggle ; 
and when the subject was again brought before Congress [November 23, 1820|. 
angry disputes and long discussions ensued. A compromise was finally agrecti 
to [February 28, 1821], by which slavery should be allowed in Missouri ami 
ill all territory south of thirty-si.x degrees and tliirty minutes north latitude 
(southern boundary of Missouri), and jirohibited in all the territory northerly 
and westerly of these limits. This is known as The Missouri Compromised' 
Under this compromise, Missouri was admitted on the 21st of August, 1821, and 



' Page 129. 



' Page 5C1. 



1825.] MONROE'S ADMINISTRATION. 453 

the excitement on the subject ceased. The Repubhc was now composed of 
twenty-four States. 

While the Missouri question was pending, a new election for President and 
Vice-President of the United States, took place. Never, since the foundation 
of the government, had there been an election so quiet, and so void of party 
virulence. Mr. Monroe was re-elected President, and Mr. Tompkins' Vice- 
President [November, 1820], by an almos- ananimous vote — the old Federal 
party," as an organization, being nearly extinct. The administration had been 
very popular, and the country was blessed with general prosperity. Two other 
measures, besides those already noticed, received the warmest approbation of the 
people. The first was an act of Congress, passed in March, 1818, in pursu- 
ance of Monroe's recommendation, making provision, in some degree, for the 
surviving officers and soldiers of the Revolution. It was subsequently extended, 
so as to include the widows and children of those who were deceased. The 
otlier was an arrangement made with Great Britain, in October, 1818, by 
which American citizens were allowed to share with those of that realm, in the 
valuable Newfoundland fisheries. At the same time, the northern boundary 
of the United States, from the Lake of the Woods to the Rocky Mountains, 
was defined.' 

Few events of general importance, aside from the rapid prbgress of the 
country in all its industrial and governmental operations, occurred during the 
remainder of ^Monroe's administration, except the suppression of piracy among 
the West India Islands, and the visit of General La Fayette' to the United 
States, as the nation's guest. The commerce of the United States had been 
greatly annoyed and injured by swarms of pirates who infested the West India 
seas. A small American squadron, under Commodore Perry,' had been sent 
thither in 1819, to chastise the buccaneers. Perry died of the yellow fever in 
the performance of his duty, and very little was done at that time. About four 
years later [1822J, a small American squadron destroyed more than twenty 
piratical vessels on the coast of Cuba; and the following year the work was 
completed by a larger force, under Commodore Porter." The second-named 
•event was of a more pleasing character. La Fayette, the companion-in-arms 
of Washington' during the Revolutionary struggle, arrived at New York, from 
France, in August, 1824, and during about eleven succeeding months, he made 
a tour of over five thousand miles, throughout the United States. He waa 
everywhere greeted with the warmest enthusiasm, and was often met by men 
who had served under him in the first War for Independence. When he was 
prepared to return, an American frigate, named Brandyvnne, in compliment 
to him,' was sent by the United States government to convey him back to 
France. 

Mr. Monroe's administration now drew toward a close, and in the autumn 

• Page 446. » Page 374. » Page 479. 

* Page 273. " Page 423. " Page 431. ' Page 273. 

' La Fayette's first battle for freedom in America, was that oa the Brandywine Creek, in Sep- 
tember, 1777, where he was wounded in the leg. See note 5, page 273. 



454 THK XATION. [1825. 

of 1824, the people were called upon to select hia successor. It soon became 
evident that a large proportion of the old politicians of the Democratic party 
had decided to support William H. Crawford, the Secretary of the Treasury, 
for the succession. Four candidates, representing the different sections of tin- 
Union,' were finally put in nomination. The result was, that the choice de- 
volved upon the House of Reprosent;itivcs, for the second time.' That body, 
by an election held in Eebruaiy, 1825, chose John Quincy Adams for Presi- 
dent. John C. Calhoun had been chosen Vice-President by the people. The 
election and final choice produced great excitement throughout the country, 
and engendered political rancor equal to that which prevailed during the admin- 
istration of the elder Adams. Mr. Monroe's administration closed on the 4th 
of March ensuing, and he resigned to his successor the Chief Magistracy of a 
highly-prosperous nation. 



CHAPTER Yin. 

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS'S ADMINISTRATION. [1825—1829.] 

At about half-past twelve o'clock, on the 4th day of March, 1825, Johi* 
Quincy Adams,' son of the second President of the United States, entered the 
hall of the House of Representatives, and took his seat in the chair of the 
Speaker. He -was dressed in a suit of black cloth, and, being small in stature, 
did not present a more dignified appearance than hundreds of his fellow-citizens 
around him. He appeared, as he really was, a plain Republican — one of the 
people. AVhen silence was obtained, he arose and delivered his inaugural ad- 
dress ; then descending, he placed himself on the right hand of a table, and 
took the oath of oflBce, administered by Chief-Justice Marshall. The Senate 
being in session, Mr. Adams immediately nominated his cabinet officers,* and 

' John Quincy Adams in the East, William H. Crawford in the South, Andrew Jackson and 
Henry Clay in the West. ' Page 388. 

' John Quincy Adams, the sixth President of the United States, was bom at Quincy, Massa- 
chusetts, on the ilth of July, 1767. He went to Kuropo, with his father, at the ape of eleven 
years; and, iu Paris, ho was much in the society of Franklin and otlier distinguished men. At the 
age of fourteen years ho accompanied Mr. Dana to St. retcrsburjr, as private sccreUirv to that em- 
bassador. Ho traveled much alone, and finally returned, and finished his education at Marvaril 
College. He became a lawyer, but public eervieo ki'pt him from that pursuit. Ho was made 
United States minister to the Netherlands in 1794, and afterward held the same office at I.it-bon 
and Berlin. Ho wa.s a member of the United States Senate in 1803 ; and in 1809 he was sent as 
minister to the Russian court. After negotiating a treaty of peace at (ihent [page 413], he wa,s ap- 
pointed minister to the English court. In 1817 he was made Secretary of State, by Mr. Monroe. 
Having sen'cd one term as President of the United States, he retired; and from 1831, he was a 
member of Congress until his death, which occurred in the Speaker's room, at the Natioal Capitol, 
on the 22d of February, 1848, when in the eighty-lirst year of his age. 

* Henry Clay, Secretary of State ; Richard Rusli, Secretary of the Treasury ; James Earliour, 
Sccretar}' of War; Samuel L. So\ithard (continued in office), Secretary of the Navy; and William 
Wirt (continued), Attorney-General. There was considerable opposition in the Senate to the eon- 
firm.ation of Henry Clay's nomination. He had been charged with defeating the election of General 
Jackson, by giving his influence to Mr. Adams, on condition that he should bo appointed his Secre- 



1829.] 



JOHN QUINCY ADAMS'S ADMINISTRATION. 



455 



all but one were confirmed by a unanimous vote of that body. His political 
views were consonant with those of Mr. Monroe, and the foreign and domestic 
policy of his administration were generally conformable to those views. The 
amity which existed between the United States and foreign governments, and 
the absence of serious domestic troubles, made the administration of Mr. Adams 




a remarkably quiet one, and' gave the executive opportunities for adjusting the 
operations of treaties with the Indian tribes, and the arrangement of measures 
for the promotion of those great staple interests of the country — agriculture, 
commerce, and manufactures. Discords, wliicli the election had produced, ex- 
cited the whole country during Mr. Adams's administration, with the agitations 
incident to excessive party zeal, and bitter party rancor; yet the President, 
thoroughly acquainted witii all the public interests, and as thoroughly skilled 
in every art of diplomacy and jurisprudence, managed the affairs of State with 
a fidelity and sagacity which command our warmest approbation. 

One of the most exciting topics, for thought and discussion, at the beginning 
of Adams's administration [1825], was a controversy between the National Gov- 
ernment and the chief magistrate of Georgia, concerning the lands of the Creek 
Indians, and the removal of those aboriginals from the territory of that State. 
When Georgia relinquished her claims to considerable portions of the Missis- 
sippi Territory," the Federal Government agreed to purchase, for that State, 

tary of State. This, however, was only a bubble on the surface of political strife, and had no truth- 
ful suKstance. In the Senate, there were twenty-aeven votes in favor, and fourteen af,'ainst con- 
tinning the nomination of Mr. Clay. ' Note 2, page 447. 



456 



THK NATION. 



[1826. 



the Indian lands within its horders, " whenever it could be peaceably done upon 
reasonable terms." The Creeks, who, with their neighbors, the Cherokees, 
were beginning to practice the arts of civilized life, refused to sell their lands. 
Troup, the governor of Georgia, dcuiaiided the inimeiliate fulfillment of the con- 
tact. He caused a survey of tlu' ImimIs to be made, and prepared to distribute 




them by lottery, to the citizens of that State. Impatient at the tardiness of the 
United States in extinguishing the Indian titles and removing the remnants of 
the tribes, according to stipulation, the governor assumed the right to do it him- 
self. The United States took the attitude of defenders of the Indians, and, for 
a time, the matter bore a serious aspect. The difficulties were finally settled, 
and the Creeks' and Cherokees' gradually removed to the rich wilderness be- 
yond the Mississippi. 

At about this time a great work of internal improvement was completed. 
The Erie Canal, in the State of New York, was finished in 1825. It was the 
most important and stupendous public improvement ever undertaken in the 
United States ; and, though it was the enterprise of the people of a single State, 
that originated and accomplished the labor of forming the channel of a river 
through a large extent of country, it has a character of nationality. Its earli- 
est advocate was Jesse Hawley, who, in a scries of articles published in 1807 
and 1808, signed Hercules, set forth the feasil)ility and great importance of 
such a connection of the waters of Lake Erie and the Hudson River.' Hia 

• Page 30. " Page 27. 

' In a manuscript letter now before the writer, dated " Albany, 4th March, 1822," Dewitt Clin- 
ton says to Jesso Ilawley, to whom the letter is addressed : " In answer to your letter, I have no 



1829.] JOHN QUINCT ADAMS'S ADMINIST fi ATION. 457 

views were warmly seconded by Gouverneur Morris," Dewitt Clinton, and a 
few others, and its final accomplisliment was the result, chiefly, of the untir- 
ing efibrts, privately and officially, of the latter gentleman, while a member 
of the Legislature and governor of the State of New York. It is three hun- 
dred and sixty- three miles in length, and the first estimate of its cost was 
$5,000,000. Portions of it have since been enlarged, to meet the increasing 
demands of its commerce ; and in 1853, the people of the State decided, by a 
general vote, to have it enlarged its entire length. That work is not yet 
[1883] accomplished. 

A most remarkable coincidence occurred on the 4th of July, 1826, the fif- 
tieth anniversary of American Independence. On that day, and almost at the 
same hour, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson expired. They were both mem- 
bers of the committee who had framed the Declaration of Independence,^ both 
signed it,' both had been foreign ministers,* both had been Vice-Presidents, and 
then Presidents of the United States, and both had lived to a great age.' These 
coincidences, and the manner and time of their death, produced a profound im- 
pression upon the public mind. In many places throughout the Union, eulogies 
or funeral orations were pronounced, and these, collected, form one of the most 
remarkaljle contributions to our historical and biographical literature. 

After the difficulties with Georgia were settled, the remaining years of Mr. 
Adams's administration were so peaceful and prosperous, that public affairs 
present very few topics for the pen of the general historian." The most import- 
ant movement in foreign policy, was the appointment, early in 1826, of com- 
missioners' to attend a congress of representatives of the South American Re- 
publics,' held at Panama [July, 1826], on the Pacific coast. This appointment 

hesitation in stating that the first suggestion of a canal from Lake Erie to tlie Hudson River, which 
came to ray knowledge, was communicated in essays under the signature of Hercules, on Internal 
Navigation, published in the Ontario Ma^senger, at Canandaigua. The first number appeared on 
the 2'7th of October, 1807, and the series of numbers amounted, I beUeve, to fourteen. The board 
of Canal Commissioners, which made the first tour of observation and survey, in 1810, were pos- 
sessed of the writings of Hercules, which were duly appreciated, as the work of a sagacious in- 
ventor and elevated mind. And you were at that time, and since, considered the author." Dewitt 
Clinton was a son of General James Clinton, of Orange county. New York. He was born in 
March, 1769. He was mayor of New York ten years, and was elected governor of the State in 
1817, and asain in 1820 and 1826. He died suddenly while in that ofBce, in February, 1828. 

' Page 364. " Note 2, page 251. 

^ Jefferson was its author, and Adams its principal supporter, in the Continental Congress. 

* Note 2, page 383, and note 5, page 388. 

' Mr. Adams died at Quincy, Massachusetts, at the age of almost ninety-one years. Mr. JefiTer- 
son died at Monticello, Tirginia, at the age of almost eighty-three years. 

° An event occurred in 1826 which produced great excitement throughout the country, and led 
to the formation of a new, and for a time, quite a powerful political party. William Morgan, of 
Western New York, announced his intention to publish a book, in wliich the secrets of Free 
Masonry were to be disclosed. He was suddenly seized at Canandaigua one evening, placed in a 
carriage, and was never heard of afterward. Some Free Masons were charged with his murder, 
and the report of an investigating committee, appointed by the New York State Legislature, con- 
firmed the suspicion. The public mind was greatly agitated, and there was a disposition to exclude 
Free Masons from office. An Anti-Masonic party was formed, and its organization spread over 
several States. In 1832, a national anti-Masonic convention was held at Philadelphia, and William 
Wirt, of Virginia, was nominated for the ofSce of President of the United States. Although the 
party polled a considerable vote, it soon afterward disappeared. 

' R. C. AddLson, and John Sargeant, commissioners ; and WilUam B. Rochester, of New York, 
their secretary. 

' Note 5, page 448. As early as 1823, General BoUvar, while acting as President of Colombia, 



458 TIIK NATION. [1825. 

produced much discussion in Congress, chiefly on party grounds. The result 
of the congress at I'anania was comparatively unimportant, so far as the United 
States was coiicernod, and appears to have had very little influence on the 
aflfairs of South Anieriea. 

During the administi'ation of Mr. Adams, the policy of protecting home 




^^^^-^O-C-c^^fi^ 



manufactures, by imposing a heavy duty upon foreign articles of the same kind, 
assumed the shape of a settled national policy, and the foundations of the 
American Si/sfcm, m that policy is called, was then laid. The illiberal commer- 
cial policy of Great Britain, caused tariff" laws to be enacted by Congress as 
early as 1816, iia retaliatory measures. ' In 1824, imposts were laid on foreign 
fabrics, with a view to encourage American uianuiacturcs. In July, 1827, a 
national convention was held at Harrisburg, in Pennsylvania, to discuss the 
subject of protective tariffs. Only four of the slave States sent delegates. The 
result of the convention was a memorial to Conirress, askinrf an auirmentation 
of duties on several articles then manufactured in the United States. The Sec- 
retary of the Treasury called attention to the subject in his report in Decem- 



invitod the povomnients of Mexioo, Peru, Chili, and Bucno.'i Avrcs, to unite with him in fonninp a 
general coiifrrosa nl Pananin, and tho same year arranpements between Coldnibi.i, Mexioo, and 
Peril wore made, to etleet that object. In the spring of 1825, tlie United States govoriinient was 
invited to send a delegation to the |>ro])08ed conpress. The objects of the congress were, to settle 
upon sonic line of iiolicy havini; tho force of international law, respecting tlie ri^rhts of those repulv 
lics; and to consult upon measures to bo talvcn to ]irevcnt ftirtjier colonization on the American 
continent by European powers, and their iulerferonco in thou existing couteste. 
• Pago 367. 



1829.] JACKSON'S ADMINISTRATION. 459 

ber following. Congress, at an early period of the session of 1827-28, took 
up the matter, and a Tariff Bill Ijecame a law in May following. The Aimr- 
ican System was very popular with the manufacturers of the North, but the 
cotton-growing States, which found a ready market for the raw materi;il in En- 
gland, opposed it. The tarilf law, passed on the 15th of May, 1828, was very 
obnoxious to the Southern politicians." They denounced it as oppressive and 
Unconstitutional, and became rebellious in 1832 and 1833.^ 

The Presidential election took place in the autumn of 1828, when the pub- 
lic mind was highly excited. For a long time tlie opposing parties had been 
marshaling their forces for the contest. The candidates were John Quincy 
Adams and General Andrew Jackson. The result was the defeat of Mr. Adams, 
and the election of General Jackson. John C. Calhoun,' of South Carolina, 
was elected Vice-President, and both had very large majorities. During the 
contest, the people appeared to be on the verge of civil war, so violent was the 
party strife, and so malignant were the denunciations of the candidates. When 
it was over, perfect tranquillity prevailed, the people cheerfully acquiesced in 
the result, and our sytera of government was nobly vindicated before the world. 

President Adams retired from office on the 4th of March, 1829. He left 
to his successor a legacy of unexampled national prosperity, peaceful relations 
with all the world, a greatly diminished national debt, and a surplus of more 
than five millions of dollars in the public treasury. He also bequeathed to the 
Republic the tearful gratitude of the surviving soldiers of the Revolution, 
among whom had been distributed in pensions,* during his administration, more 
than five millions of dollars. 



CHAPTER IX. 

JACKSON'S ADMINISTRATION. [1829 — 1837] 

Thkre were incidents of peculiar interest connected with the inauguration 
of Andrew Jackson,' the seventh President of the United States. President 

' The chief articles on which heavy protective duties were laid, were woolen and cotton fab- 
rics. At that time, the value of annual imports of cotton goods from Great Britain was about 
$8,000,000 ; that of woolen goods about tlie same. The exports to Great Britain, of cotton, rice, 
and tobacco, alone (the chief products of the Southern States), was about $24,000,000 annually 
These producers were made to fe.nr a great diminution of their exports, by a tarifl' that slioulo 
almost wholly prohibit the importation of three millions of dollars' worth of Uritish cotton and 
woolen fabrics, annually. '' Page 46.'i. 

" John G. Calhoun was born in South Carolina in \1&2. He first appeared in Congress in 1811, 
and was always distinguished for his consistency, especially in his support of the institution of 
slavery and the doctrme of State supremricy. He was an able debater, and subtle politician ; 
and the logical result of his pohtical teachings was the late Civil War. He died at Washington 
city, while a member of the National Senate, in March, 1850. ■• Page 453. 

° Andrew Jackson was born in Mecklenherg county, North Carolina, in March, ITGT. His 
parents were from the north of Ireland, and belonged to that Protestant community known as 
Scotch- Irish. In earliest infancy, he was left to the care of an excellent mother, by the death of 
his father. Ho first saw the horrors of war, and felt the wrongs of oppression, when Colonel 



460 



TIIK NATION. 



[1829. 



Adams had convened the Senate on the morning of the 4th of March, 1829, 
and at twelve o'clock tiiut body adjourned for an hoiy-. During that time, the 
President elect entered the Senate chamber, having been escorted from Gadsby'a 
Hotel, by a few surviving officers and soldiers of the old War for Independence. 
These had addressed him at the hotel, and now, in presence of the chief officers 
of government, foreign ministers, and a large number of ladies, he thus replied 
to them : 




" Respected Friends — Your affectionate address awakens sentiments and 
recollections which I feci with sincerity and cherish with pride. To have 
around my person, at the moment of undertaking the most solemn of all duties 
to my country, the companions of the immortjil Washington, will afford me 
satisfaction and grateful encouragement. That by my best exertions, I shall be 
able to exhibit more than an imitation of his laljors, a sense of my own imper- 



Buford's troops were massacred fpaire.SlS, and note 1, pape 314] in liis neighborhood, in 1780. 
He entered the army, and sulVrred in tlie cause of freedom, by imprisonment, and tlie death of his 
mother wliile slio was on an errand of mercy. Ho studied law, and became one of the most 
eminent men in the Western District of Tennessee, as an advocate and a judKO. He was ever a 
controlling spirit in that repion. He assisted in framing a State eonstitution for Tennessee, and was 
tlie first representative of that Slate in the National (3oiigres.s. He became United States senator in 
1797, and was soon afterward ajipointcd .Judge of the S)ipreme Court of his State. He settled near 
Nashville, and for a long time was chief military commander in that region. Wlien the War of 
1812 broke out, he took the Held, and in the capacity of MaJDr-General, he did good ser\'ice in the 
southern country, till its dose. He wn.s appointed the first (>overnor of Florida, in 1821, and in 
1823, was again in the United States Senate. He retired to private life at the close of his presi- 
dential term, and died at his beautiful residence, Tlie Uermilaye, near Nashville, in June, 1846, at 
the age of seventy-eight years. 



1837.] JACKSON'S ADMINISTRATION. 461 

feetions, and the reverence I entertain for liis virtues, forbid me to hope. To 
you, respected friends, the sui-vivors of that heroic band who followed hitn, so 
long and so valiantly, in the path of glory, I offer my sincere thanks, and to 
Heaven my prayers, that your remaining years may be as happy as your toils 
and your lives have been illustrious." The whole company then proceeded to 
the eastern portico of the capitol, where, in the presence of a vast assembly of 
citizens, the President elect delivered his inaugural address, and took the oath 
of office, administered by Chief Justice Marshall.' That jurist again adminis- 
tered the same oath to President Jackson on the 4th of March, 1833, and a 
few months afterward went down into the grave. 

President Jackson was possessed of strong passions, an uncorrupt heart, and 
an iron will. Honest and inflexible, he seized the helm of the ship of state 
with a patriot's hand, resolved to steer it according to his own conceptions of 
the meaning of his guiding chart. The. Const itntmi, unmindful of the inter- 
ference of friends or foes. His instructions to the first minister sent to England, 
on his nomination — "Ask nothing but what is right; submit to nothing 
wrong" — indicate the character of those moral and political maxims by which 
he was governed. His audacity amazed his friends and alarmed his opponents ; 
and no middle men existed. He was either tlioroughly loved or thoroughly 
hated ; and for eight years he braved the fierce tempests of party strife," 
domestic perplexities,' and foreign arrogance,* with a skill and courage whicli 
demands the admiration of his countrymen, however much they may differ with 
him in matters of national policy. The gulf between him and his political oppo- 
nents was so wide, that it was difficult for the broadest charity to bridge it. To 
those who had been his true fi-iends durino; the election strugrtrle, he extended the 

O Co ' 

grateful hand of recognition, and after having his inquiries satisfied, "Is he 
capable ? is he honest?" he conferred official station upon the man who pleased 
him, with a stoical indifference to the clamor of the opposition. The whole of 
President Adams's caljinet officers having resigned, Jackson immediately nom- 
inated his political friends for his counselors, and the Senate confirmed his 
choice." 

Among the first subjects of general and commanding interest which occu- 
pied the attention of President Jackson, at the commencement of his administra- 
tion, were the claims of Georgia to lauds held by the powerful Cherokee tribe 
of Indians, and lying within the limits of that State. Jackson favored the views 
of the Georgia authorities, and the white people proceeded to take possession of 
the Indians' land. Trouble ensued, and the southern portion of the Republic was 



' Page 351. 

' Following the precedent of JeEferson [page 389], he filled a large number of the public offices 
with hi.s political friends, after removing the incumbents. These removals were for all causes : and 
during his administration, they amounted to six hundred and ninety out of several thousands, who 
were removable. The entire number of removals made by all the preceding Presidents, from 1790 
to 1829, was seventy-four. ^ Page 464. * Page 468. 

' Martin Van Buren, Secretary of State ; Samuel D. Ingham, Secretary of the Treasury ; John 
H. Eaton, Secretary of War; John Branch, Secretary of tlie Navy; and John McPhersou Berrian, 
Attorney-General. It having been determined to make tlie Postmaster-General a cabinet officer, 
William T. Barry was appointed to tliat station. 



462 TIIK NATION. [1829 

again menaced ■with civil war. The matter was adjudicated by the Supreme 
Court of the United States, and on the 30th of March, 1832, that tribunal 
decided against the claims of Georgia. But that State, favored by the Presi- 
dent, resisted the decision. The difficulty was finally adjusted; and in 1838, 
General Wiiitield Scott' was sent thither, with several thousand troops, to 
remove the Cherokees, peaceably if possible, but forcibly if necessary, beyond 
the Mississijipi. Through the kindness and conciliation of Scott, they were 
iudueed to migrate. They had become involved in the difficulties of their Creek 
neighbors,'' but were defended against the encroachments of the Georgians 
during Adams's administration. But in December, 1839, they were crushed, as 
a nation, by an act of Congress, and another of the ancient communities of the 
New World was wiped from the living record of empire. The Cherokees' were 
more advanced in the arts of civilized life than the Creeks.' They had churches, 
schools, and a printing-press, and were becoming successful agriculturists. It 
appeared cruel in the extreme to remove them from their fertile lands and the 
graves of their fathers, to the wilderness ; yet it was, doubtless, a proper meas- 
ure for insuring the prosperity of both races. But now [1883], again, the tide 
of civilization is beating against their borders. Will they not be borne upon its 
powerful wave, further into the wilderness? 

Another cause for public agitation appeared in 1832. In his first annual 
message [December, 1829] Jackson took strong ground against the renewal of 
the charter of the United States Bank," on the ground that it had failed in the 
great end of establishing a uniform and sound cuiTcncy, and that such an insti- 
tution was not authorized by the National Constitution. He again attacked tha 
bank in his annual message in 1830, and his objections were renewetl in that 
of 1831. At the close of 1831, the pro[ier officers of the bank, for the first 
time, petitioned for a renewal of its charter. That petition was presented in 
the Senate on the 9th of January, 1832, and on the 13th of March, a select com- 
mittee to whom it was referred, reported in favor of renewing the charter for 
fifteen years. Long debates ensued ; and, finally, a bill for re-chartering the 
bank passed both Houses of Congress : the Senate on the 11th of June, by 
twenty-eight against twenty votes ; and by the House of Representatives on the 
3d of July, by one hundred and seven against eighty-five. Jackson vetoed'' it 
on the 10th of July, and as it fiiiled to receive the support of two thirds of the 
members of both Houses, the bank charter expired, by limitation, in 1836. 
The commercial community, regarding a national bank us essential to their 
prosperity, were alarmed ; and prophecies of panics and business revulsions, 
everywhere uttered, helped to accomplish their own speedy fulfillment. 

An Indian w-ar broke out upon the north-western frontier, in the spring of 
1832. Portions of some of the western tribes,' i-esiding within the domain 

' Page 485. ' Pajre 421. ' Page 27. * Page 30. ' Page 446. 

• That is, refused to sifrn it, and returned it to Conp-ess, with liis rcasous, for reconsideration by 
tliat body. The Constitution gives the President tliis power, and wlien e.vercised, a bill can not 
become law without liia siirnature, unless it shall, on reoonsideration, receive the votes of two thirds 
of the members of both Houses of Congress. See Article I, Section 7, of the Constitution, in the 
Supplement. ' Sacs, i'oxe.s, and Winnebagoes. Sec page 18. 



3837.] 



JACKSON'S ADMINISTRATION. 



463 



of the present State of Wisconsin,' led by Black Hawk,' a fiery Sac chief, 
commenced warfare upon the frontier settlers of Illinois, in April of that year. 
After several skirmishes with United States troops and Uhnois militia, undei 
General Atkinson,^ the Indians were driven beyond the Mississippi. Black 
Hawk was captured in August, 1832, and taken to Washington City ; and then, 
to impress his mind with the strength of the nation he had foolishly made war 
with, he was conducted through several of the eastern cities. This brief strife, 
which appeared quite alarming at one time, is known in history as the "Black 
Hawk War.'" 

This cloud in the West had scarcely disappeared, when one loomed up in 
the South far more foimidable in appearance, and charged with menacing thun- 




der that, for a while, shook the entire fabric of the Republic. The dis- 
contents of the cotton-growing States, produced by the tariff act of 1828,' 
assumed the form of rebellion in South Carolina, toward the close of 1832. 
An act of Congress, imposing additional duties upon ibreign goods, passed in 



' That domain was not erected into a Territory until four years after that event ; now it is a rich, 
populous, and flourishing State. " Page 18. 

' Henry Atkinson was a native of North Carolina, and entered the army as captain, in 1808. 
He was retained in the army after the second "WTar for Independence, was made Adjutant-General, 
and was finally appointed to the command of the Western Army. He died at Jefferson Barracks, 
in June, 1842." 

* Black Hawk returned to his people, but was, with difBculty, restored to his former dignity of 
' chief He died in October, 1840, and was buried on tlie banks of the Mississippi. ' Page 459. 



464 ''" '•' -"^ ■^■' "^^- U829. 

the spring of 1832, led to a State convention in South Carolina, in November 
followins. It assembled on the 19th of that month, and the Governor of South 
Carolina was appointed its president. That assembly declared the tarifl" acts 
unconstitutional, and therefore null and void. It resolved that duties should 
not be paid ; and proclaimed that any attempt to enforce the collection of duties 
in the port of Charleston, by the general government, would be resisted by 
arms and would produce the withdrawal of South Carolina from the Union. 
The State Legislature, which met directly after the adjournment of the con- 
vention, passed laws in support of this determination. MiliUiry preparations 
were immediiitcly made, and civil war appeared inevitable. Then it was that 
the executive ability of the President, so much needed, was fully displayed. 
,1 ackson promptly met the crisis by a proclamation, on the 10th of December, 
which denied the right of a State to nullify any act of the National Govern- 
ment ; and warned those who were engaged in fomenting a rebellion, that the 
laws of the United States would be strictly enforced by military power, if 
necessary. This proclamation met the hearty response of every friend of the 
Union, of whatever party, and greatly increased tliat majority of the President's 
supporters, who had just re-elected him to the Chief Magistracy of the Repub- 
lic' The nullifiers" of South Carolina, though led by such able men as Cal- 
houn' and Ilayne,' were obliged to yield for the moment ; yet their zeal and 
deteriiiiiiulion in the cause of State Supremacy, were not abated. Every day 
the tempest-cloud of civil commotion grew darker and darker ; \mtil, at length, 
Henry Clay," a warm friend of the Ainerit'aii System," came forward, in Con- 
gress [February 12, 1833], with a bill, wliich provided for a gradual reduction 
of the obnoxious duties, during the succeeding ten years. This compromise 
measure w;is accepted by both parties. It became a law on the 3d of March, 
and discord between the North and the South soon ceased, but only for a 



season. 



' Those who favored the doctrine that a State might nullify the acts of the National Govern- 
ment, were called nuUifiers, and the danjjeroiis doctrine itself was palled nullification. 

' Pago 4r)8. Mr. Oalliouu, who luul (iiiurroled, iinlitioally, wiUi .I;ickson. had recently resigned 
tlie office of Vice-President of the United States, iind was one of the ablest men iu Congress. 
He asserted the .'^tate supremacy doctrine boldly on the floor of Congress, and held the same 
opinion nntil his death. 

* Robert Y. Hayne was one of the ablest of southern statesmen. The debate between Hayne 
and Webster, in the Senate of the Uiuted States, during the debates on ttiis momentous subject, is 
regarded as one of the most eminent, for sagacity and eloquence, tliat ever marked the proceedings 
of that body. Mr. Hayne was born near Charleston, Soutli Carolina, in NovcDiber, 1791. lie was 
admitted to the bar in 1812, and the same year volunteered his services for the defense of the sea- 
board, and entered the army as lieutenant. Ho arose rajiidly to the rank of Major-General of the 
militia of his State, and was considered one of the best disciplinarians of the South. He had exten- 
sive practice at the bar, before he was twenty-two years of age, and it was always lucrative. Uo 
was a member of the South Carolina Assembly in 181-1, where he was distinguislied for eloquence, 
lie wa.s chosen Speaker in 1818. For ten years he represented South Carolina in the Senate of the 
United Stales ; and he was chairman of the Committee of the Convention of South Carolina, which 
reported the "ordinance of nuUifieation." He w.as soon afterward chosen Governor of his State. 
He died in September, 1841, in the tiflieth year of his age. ' Page 500. " Page 459. 

' It is known that Mr. Clay introduced theCompromise Bill with the concurrence of Mr. Calhoun. 
The latter had proceeded to the verge of treason, in his opposition to the general government, and 
President Jackson had threatened him with arrest, if ho moved another step forward. Knowing 



1837.] JACKSON'S ADMINISTRATION. 465 

President Jackson's hostility to the United States Bank was again mani- 
fested in his annual message to Congress, in December, 1832, when he recom- 
mended the removal of the public funds from its custody, and a sale of the 
stock of the bank, belonging to the United States." Congress, by a decided 
vote, refused to authorize the measure ; but after its adjournment, the Presi- 
dent assumed the responsibility of the act, and directed William J. Duane, the 
Secretary of the Treasury, to withdraw the government funds (then almost 
^10,000,000), and deposit them in certain State banks. During a northern 
tour which the President had made in the summer of 1833, he had urged Mr. 
Duane (then in Philadelphia) to make the removal, but he would only consent 
to the appointment of an agent to inquire upon what terms the local banks 
would receive the funds on deposit. The President then ordered him, perem- 
torily, to remove them from the bank. The Secretary refused compliance, and 
was dismissed from office. His successor, Roger B. Taney (who was after- 
ward Chief-Justice of the United States), obeyed the President; and in 
October, 1 833, the act was accomplished. The effect produced was sudden 
and wide-spread commercial distress. The business of the country was plunged 
from the height of prosperity to tlio depths of adversit}-, because its intimate 
connection with the National Bank rendered any paralysis of the operations 
of that institution fatal to commercial activity. The amount of loans of the 
bank, on the 1st of October, was over sixty millions of dollars, and the amount 
ot' the funds of the United States, then on deposit in the bank, was almost ten 
miHious of dollars. The fact, that the connection of the bank with the business 
of the country was so vital, coutirmed the President in his opinion of tho 
danger of such an enormous moneyed institution. 

A large portion of the government funds were removed in the course of four 
months, and the whole amount in about nine months. Intense excitement pre- 
vailed throughout the country ; yet the President, supported by the House of 
Representatives, persevered and triumphed. Numerous committees, appointed 
by merchants, mechanics, manufacturers, and others, waited upon him, to ask 
him to take some measures for relief He was firm ; and to all of them he re- 
plied, in substance, that " the government could give no relief, and provide no 
remedy ; that the banks were the occasion of all the evils which existed, and that 

the firmnesa and decision of tlie Tresident, Mr. Calhoun dared not take the fatal step. He could 
not recede, nor eveu stand still, without compromising hia charjieter with liis political friends. In 
this extremity, a mutual friend arranged with Mr. Clay to propose a measure which would satisfy 
both sides, and save botli the neck and reputatiou of Mr. Calhoun. In the discussion of the 
matter in the Senate, the latter most earnestly disclaimed any hostile feelings toward the Union, 
on tho part of South Carolina. Tlie State authorities, he asserted, had looked only to a judicial 
decision upon tho question, until tho conceutration of the United States troops at Charleston and 
August.-v, by order of the President, compelled them to make prorision to defend themselves. 
Several of the State Legislatures hastened to condemn tho nullilication doctrine as destructive to 
the National Constitution. Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Delaware, Indian.i, Missouri, 
and Georgia, all thus spoke out plainly in favor of the Union. Georgia, however, at the same 
time, e-tpressed its reprobation of tho tarilT system, which had brought about tho movement, iu 
South Carolina, and proposed a convention of the States of Virginia, North and South Carolina, 
Georgia, Alabam.a, Tennessee, and Mississippi, to devise measures to obtain relief from it. 

' By the law of ISIG, for chartering the bank, tlie funds of the United States were to be 
deposited with that institution, and to be withdrawn only by the Secretary of tho Treasury. 

30 




466 THE NATIOJI. [182ft 

those who suffered by their great ontoriirise had none to blame bnt themselves ; 
that those who traded ou borrowed capital ought to break." The State banks 
received the government funds on deposit, and loaned freely. Confidence was 
gradually restored, and apparent general prosperity' returned. Now [1807], 
after tlie lapse of more than twenty years, the wisdom and forecaste of General 
Jackson, evinced by his distrust of the United States Bank, appears to be uni- 
versally acknowledged." Our present National banking system possesses all of 
the better functions of that of the United States Bank, ^vithout, apparently, 
any of its dangerous ones. 

Trouble again appeared on the southern borders of the Union. Toward the 
close of 1835, the Seminole Indians, in Florida, guided by their head sachem, 

Micanopy, and led by their principal chief, Osceola,' 
commenced a distressing warfare upon the frontier 
settlements of Florida. The cause of the outbreak 
was an attempt to remove them to the ■wilderness 
bepond the Mississippi. In his annual message in 
December, 1830, President Jackson recommended 
the devotion of a large tract of land west of the 
Mississippi, to the use of the Indian tribes yet re- 
maining east of that stream, forever. Congress 
passed laws in accordance with the proposition, and 
the work of removal commenced, first by the Chick- 
aaaws and Choctaws.' We have seen that trouble ensued with the Creeks and 
Cherokees,^ and the Seminoles in East Florida were not disposed to leave their 
ancient domain. Some of the chiefs in council made a treaty in May, 1832, 
and agreed to remove ; but other chiefs, and the great body of the nation, did 
not acknowledge the treaty as binding. In 1834, the President sent General 
Wiley Thompson to Florida, to prepare for a forcible removal of the Seminoles, 
if necessary. The tone and manner assumed by Osceola, at that time, dis- 
pleased Thompson, and he put the chief in irons and in prison for a day. The 
proud leader feigned penitence, and was released. Then his wounded pritle 
called for revenge, and fearfully he pursued it, as we shall observe presently. 
The war that ensued was a sangiiiuai-y one, and almost seven years elapsed before 
it was wholly terminated. Osceola, with all the cunning of a Tecumtha," and 
the heroism of a Philip,' was so successful in stratagem, and brave in conflict, 
that he baffled the skill and courage of the United States troops for a long time. 
He had agreed to fulfill treaty stipulations,' in December [1835], but instead 

' Page 470. 

' The course of President Jackson, toward the bank, was popular iu many sections, but in the 
commercial St^ites it caused a palpable diminution of the strengtli of the administration. This was 
shown by tho elections in 1834. Many of his supporters joined the Opposition, and this combined 
force assumed the name of " 'Whips"— the old party name of the Revolution — while tho adminis- 
tration party adhered to the name of " Democrats." 

' Page 468. * Pago 30. ' Page 27. ' Page 424. ' Page 124. 

• Osceola had promised General Thompson that the dcliverj- of certain cattle and horses belong- 
ing to tho Indians should be made during the first fortnight of Peceniber. 183.5. and so certain was 
Thompson of the fulfillment of this stipulation, that he advertised the animals for sale. 



1837.] 



JACKSON'S ADMINISTRATION. 



46T 




Swamp&>) \ fj_ 




SEAT OF SEMINOLE WAR. 



of compliance, he was then at the head of a war party, murdering the unsus- 
pecting inhabitants on the borders of the everglade haunts of the savages. 

At that time General Clmch was stationed at Fort Drane,' in the interior 
of Florida, and Major Dado was dispatched from Fort BrookCj at the head of 
Tampa Bay, with more than a hundred men, for his 
relief Tliat young commander,^ and all but four of 
his detachment, were massacred [Dec. 28, 1835] 
near Wahoo Swamp.' On the same day, and only 
a few hours before, Osceola, and a small war party, 
killed and scalped General Thompson, and five of his 
friends, who were dining at a store a few yards from 
Fort King.' The assailants disappeared in the for- 
est before the deed was known at the fort. Two 
days afterward [Dec. 31], General Clinch and his 
troops had a battle with the Seminoles on the With- 
lacoochee; and in February [Feb. 29, 1836], General Gaines' was assailed 
near the same place," and several of his men were killed. The battle-ground 
is about fifty miles from the mouth of the river. 

The Creeks aided their brethren in Florida, by attacking white settlers 
within their domain,' in May, 1836. Success made them bold, and they at- 
tacked mail-carriers, stages, steamboats, and finally villages, in Georgia and 
Alabama, until thousands of white people were fleeing for their lives from 
place to place, before the savages. General Winfield Scott" was now in chief 
command in the South, and he prosecuted the war with vigor. The Creeks were 
finally subdued ; and during the summer, several thousands of them were re- 
moved to their designated homes beyond the Mississippi. In October, Governor 
Call, of Georgia, marched against the Seminoles with almost two thousand men. 
A detachment of upward of five hundred of these, had a severe contest [Nov. 
21] with the Indians at Wahoo Swamp, near the scene of Dade's massacre ; yet, 
like all other engagements with the savages in their swampy fastnesses, neither 
party could claim a positive victory." The year [1836] closed with no prospect 



' About forty miles north-east from the mouth of tho Withlacoochee River, and eight south- 
west from Orange Lake. 

^ Francis L. Dade was a native of Virginia. Afler the War of 1812-15, he was retained in tha 
army, having risen from third lieutenant to major. A neat monument has been erected to tha 
memory of himself and companions in death, at West Point, on the Hudson. 

' Near the upper waters of the Withlacoochee, about fifty miles north trom Fort Brooke. Threa 
of the four survivors soon died of their wounds, and lie who lived to tell the fearful narrative (Ran- 
som Clarke), afterward died from the effects of his injuries on that day. 

' On the southern borders of Alachua county, about sixty miles south-west from St. Augustina. 
Osceola scalped [note 4, page 14] General Thompson with his own hands, and thus enjoyed his re- 
venge for the indignity he had suffered. 

' Page 433. Edmund P. Gaines was bom in Virginia in 1777, and entered the army in 1799. 
He was breveted a major-general in 1814, and presented by Congress with a gold medal for his gal- 
lantry at Fort Erie. He died in 1849. 

' South side of the river, in Dade county. The place where Gaines was assaulted ia on the 
north side, in Alachua county. ' Page 30. ' Page 433. 

° In this warfare the American troops suffered dreadftilly from the poisonous vapors of the 
swamps, the bites of venomous serpents, and the stings of insects. The Indiana were inaooessibla 
in their homes lunid the morasses, for the white people could not follow them. 



468 ^ TUE NATION. [1829. 

of peace, either by treaty or by the subjugation of the Indians. The war con- 
tinued through the winter. Finally, after some severe encounters with tho 
United States troops, several chiefs appeared in the camp of General Jesup' 
{who was then in supreme command) at Fort Dado,'' and on the Cth of March, 
1837, they signed a treaty which guarantied immediate peace, and the instant 
departure of the Indians to their new homo beyond the Mississippi. But the 
lull was temporary. Tiie restless Osceola caused the treaty to be broken ; and 
during the summer of 1837, many more soldiers perished in tho swamps while 
pursuing the Indians. At length, Osceola, with several chiefs and seventy 
warriors, appeared [Oct. 21J in Jessup's camp under the protection of a flag. 
They were seized and confined ;' and soon afterward, the brave chief was sent 
to Charleston, where he died of a fever, while immureil in Fort Moultrie.* 
This was the hardest blow yet dealt upon the Seminoles ; but they continued to 
resist, notwithst .nding almost nine thousand United States troops were in their 
territory at the lose of 1837. 

On the 25th of December, a large body of Indians suffered a severe repulse 
on the northern border of Macaco Lake,' from six hundred troops under Colonel 
Zachary Taylor." That officer had succeeded General Jesup, and for more than 
two years afterward, he endured every privation in efforts to bring the war to a 
close. In May, 1839, a treaty was made which appeared to terminate the war ; 
but murder and roblieries continued, and it was not until 1842 that peace was 
finally secured. This war, which lasted seven years, cost the United States 
many valuable lives, and millions of treasure. 

In the autumn of 1836, the election of a successor to President Jacksou 
took place, and resulted in the choice of Martin Van Buren, of New York. 
Energy had marked every step of tho career of Jackson as Chief Magistrate, 
and at the clo.se of his administration, the nation stood higher in the esteem of 
the world than it had ever done before. At the close of his first term, our 
foreign relations were very satisfactory, except with France. That government 
had agreed to pay about $;5,000,000, by instalments, as indemnification for 
French spoliations on American commerce, under the operation of the several 
decrees of Na|)oleon, from 1806 to 1811.' The French government did not 
promptly comply with the agreement, and the President assumed a hostile tone, 
which caused Franco to perform her duty. Similar claims against Portugal 

' Thomas S. Jesup was born iu Virginia in 1,78S. Ho was a brave anJ useful officer during 
the war of 1S12-15, and was retaine^i iu the army. He was breveted major-jjeueral in 1S2S, 
and was succeeded in command in Florida by Colonel Zachary Taylor, iu 1833 He died at 
Wasliingtou city in 1853. 

' On the liead waters of the "^'ithlachoochco, about forty miles north-cast from Fort Brooke, at 
tho head of Tampa Bay. See map on page 467. 

s General Josup wa.s much censured for this breach of faith and the rules of honorable warlare. 
His excuse was tho known treachery of Osceola, and a desire to put an end to bloodshed by what- 
ever means ho might be able to employ. „,„, -VT .1 

• On SulUvan's Island, upon the site of Fort Sullivan of tho Revolution [page 240]. Near tho 
entrant' gate to the fort is a smiUl monument erected to tho memory of Osceola. 

' Sometimes called Big Water Lake. Tho Indian name is O-ke-cho-boe, and by that title tho 

" ""tIio 'bravo leader in the Mexican War [page 481], and afterward President of the United 
States. Seo page 49S. ' See pages 400 to 407, mclusive. 



1837.] VAN BUREN'S ADMINISTRATION. 469 

were made, and payment obtained. A treaty of reciprocity had been concluded 
with Russia and Belgium, and everywhere the American flag commanded the 
highest respect. Two new States (Arkansas and Michigan) had been added to 
the Union. The original thirteen had doubled, and great activity prevailed in 
every part of the Republic. Satisfaction with the administration generally pre- 
vailed, and it was understood that Van Buren would continue the policy of his 
predeces.sor, if elected. He received a large majority ; but the people, having 
failed to elect a Vice-President, the Senate chose Richard M. Johnson, of Ken- 
tucky, who had been a candidate with Van Buren, to fill that station. 

Much excitement was produced, and bitter feelings were engendered, toward 
President Jackson, by his last official act. A circular was issued from the 
Treasury department on the 11th of July, 1836, requiring all collectors of the 
public revenue to receive nothing but gold and silver in payment. This was 
intended to check speculations in the public lands, but it also bore heavily 
upon every kind of business. The "specie circular" was denounced; and so 
loud was the clamor, that toward the close of the session in 1837, both Houses 
of Congress adopted a partial repeal of it. Jackson refused to sign the bill, 
and by keeping it in his possession until after the adjournment of Congress, 
prevented it becoming a law. On the 4th of March, 1837, he retired from pub- 
lic life, to enjoy that repose which an exceedingly active career entitled him to. 
He was thea seventy years of age. 



CHAPTER X. 

VAN BUREN'S ADMINISTRATION. [18 3 7 — 1841.] 

Martin Van Buren," the eighth President of the United States, seemed 
to stand, at the time of his inauguration — on the 4th of March, 1837 — at the 
opening of a new era. All of his predecessors in the high office of Chief 
Magistrate of the Republic, had been descended of Britons, and were engaged 
in the old struggle for Independence Van Buren was of Dutch descent, and 
was born after the great conflict had ended, and the birth of the nation had 
occurred. The day of his inauguration was a remarkably pleasant one. Seated 
by the side of the venerable Jackson, in a pha3ton made from the wood of the 
frigate Constitution, which had been presented to the President by his political 

" Martin Van Buren was bom at Kinderhook, Columbia county, Now York, in December, 1782. 
He chose the profession oflaw. In 1815, he became Attornev-General of his native State, and In 
1S28 was elected Governor of the same. Havinsr served liis country in the Senate of the Ignited 
States, be wa-s appointed minister to Ensland in 1S31, and was elected Vice-President of the 
United States in the autumn of 1832. Since liis retirement from tlie presidency in 1841, Mr. Van 
Buren has .spent a greater portion of liis time on his estate in his native town. He visited Europe 
at the close of 1853, and was the first of the chief m.afristrates of the Republic who crossed the 
Atlantic after their term of ofSce had expired. Ex-President Fillmore followed his example in 
1855, and spent several months .ibroad. .Mr. V.cu Buren i.vcu ut iviuuerliook, alter hia retire- 
ment from public life, until his death, on the 24th of July, ]Sfi2. 



470 



TUK NATION. 



[18 Jt 



friends in New York, he was escorted from the presidential mansion to the 
capitol by a body of infantry and cavalry, and an immense assemblage of citi- 
zens. Upon a rostrum, erected on the ascent to the eastern portico of the cap- 
itol, he delivered his inaugural address, and took the prescribed oath of oflSce, 
administered by Chief Justice Taney.' 




At the moment when Mr. Van Buren entered the presidential mansion as 
Its occupant, the business of the country was on the verge of a terrible C()u\-nl- 
sion and utter prostration. The distressing effects of the removal of the public 
funds from the United States Bank,' in 1833 and 1834, and the operations of 
the "specie circular," ' had disappeared, in a measure, but as the remedies for 
the evil were superficial, the cure was only apparent. The chief remedy 
had been the free loaning of the public money to individuals by the State 
deposit banks ;' but a commercial disease was thus produced, more disastrous 
than the panic of 1833-34. A sudden expansion of the paper currency 
was the result. The State banks which accepted these deposits, supposed 
they would remain undisturbed until the government should need them 
for its use. Considering them as so much capital, they loaned tiieir own 
ftinds freely. But in January, 1836, Congress authorized the Secretary of the 
Treasury to distribute all the public funds, except five millions of dollars, 
among the several States, according to their representation. The funds were 

' He appointed John Forsrth Secretary of State ; Levi 'Woodhun-, Secretary of the Treasury; 
Joel R. Poinsett, Secretary of War ; Malilon Dickinson, Secretary ijf the Navy; Amo.« Kendall, 
Postmaster-Preneral ; and Benjamin F. Butler, Attorney-General. AU of them, except Mr. Poinsett, 
held their respective offices under President .Taoksnn. 

• Page 465. • Page 469. « Page 466. 



1841.] TAN BUREN'S ADMINISTRATION. 471 

accordingly taken from the deposit banks, after the 1st of January, 1837, and 
these banks being obliged to curtail their loans, a serious pecuniary embarrass- 
ruent was produced. The immediate consequences of such multiplied facilities 
for obtaining bank loans, -nere an immensely increased importation of foreign 
goods, inordinate stimulation of all industrial pursuits and internal improve- 
ments, and the operation of a spirit of speculation, especially in real estate, 
which assumed the features of a mania, in 1836. A hundred cities were 
founded, and a thousand villages were " laid out" on broad sheets of paper, and 
made the basis of vast money transactions. Borrowed capital was thus diverted 
from its sober, legitimate uses, to the fostering of schemes as unstable as water, 
and as unreal in their fancied results as dreams of fairy-land. Overtrading, 
and speculation, which had relied for support upon continued bank loans, waa 
suddenly checked by the necessary bank contractions, on account of the removal 
of the government funds from their custody ; and during March and April, 
1837, there were mercantile failures in the city of New York alone, to the 
amount of more than a hundred millions of dollars.' Fifteen months before 
[December, 1835], property to the amount of more than twenty millions of 
dollars had been destroyed by fire in the city of New York, when five hundred 
and twenty-nine buildings were consumed. The effects of these failures and 
losses were felt to the remotest borders of the Union, and credit and con- 
fidence were destroyed. 

Early in May, 1837, a deputation from the merchants and bankers of New 
Y'ork, waited upon the President, and solicited him to defer the collection of 
duties on imported goods, rescind the "specie circular," and to call an extra- 
ordinary session of Congress to adopt relief measures. The President declined 
to act on their petitions. When his determination was known, all the banks 
in New York suspended specie payments [May 10, 1837], and their example 
was speedily followed in Boston, Providence, Hartford, Albany, Philadelphia, 
Baltimore, and in smaller towns throughout the country. On the 16th of May 
the Legislature of New York passed an act, authorizing the suspension of 
specie payments for one year. The measure embarrassed the general govern- 
ment, and it was unable to obtain gold and silver to discharge its own obliga- 
tions. The public good now demanded legislative relief, and an extraordinary 
session of Congress was convened by the President on the 4th of September. 
During a session of forty-three days, it did little for the general relief, except 
the passage of a bill authorizing the issue of treasury notes, not to exceed in 
amount ten millions of dollars." 

During the year 1837, the peaceful relations which had long existed between 
the United States and Great Britain, were somewhat disturbed by a revolution- 

' In two days, houses in New Orleans stopped payment, owing an aggregate of twenty-seven 
millions of dollars ; and in Boston one hundred and sixty-eight failures took place in six montlis. 

^ In his message to Congress at this session, the President proposed the establishment of an 
independent treasury, for the safe keeping of the pubhc funds, and their entire and total separation 
from banking institutions. This scheme met with vehement opposition. The bill passed the Sen- 
ate, but waa lost in the House. It was debated at suljsequent sessions, and finally became a law 
on the 4th of July, 1840. This is known as the Sub- Treasury Scheme. 



472 TIIK NATION. fl83T. 

ary movement in Canada which, at one time, seemed to promise a separation of 
that province from the British crown. The agitation and the outbreak appeared 
simultaneously in Upper and Lower Canada. In the former province, the most 
conspicuous leader was William Lyon M'Keuzie, a Scotchman, of rare abilities 
as a political writer and an agitator, and a republican in sentiment ; and in the 
latter province, Louis Joseph Papineau, a large land-owner, and a very influ- 
ential man among the French population. The movements of the Revolution- 
ary party were well planned, but local jealousies prevented unity of action, and 
the scheme failed. It was esteemed a highly patriotic effort to secure indepcnd- 
tice and nationality for the people of the Canadas, and, as in the case of Cuba, 
at a later period,' the warmest sympathies of the Americans were enlisted, 
especially at the North. Banded companies and individuals joined the rebels ;' 
and so general became this active sympathy on the northern frontier, that peace 
between the two governments was jeoparded. President Van Buren issued a 
proclamation, calling upon all persons engaged in the schemes of invasion of 
Canada, to abandon the design, and warning them to beware of the penalties 
that must assuredly follow such infractions of international laws. In 1838, 
General Scott was sent to the frontier to preserve order, and was assisted by 
proclamations of the Governor of New York. Yet secret revolutionary associ- 
ations, called "Hunter's Lodges," continued for a long time. For about four 
years, that cloud hung upon our northern horizon, when, in September, 1841, 
President Tyler issued an admonitory proclamation, specially directed to the 
members of the Hunter's Lodges, which prevented further aggressive move- 
ments. The leaders of the revolt were either dead or in exile, and quiet was 
restored. 

While this excitement was at its height, long disputes concerning the bound- 
ary between the State of Maine and the British province of New Brunswick, 
ripened into armed preparations for settling the matter by combat. This, too, 
threatened danger to the peaceful relations between the two governments. The 
President sent General Scott to the theater of the dispute, in the winter of 
1839, and by his wise and conciliatory measures, he prevented bloodshed, and 
produced quiet. The whole matter was finally settled by a treaty [August 20, 
1842], negotiated at Washington City, by Daniel Webster for the United 
States, and Lord Ashburton for Great Britain. The latter had been sent as 
special minister for the purpose. Besides settling the boundary question, this 
agreement, known as the Ashburton Treaty, provided for the final suppression 
of the slave-trade, and for the giving up of criminal fugitives from justice, in 
certain cases. 

A new presidential election now approached. On the 5th of May, 1840, a 

' Page 502. 

' A party of Americans took possession of Navy Island, situated in the Niagara River about 
two miles above the Falls, and belonging to Canada. They niuubered seven hundred strong, well 
provisioned, and provided -with twenty pieces of cannon. They had a small steamboat named 
Caroline, to ply between Schlo.sscr, on the American side, and Navy Island. On a dark night in 
December, 1837, a party of royalists from the Canada shore crossed over, cut the Caroline loose, 
sot her on fire, and she went over the great cataract while in full blaze. It was believed that som» 
persons were on board the vessel at the time. 



1841.] HARRISON'S AND TYLER'S ADMINISTRATION. 473 

national Democratic convention assembled at Baltimore, and unanimously nom- 
inated Mr. Van Buren for President. No nomination was made for Vice-Pres- 
ident, but soon afterward, Richard M. Johnson' and James K. Polk were 
selected as candidates for that ofSce, in different States. A national Whig" con- 
vention had been held at Harrisburg, in Pennsylvania, on the 4th of December 
previous [1839], when General William H. Harrison, of Ohio, the popular 
leader in the North-West, in the War of 1812,' was nominated for President, 
and John Tyler, of Virginia, for Vice-President. Never, before, was the 
country so excited by an election, and never before was a presidential contest 
characterized by such demoralizing proceedings.'' The government, under Mr. 
Van Buren, being held responsible by the opposition for the business depres- 
sion which yet brooded over the country, public speakers arrayed vast masses 
of the people against the President, and Harrison and Tyler were elected by 
overwhelming majorities. And now, at the close of the first fifty years of the 
Republic, the population had increased from three and a half millions, of all 
colors, to seventeen millions. A magazine writer of the day," in comparing 
several administrations, remarked that " The great events of Mr. Van Buren's 
administration, by which it will hereafter be known and designated, is the 
divorce of bank and State" in the fiscal affairs ofthe National government, and 
the return, after half a century of deviation, to the original design of the Con- 
stitution." 



CHAPTER XI. 

HARRISON'S AND TYLER'S ADMINISTRATION. [1841—1845.] 

The city of Washington was thronged with people from every State in the 
Union, on the 4th of March, 1841, to witness the ceremonies of the inauguration of 
General William Henry Harrison,' the ninth President of the United States. He 

■ Page 424. ' Note 2, page 466. => Pages 416 to 424, inclusive. 

' Because General Harrison lived in the West, and his residence was associated -nith pioneer 
life, a log-cabin became the symbol of his party. These cabins were erected all over the country, 
in wliich meetings were held ; and, as the hospitaUty of the old hero was symbolized by a barrel 
of cider, made free to aU visiters or strangers, who '' never found the latch-string of his log-cabin 
drawn in," that beverage wa^ dealt out unsparingly to all who attended the meetings in the cabins. 
These meetings were scenes of carousal, deeply injurious to all who participated in them, and 
especially to the young. Thousands of drunkards, in after years, dated their departure from sobri- 
ety to the "Hard Cider" campaign of 1840. 

' Democratic Review, April, 1840. 

' This is in aUusiou to the sub-treasury scheme. Mr. Tan Buren remarked to a friend, just 
previous to sending his message to Congress, in which he proposed that plan for collecting and 
keeping the public moneys : "Vie can not know how the immediate convulsion may result; but 
the people wiU, at all events, eventually come right, and posterity at least will do mo justice. Be 
the present issue for good or for evil, it is for posterity that I will write this message." 

' William Henry Harrison, son of one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, was. 
bom near the banks ofthe James River, in Charles City county, Virgiuia, in February, 1773. Ha 
was educated at Hampden Sydney College, and was prepared, by studies, for a physician, but en- 
tered the army as ensign in the United States artillery, in 1791. He was Secretary ofthe North- 



474 



THK NATION. 



[1841 



was then an old man, having passed almost a month beyond the age of sixty-eight 
years. Yet there was a vigor in his movements quite remarkable for one of 
that age, and who had passed through so many hardships and physical labors. 
From a platform over the ascent to the eastern portico of the Capitol, where 
Mr. Van Buren delivered his inaugural address, General Harrison, in a clear 




/o^ /^/fe-^-i-^M^ 



voice, read his. He was frequently interrupted by cheers during the reading. 
When it was concluded. Chief Justice Taney administered the oath of office, and 
three successive cannon peals announced the fact that the Republic had a new 
President. Harrison immediately nominated his cabinet officers,' and these 
were all confirmed by the Senate, then in session. 

President Harrison's inaugural speech was well received by all parties, and 
the dawn of his administration gave omens of a brighter day for the country. 
When his Address went over the land, and the wisdom of his choice of cabinet 



western Territory in 1797 ; and at the aeo of twcnty-?ix ve.irs, wn3 elected the first delegate to 
Congress from that domain. He was afterward appointed povemor of Indiana Territorr, and was 
rery active during the War of 1812. See pages 416 to 424 inclusive. At its close be retired to 
"^is farm at North Bend, on the banks of the Ohio. lie served in the national council for four 
years [1824 to 1828] as United States senator, when he was appointed minister to Colombia, one of 
the South American republics. He was finally raised to the jiighest post of honor in the nation. 
His last disease was pneumonia, or bilious pleuripv, which tcnninated his life in a few days. His 
last words were (thinicing he was addressing his successor in offieel: "Sir, I wish you to under- 
stand the principles of the government. I wish tliem carried out. I ask nothing more." 

' Paniel Webster, Secretary of State ; Thomas Kwing, Secretary of the Treasury ; John Bell, 
Secretar)' of War ; George E. Badger, Secretarj- of the Navy ; Francis Granger, PostBiaBter-G«a- 
«ral ; and J. J. Crittenden, Attorney-General 



1845.] TYLER'S ADMINISTRATION. 475 

counselors was known, prosperity was half restored, for confidence was re- 
enthroned in the commercial world. But all the hopes which centered in the 
new President were soon extinguished, and the anthems of the inaugural day 
were speedily changed to solemn requiems. Precisely one month after he uttered 
his oath of office, the new President died. That sad event occurred on the 4th 
day of April, 1841. Before he had fairly placed his hand upon the machinery of 
the government, it was paralyzed, and the only official act of general importance 
performed by President Harrison during his brief administration, was the issu- 
ing of a proclamation, on the 17th of March, calling an extraordinary session 
of Congress, to commence at the close of the following May, to legislate upon 
the subjects of finance and revenue.' 

In accordance with the provisions of the Constitution, the Vice-President 
became the official successor of the deceased President ; and on the Cth of April 
the oath of office was administered to 

JOHN TYLER.' 

He retained the cabinet appointed by President Harrison until September fol- 
lowing, when all but the Secretary of State resigned.' 

The extraordinary session of Congress called by President Harrison, com- 
menced its session on the appointed day [May 31, 1841], and continued until 
the 13th of September following. The Sub-Treasury act' was repealed, and a 
general Bankrupt law was enacted. This humane law accomplished a material 
benefit. Thousands of honest and enterprising men had been crushed by the 

' The predecessors of Harrison had called extraordinary sessions of Congress, as follows : John 
Adams, on the 16th of May, 1797 ; Thomas Jefferson, on the 17th of October, -1808, to provide for 
carrymg the treaty of Louisiana into effect ; James Madison, on tlie 23d of May, 1809, and also on 
the 25th of May, 1813 ; and Martin Van Buren, on tlie 4th of September, 1837. 

' On the 4th of April, the members of Harrison's cabinet dispatched Fletcher 'Welister, chief 
clerk in the State Department, with a letter to Mr. Tyler, announcing the death of the President. 
Mr. Tyler was then at WiUiamsburg. So great was "the dispatch, both by the messenger and the 
Vice-President, that the latter arrived in Washington on Tuesday morning, the 6th of April, at four 
o'clock. As doubts might arise concerning the validity of his oath of office as Vice-President, while 
acting as President, Mr. Tyler took the oatli anew, as Chief Magistrate, before Judge Cranch, of 
Washington city. On the following day he attended the funeral of President Harrison John 
Tyler was born in Charles City county, Virginia, in March, 1790. He was so precocious that he 
entered William and Mary College at tlie age of twelve years. He graduated at the age of seven- 
teen, studied law, and at nineteen he was a practicing lawyer. At the age of twenty he was 
elected a member of the Virginia Legislature, where he served for several years. He was elected 
to Congress to fill a vacancy caused by death, in 1816, when only twenty-six years of age. He was 
there again in 1819. In 1825 he was elected governor of Virginia. Ho was afterward sent to the 
Senate of the United States ; and he was much in pubho life until the close of his Presidential ca- 
reer. He took part witli the ent-mies of the Republic in the late Civil War, and died in RioJi- 
mond, Virginia, on the 18th ol January, 1862. 

° He then appointed Walter Forward, Secretary cf the Treasury ; John C. Spencer, Secretary 
of War ; Abel P. Upshur, Secretary of the Navy : Charles A. Wiekliffe. Postmaster-General ; and 
Hugh S. Legare, Attorney-General. Mr. Tyler had the misfirtune to lose three of his cabinet of- 
ficers, by death, in the course of a few months. Mr. Legare accompanied the President to Boston, 
on the occasion of celebrating the completion of the Bunker Hill monument [page 235]. in June, 
1843, and died there On the 2Sth of February following, the bursting of a gim on board the steam- 
ship Prinreton, while on an excursion upon the Potomac, killed Mr. Upshur, then Secretary of State ; 
Mr. Gilmer, Secretary of the Navy; and several other distinpuislvd gentlemen. Tlie President and 
many ladies were on board. Among the killed was Mr. Gardiner, of the State of New York, 
whose daughter the President soon afterward married. * Note 2, page 471. 



476 



T n ]•: X A T 1 o N . 



[1841. 



recent business revulsion, and Tvcre so laden with debt as to bo hopelessly 
chained to a narrow sphere of action. The law relieved them ; and while it 
bore heavily ujwn the creditor class, for a while, its operations were beneficent 
and useful. When dishonest men began to make it a pretense for cheating, it 
was repealed, But the chief object sought to be obtained during this session. 




'.^r— 



namely, the chartering of a Bank of the United States, was not achieved. Two 
separate bills' for that purpose were vetoed' by the President, who, like Jack- 
son, thought be perceived great evils to be apprehended from the workings of 
such an institution. The course of the President was vehemently censured by 
the party in power, and the last veto led to the dissolution of his cabinet. Mr. 
Webster patriotically remained at his post, for great public interests would have 
suffered by his withdrawal, at that time. 

The year 1842 (secoml of Mr. Tyler's administration) was distinguished by 
the return of the United States Exploring E.\pedition ; the settlement of tho 
North-eastern boundary question; essential modifications of the tariff: and 
domestic difficulties in Khode Island. The exploring expedition, commanded by 
Lieutenant Wilkes, of the United States navy, had been sent, several years be- 
fore, to traverse and explore the great southern ocean. It coasted along what 



' One was passed on the 6th of Auifust, 1841 ; the other, modified so bs to meet the Prea- 
dent's objections, as it was believoJ, passed Soptomber 9th. • Note 6, page 462. 



1845.] TYLER'S ADMINISTRATION. 477 

is supposed to be an Antarctic continent, for seventeen hundred miles in the 
vicinity of latitude 66 degrees south, and bct-weeu longitude 96 and 154 degrees 
east. The expedition brought home a great many curiosities of island human 
life, and a largo number of fine sj)ecimens of natural history, all of which are 
now [1S83] well preserved in the custody of the National Institute, Smithsonian 
building, in Washington city. The expedition made a voyage of about ninety 
thousand miles, equal to almost four times the circumference of the globe. 

The modifications of the tariif were imjiortant. By the compromise act of 
1832,' duties on foreign goods were to reach the minimum of reduction at the 
close of 1842, when the tariff would only provide revenue, uo\i protection to 
Wirtwiz/ac^i^-cs, like that of 1828." The latter object appeared desirable; and 
by an act passed on the 29th of June, 1842, high tariffs were imposed on 
many foreign articles. The President vetoed it ; but a bill, less objectionable, 
received his assent on the 9th of August. 

The difficulties in Rhode Island originated in a movement to adopt a 
■ State Constitution of government, and to abandon the old charter given by 
Charles the Second,' in 1GG3, under which the people had been ruled for one 
hundred and eighty years. Disputes arose concerning the proper method to be 
pursued in making the change, and these assumed a serious aspect. Two par- 
ties were formed, known, respectively, as the "suffrage." or radical party; the 
other as the " law and order," or conservative party. Each formed a Constitu- 
tion, elected a governor and legislature,' and finally armed [May and June, 
1843] in defense of their respective claims. The State was on the verge of i 
civil war, and theaidof National troops had to bo invoked, to restore quiet and 
order. A free Constitution, adopted by the "law and order" party in Novem- 
ber, 1842, to go into operation on the first Tuesday in May, 1843, was sus- 
tained, and became the law of the land. 

During the last year of President Tyler's administration, the country was 
much agitated by discussions concerning the proposed admission of the independ- 
ent republic of Texas, on our south-west frontier, as a State of the Union. 
The proposition was warmly opposed at the North, because the annexation 
would increase the area and political strength of slavery, and lead to a war with 
Mexico." A treaty for admission, signed at Washington on the 12th of April, 

' P(^e 464. » Pago 459. ' Pago 158. 

' The " suffrage" party elected Thomas W. Dorr, governor, and the " law and order" party 
chose Samuel W. King for chief magistrate. Dorr was finally arrested, tried for and convicted of 
treason, and sentenced to imprisc>nnient for life. Tlie excitement having passed aw.ay, iu a meas- 
ure, he was released in June, 1S45, but was deprived of all the ci%TJ rights of a citizen. These dis- 
abilities were removed in the autumn of 1853. 

° Texas was a part of the domain of that ancient Mexico conquered by Cortez [page 43]. In 
1824, Mexico became a republic under Generals Victoria and Santa Anna, and was divided into 
States united by a Federal Constitution. One of these was Texas, a territory which was origin- 
ally claimed by the United States aa a part of Louisiana, purchased [page 390] from France in 
1803, but ceded to Spain in 1S20. In ].'<21-22, a colony from the United States, under Stephen 
F. Austin, made a settlement on both sides of the Colorado River; and the Spanish government 
favoring immigration thither, caused a rapid increase in the population. There were ten thousand 
Americans in that province in 1833. Santa Anna became military dictator : and the people of 
Texas, unwilling to submit to his arbitrary rule, rebelled. A war ensued ; and on the 2d of March, 
1836. a convention declared Texas indcprndent. Much bloodshed occurred afterward ; but a final 



478 THK XATIOX. [1845. 

1844, was rejected hy the Senate on the 8th of June following. To the next 
Congress the proposition was presented in the form of a joint resolution, and 
received the concurrence of both Houses on the 1st of Murch, 1845, and 
the assent of the President on the same day. This measure had an important 
bearing upon the Presidential election in 1844. It became more and more pop- 
ular with the people throughout the Union, and James K. Polk, of Tennessee, 
who was pledged in favor of the measure, was nominated for the ofiSce of Pres- 
ident of the United States, by the National Democratic Convention, assembled 
at Baltimore on the 27th of May, 1844. George M. Dallas was nominated for 
Vice-President at the same time ; and in November following, they were both 
elected. The opposing candidates were Henry Clay and Theodore Frelinghuy- 
sen. The last important official act of President Tyler was the signing, on the 
3d of March, 1845, of the bill for the admission of Florida and Iowa into the 
Union of States. 



CHAPTER XII. 

rOLK'S ADMINISTRATION. [1845 — 1849.] 

Never before had so large a concourse of people assembled at the National 
city, to witness the inauguration of a new Chief Magistrate of the nation, as on the 
4th of March, 1845, when James Knox Polk,' of Tennessee, the tenth President of 
the United States, took the oath of office, administered by Chief Justice Taney. 
The day was unpleasant. A lowering morning precetled a rainy day, and the 
pleasures of the occasion were marred thereby. The address of the President, 
on that occasion, clearly indicated that energetic policy which distinguished his 
administration. On the day of his inauguration he nominated his cabinet 
officers,' and the Senate being in session, immediately confirmed them. 

Among the most important topics which claimed the attention jof the admin- 
istration, were the annexation of Texas, and the claims of Great Britain to a 
large portion of the vast territory of Oregon, on the Pacific coast. The former 

hattla of San Jacinto, in whicli tho Texaiis were led by General Sam Houaton, afterward a 
United States Senator from Texas, vindicated tlie jiosition the people had taken, and terminated 
the strife. Texas remained an independent republic until its admission into our National Union 
in 1845. 

' James K. Polk was bom in Ifecklenburg county, Nortli Carolina, in November, 1795. "Whila 
he was a child, his fatlier si-ttlod in Tennessee ; and tlie first appearance of younp Polk in public 
Ufe, was as a member of tlio Tennessee Legi.'daturo, in l>*23. lie had been admitted to tiie bar 
three years before, b>it public life kept him from tlie practice of his profession, except at intervals. 
He was elected to Congress in 1S25, and was in that body almost continually until elevated to ths 
Presidential chair. lie was elected Speaker of the House of Representatives in 1835, and contin- 
ued in tlio performance of the duties of tliat office during five consecutive sessions. He was elected 
governor of Tennessee in 1839, and President of the Ignited States in 1844. He retired to hi» 
residence, near Knoxville, Tennessee, at tho close of liis term, in 1849, and died there in June of 
tho same vear. . , _ .r,..,,. 

' Jam"es Puchanan, Secretarv of State; Robert J. Walker. Secretary of the Treasury; Wilham 
L. M.arcy, Secretary of War; George Bancroft. Secretary of the Navy; Cave Johnflon, Poatmaater- 
Gcneral'; and John Y. Mason, Attorney-General. 



1849.] POLK'S ADMINISTRATION. 479 

demanded and received the earliest consideration. On the last day of his offi- 
cial term, President Tyler had sent a messenger to the Texan Government, 
with a copy of the joint resolutions of the American Congress,' in favor of an- 
nexation. These were considered by a convention of delegates, called for the 
purpose of forming a State Constitution for Texas. That body approved of the 
measure, by resolution, on the 4th of July, 1845. On that day Texas became 




one of the States of our Republic. Tlie other momentous subject (the claims 
of Great Britain to certain portions of Oregon), also received prompt atten- 
tion. That vast territory, between the Rocky Mountains and the Paciiic, 
had been, for some time, a subject of dispute between the two countries.' In 
1818, it was mutually agreed that each nation should equally enjoy the privileges 
of all the bays and harbors on the coast, for ten years. This agreement was re- 
newed in 1827, for an indefinite time, with the stipulation, that either party 
might rescind it by giving the other party twelve months' notice. Such notice 



' Tho communication was made through A. J. Donelson, tlie " American" candidate for Vice- 
President of the United States, in 185G, who was our Charge d'Affah-es to the Texan Government. 

" Captain Grey, of Boston, entered the mouth of tlie Columbia River in IT 92, and Captains 
Lewis and Clarke explored that region, from the Rocky Mountains westward, in 1804— '5. In 1811, 
the late J. J. Astor estabUshed a trading station at the mouth of the Columbia River. ^ The British 
doctrine, always practiced hy them, that the entrance of a vessel of a civilized nation into tho 
mouth of a river, gives title, by the right of discovery, to the territory watered by that river and 
its tributaries, clearly gave Oregon to 54 degrees 40 minutes, to the Upited States, for the dis- 
covery of Captain Grey, in 1792, was not disputed. 



480 THE NATION. [1845. 

■was given by the United State3 in 1846, and the boundary was then fixed by 
treaty, made at Washington city, in June of that year. Great Britain claimed 
the whole territory to 5-1' 40' north latitude, the right to which was disputed 
by the United States. The boundary line was finally fixed at latitude 49'; 
and in 1848, a territorial government was established. In March, 1853, Ore- 
gon was divided, and the north. ^rn portion was made a separate domain, by the 
title of Washington Territory. 

The annexation of Texas, as had been predicted, caused an immediate rup- 
ture between the United States and Mexico ; for the latter claimed Texas as a 
part of its territory, notwithstanding its independence had been acknowledged 
by the United States, England, France, and other governments. Soon after 
[March G, 1845] Congress had adopted the joint resolution for the admission 
of that State into the Union,' General Almonte, the Mexican minister at Wash- 
ington, formally protested against that measure, and demanded his ]ia.<sports. 
On the 4th of June following. General Ilerrera, President of Mexico, issued a 
proclamation, declaring the rights of Mexico, and his determination to defend 
them — by arms, if necessary. But, independent of the act complained of. there 
already existed a cause for serious disputes between the United States and 
ISIexico." Ever since the establishment of republican government by the latter, 
in 1824, it had been an unjust and injurious neighbor. Impoverished by civil 
■wars, its authorities did not hesitate to replenish its Treasury by plundering 
American vessels in the Gulf of Mexico, or by confiscating the property of 
American merchants within its borders. The United States government 
remonstrated in vain, until, in 1831, a treaty was formed, and promises of 
redress ■were made. But aggressions continued ; and in 1840, the aggregate 
amount of American property which had been appropriated by Mexicans, was 
more than six millions of dollars. The claim for this amount remained unset- 
tled' ■when the annexation of Texas occurred [July 4, 1845], and peaceful 
relations between the two governments were suspended. 

The President being fully aware of the hostile feelings of the Mexicans, 
ordered [July] General Zachary Taylor,* then in command of troops in the 
South-AVest, to proceed to Texas, and t;iko a position as near the Kio Grande,' 
as prudence would allow. This force, about fifteen hundred strong, -was called 
the "Army of Occupation," for the defense of Texas. At the same time, a 
strong squadron, under Commodore Conner, sailed for the Gulf of Mexico, to 
protect American interests there. General Taylor first landed on the 25th of 
July on St. Joseph's Island," and then embarked for Corpus Christi, a Mexican 

' Pago 478. ' Pronounced May-hee-co by the Spaniards. 

' Commissioners appointed by the two governments to adjust these claims, met in 1840. Tho 
Mexiciii coinmissioiiers aoknowlcdped two millions of dollars, and no mere. In 1843 the whole 
amount was .icknowlodged by Mexico, and the payment was to be made in instalments of threo 
hundred thousand dollars each, (inly three of these instalments bad been paid in 1845, and tho 
Mexican government refused to decide whether the remainder should be settled or not 

' Taylor's actual rank in the army list was only that of Colonel. He had been made a Brig- 
adier-General by iTet'el, for his good conduct in the Florida War [page 4GS]. A title by iTevel is 
only honorary. " Taylor held the titk of Brigadier-General, but received only the paij of a Colonel. 

' Greaf or Grand river. Also called liio Bravo (hi Xorle — Brave North river. 

* There tho flag of tho United States was first displayed in power over lesaa soil. 



1849.] POLK'S ADMINISTRATION. 481 

village beyond the Nueces, and near its mouth. There he formed a camp 
[September, 1845], and remained during the succeeding autumn and winter. 
It was during the gathering of this storm of war on our south-western frontier, 
that the difficulties with Great Britain, concerning Oregon, occurred, which we 
have already considered. 

By a dispatch dated January 13, 1846, the Secretary of War ordered Gen- 
eral Taylor to advance from Corpus Christi to near the mouth of the Rio 
Grande, opposite the Spanish city of Matamoras, because Mexican troops were 
then gathering in that direction, with the evident intention of invading Texas. 
This was disputed territory between Texas and the Mexican province of Tamau- 
lipas ; and when, on the 25th of March, he encamped at Point Isabel, on the coast, 
about twenty-eight miles from Matamoras, General Taylor was warned by the 
Mexicans that he was upon foreign soil. Regardless of menaces, he left his stores 
at Point Isabel, under Major Monroe and four hundred aiid fifty men, and with the 
remainderof his army advanced [March 28, 1846J to the bank of the Rio Grande, 
where ho established a fortified camp, and commenced the erection of a fort.' 

President Herrera's desire for peace with the United States made him un- 
popular, and the Mexican people elected General Paredes" to succeed him. 
That officer immediately dispatched General Ampudia' with a large force, to 
Matamoras, to drive the Americans beyond the Nueces. Ampudia arrived on 
the 11th of April, 1846, and the next day he sent a letter to General Taylor, 
demanding his withdrawal within twenty-four hours. Taylor refused compli- 
ance, and continued to strengthen his camp. Ampudia hesitated ; and on the 
24th of that month he w^as succeeded in command by the more energetic 
Arista,* the commander-in-chief of the northern division of the army of Mexico, 
whose reported reinforcements made it probable that some decisive action would 
soon take place. This change of affairs was unfavorable to the Americans, and 
the situation of the " Army of Occupation" was now becoming very critical. 
Parties of armed Mexicans had got between Taylor and his stores at Point 
Isabel, and had cut off all inter-communication. Arista's army was hourly 
gathering strength ; and already an American reconnoitering party, under 
Captain Thornton,'' had l)een killed or caj)tured [April 24] on the Texas side of 
the Rio Grande. This was the first blood shed in 

THE V,' A R W ITU MEXICO. 

When he had nearly completed the fort opposite Matamoras, General Tay- 
lor hastened [May 1], with his army, to the relief of Point Isabel, which was 
menaced by a large Mexican force" collected in his rear. He left a regiment 

■ It was named Fort Brown, in honor of Major Brown, tlie officer in command there. It waa 
erected under the superintendence of Captain Mansfield, and was large enough to accommodate 
about two thousand men. ^ Pronounced Pa-rav-dhes. 

^ Pronounced Am-poo-dhee-ah. * Pronounced Ah-rees-tah. 

' General Taylor had been informed that a body of Mexican troops were crossing the Rio 
Grande, above his encampment, and he sent Captain Thornton, with si.'cty dragoons, to reconnoitre. 
They were surprised and captured. Si.'iteen Americans were killed, and Captain Thornton escaped 
by an extraordinary leap of his horse. 

• General Taylor was apprised of this force of fifteen hundred Mexicans, by Captain Walker, 

31 



482 TllK XATION'. [1845. 

of infantry and two companies of artillery, under Major Brown (in whose 

honor, as wo have just observod, the fortifioatioii was named), to defend the 
fort, and reaclied I'oint Isabel the same day, without molestation. This 
departure produced great joy in Matamoras, for the Mexicans regarded it as a 
cowardly retreat. I'reparatiDns wen; immediately made to attack Fort Erown ; 
and on the morning of the od of May [184t)J, a hattery at Matamoras opened 
a heavy cannonade and bombardment upon it, while quite a large body of 
troops crossed the river, to attack it in the rear. General Taylor had left 
orders that, in the event of an attack, and aid being rctjuired, heavy signal-guns 
should bo fired at the fort. For a long time the little garrison made a noblo 
defense, and silenced the Mexican liattery ; Imt when, hiially, the enemy g:ith- 
ered in strength in the rear, and connneiiced planting cannons, and the heroic 
Major ]}rown was mortally wounded,' the signals were given [May 6], and 
Taylor prepared to march for tlu^ Kii> (Jrande. lie left I'oint Isabel on the 
evening of the 7th, with a little more than two thousand men, having bet^n 
reinforced by Texas volunteers, and marines from the A'lieriean ileet then 
blockading tlie mouth of the Rio Grande. At noon, the iie.xt day [May H], 
they discovered a Mexican army, under Arista, full six thousand strong, drawn 
up in battle array iipon a portion of a jirairie Hanked by ponds of water, and 
beautified by trees, which gave it the name of I'alo Alto. As soon a,s his men 
could take refreshments, Taylor formed his army, and pressed forward to the 
attack. For five hours a hot contest was maintained, wiicn, at twilight, the 
^lexicans gave way and iled, and victory, thorough and complete, was with the 
Americans. It had been an afternoon of terrible excitement and fatigue, and 
when the firing ceased, the victors sank exhausted upon the ground. They liad 
lost, in killed and woinided, fifty-three ;' the Mexicans lost about six hundriHl. 

At two o'clock in tiie morning of the IHli of May, the deep slumbers of the 
little army were broken by a sinumons to renew the march for Fort Brown. 
They saw no traces of the enemy until toward evening, when they di8a>vcrcd 
them strongly posted in a ravine, called Kcsaca de la Palma," drawn up in 
battle order. A shorter, but bloodier conflict than that at Palo Alto, the pre- 
vious day, ensued, and again the Americans were victorious. They lost, in 
killed and wounded, one hundred and ten ; the Mexican loss was at Iciist ono 
thousand. General La Vega* and a hundred men were made prisoners, and 



tho celebrated Texas Ranger, who had boon employed by Major Monroe to keep open a commani- 

cntion liotwoon Point Isabel and Taylor's oanip. Walker lind fonplit tlioni with liis sinKloi-oinixiny, 
uniiLHi with rovolviug pistols, and (ifter killing thirty, osoapcul, uud, witli ni.x of his men, ri'iichcd 
Taylor's I'ainp. 

' Ho lost n loK by tho biirsting of a bomb-shoU [noto 2, page 29G], and diod on tho Otli of May. 
Ho wa.s born in Wa,>).>i;u>lmnotts in 1788 ; was in tho war of 1812 ; was promotod to Major in 1843; 
and was lilly-oight years of age when ho diod. 

' Among tho fatally wounded was (Captain Page, a native of Maine, who died on the 12th of 
.Tuly following, at tho ago of forty-nine years. .Mso, Major Hinggold, eoniniander of tho Flying- 
Artillery, who died at Point Isabel, four days afterward, at tho age of forty-six years. 

• PronoiMieod Uay-aali-kah day la I'al-mali, or Dry Hirer of Palms. The ravine is supposed to 
be the bed of a driod-up stream. The spot is on the northerly siilo of tho Hio Tirande, about tlirco 
miles from Malamora.''. In lliis engagement, Taylor's liireo was about one lhousin\d seven hundrx'd; 
Arista had been reinforeeil, and had about seven tlioiisand men. 

' Lay A'aygoh. Ho was a bravo ofllcor, and was captured by Ca])tain May, who, rising iu hia 



18.19.] POLK'S AIiM 1 N ISTK ATION. 488 

eight pieces of cannon, three stiindanlrt, iiml ;i (niaiility of militiiry Htores, were 
capLured. The McxIc^mii iiniiy was (^oiiipli'tcly l)i'i)koii up. Arisla huvcmI hiiii- 
scir by solitary flight, and iiukIc iiia way aioiio ncrosH tiio ilio (Jraiidc. Alter 
suftering ii bombardment for one hundred and sixty iumi-.s, the garrison at Fort 
Blown were ndievcd, and tiie terrified Mexicans were trembling for the safety 
i)f IMatanioras. 

When intelligence of the first bloodshed, in the attack npon Captain Tliorn- 
ton and his parly, on tiie '2lth of April, aud a kiiowli'dge of the critical sitiia- 
tioTi of the little Army of Occupation, )-<!aciicd N(nv Orleans, and spread over 
the land, the whole country was aroused ; and before the liattles of Palo Alto 
and Ilosaca do la Paliiia- |May K, 9| vtcro known in the States, Congress had 
dcM^ared [May 11, lyl<i| that, "by the act of the Republic of Mexico, a state 
of war exists between that government and the United States ;" authorized the 
J'resident to raise fifty thousand volunteers, and ajiproprialcd ten nnllions of 
dollars |May l;!| towanl carrying on the contest. Within two days, the Sce- 
rebiry of War and General Scott' planned [May Ift] a campaign, greater in the 
territorial extent of its proposed opcratiotis. tiiaii any rccoriled in history. A 
llei't was to swc(^p around Cape Horn, and attack the Pacific coast of Mexico; 
an " Army of the West" was to gather ut I''ort Leavenworth,'' invade New 
Mexico, and co-operate with the Pacific llect ; and an " Army of the Center" 
was to rendezvous in the lu^art of Texas, 'to invade Old Mexico from the north. 
On the 2;kl of the same month |May|, the Mexican government made a formal 
declaration of war against the United States. 

When news of the two brilliant victories reached the States, a llnill <]f joy 
went throughout the land, and bonfires, illuiMiiiations, orations, and liie thunder 
of cannons, were seen and hearil in all tlu^ great cities. In the mean while, 
(jciieral Taylor was in Mexico, prt'pariiig for other brilliant victories.' He 
crossed the Ilio Grande, drove the Mexican troops from Matamoras, and took 
jiosscssiou of that town on the IHth of May. T'hero Im! remained uiilil the close 
of August, receiving orders fntm government, and rc^iiiforcenieiits, and pn^par- 
ing to march into the interior. The first division of his army, under General 
Worth," iiiov(k1 toward Monterey" on the 20th. I'aylor, with tla; remainder (in 
all, more than six thousand men), fidlowed on the Sd of September; and on 
the I9th, the whole army' encamped within three miles of the doomed city, then 

stirnipH, HliDutod, " Itoincniluir yiiur rc'i^iiiii'iill Moii, lullciwl" iiiiil, wiUi liis (lra^,'l)o^.H, ruHliod for- 
wiinl ill tliu ru<;i) of a heavy Mm IVoiii a butUry, capturod \m Vega, killuil (ir (liHpiT.scd llm guiiiiorH, 
and took poHSOHsioii of Hid ciuiikiiw. ' Pago ■185, 

'' A Hti-Diig Unitciil Stat(!M pimt on tlio Bouthorn bank of tho Misaoiiri Kivor, on tho bordcra of 
tlio (Irout I'laiiiH. TlioHo plaiim oxtotid to tlio oiwtorn nlopos of tlio Rocky MouiitaiiiH. 

" At Saa Aiitoiiia do lioxar, llio coiitor of Aiwliii'M HutUomciit [note 0, pago '177], Houtli of (lia 
Ooloradi) rivor. 

* Oil tlio :tOtli of May ho was rewarded for IiIh Hkill and bravery by a comniiKHiou oh Major- 
Goiioral, hy hrevrl. Soo noto 4, ]iago 4H0. 

' William .1. Wortli was born in rolninbia county, Now York, in 1794. ITo was a gallant soldier 
during the War of 1812-15; was retained in tho lirniy, and for his gallantry at Monterey, was 
made a Major-! Joni-ral by lirfVf.l, and reeeivod the gill of a ssvoril from OoiigroHH. Ho was oi' great 
serviee iluriiig the whole war with Mexico, lie died in Texas in May, 1849. 

" I'roii.iiinei'd Mon-bir-niy. It is tho cmpital of Now heon. 

' The principal oHicei-H with lienoral Taylor, at tliiH time, wore OoiioraU Wortli, tjiiitninn, 
Twiggs, liiitler, Uundurson, ami Uainor. 



484 THE XATIOX. [1845. 

defended by General Anipudia," with more than nine thousand troops. It waa 
a strongly built town, at the foot of the great Sierra Madre, well fortified by 
both nature and art, and presented a formidable obstaele in the mareli of the 
victor toward the interior. But having secured the Saltillo road," by whicb 
supplies for the Mexicans in IMonterey were to bo obtained. General Taylor 
commenced a siege on tlie 21st of September. The conflict continued almost 
four days, a part of tlie time within the streets of the city, where the carnago 
was dreadful. Amnudia surrendered the town and garrison on the fourth day' 
[September 24J, and leaving General AVorth in command there. General Tay 
lor encamped at Walnut Springs, three miles distant, and awaited further 
orders from his government.' 

When Congress made the declaration of war, and authorized the raising of 
an army from the great body of the people. General AVool' was commissioned 
to muster and prepare for service, the gathering volunteers. lie performed 
this duty so j>romptly, that by the middle of July, twelve thousand of them 
had been inspected, and mustered into service. Nine tiiousand of them were 
sent to the Rio Grande, to reinforce General Taylor, and the remainder 
repaired to Be.\ar,° in Texas, where they were disciplined by General AVool, in 
person, preparatory to marching into the province of Chihuahua,' in the heart 
of Mexico. Wool went up the Rio Grande with about three thousand men, 
crossed the river at Presidio, and on the last day of October, reached Monclova, 
seventy miles north-west from Monterey. His kindness to tlie people won their 
confidence and esteem, and lie was regarded as a friend. Tiiere he was informed 
of the capture of Monterey, and guided by the advice of General Taylor, ho 
abandoned the project of penetrating Chihuahua, and marched to the fertile dis- 
trict of Parras, in Coahuila, where he obtained ample supplies for his own and 
Taylor's forces. 

The armistice" at Monterey ceased on the 13th of November, by order of 
the United States government, (icneral Worth, with nine hundred men. took 
possession of Saltillo [November 15, 184G], the capital of Coahuila," and Gen- 
eral Taylor, leaving General Butler in command at Monterey, marcbed for 
Victoria, the capital of Tamaulipas, with the intention of attacking Tampico, 

" Page 481. 

' This road passed through tho mountains along the San Juan river, and is the only commu- 
nication lietwoen Monterey and tho fertile provinces of Coahuila and Dutanpo. Tho command of 
this road was obtained afler a severe contest with Mexican cavalry, on tho 20th of May, by a party 
under General Wortli. 

" Tlie Mexican soldiers were permitted to march out witli the honors of war; and, being short 
of provisions, and assured that Santa Ann;i, now at tho head of the Mexicans, desired peace, Gen- 
eral Taylor agreed to a cessation of hostilities for eight weeks, if permitted by his government. 

* The Americans lost in killed, wounded, and missing, live hundred and sixty-one. Tho 
number lost by tho Mexicans was never ascertained, but it was supposed to bo more than one 
thousand. 

' John Ellis Wool is a native of New York. He entered the army in 1812, and soon rose to 
the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel, for gallant conduct on Queenstown Heights [page 413]. He was 
breveted brigadier in 1826, and for gallant conduct at Buena Vista, in 1847, was breveted Major- 
(ieneral. lie took an active jiart for his country in the late Civil War, and, in 18(i2, was 
appointed full Major-Cleneral. He died Nov. 10, 1869. 

° Austin's settlement. See note 5, page -m. ' Pronounced Chee-wali-wah. 

' Tho agreement for a cessation of hostilities is so called. * Pronounced Co-ah-weel-ah. 




1849.] POLK'S ADMINISTRATION. 485 

on the coast. That place had already surrendered' [November 14], and being 
informed that Santa Anna was collecting a large force at San Luis Potosi," he 
returned to Monterey, to reinforce General Worth, if necessary. Worth -was 
joined by Wool's division, near Saltillo, on the 20th of December, and Taylor 
again advanced and took possession of Victoria, on the 29th. 

And now the conquering Taylor was compelled to endure a severe trial of 
his temper and patriotism. General Scott' had arrived 
before Vera Cruz [January, 1847], for the purpose of 
invading Mexico from that point, and being the senior 
officer, took the supreme command. Just as Taylor 
was pi'eparing for a vigorous winter campaign, he re- 
ceived an order from General Scott, to send him a 
largo portion of his best officers and troops to assist 
against A^era Cruz, and to a-Jt thereafter only on the 
defensive.' T<iylor was deeply mortified, but, like a 
true soldier, instantly obeyed, and he and General 
Wool were left with an ao;o;recrato force of only about 

. . F'^ 1 1 1 , GENERAL SCOTT. 

nve thousand men (only nve hundretl regulars) to op- 
pose an army of twenty thousand, now gathering at San Luis Potosi, under 
Santa Anna. They united their forces at Agua Nueva,'' twenty miles south 
from Saltillo, on the San Luis road, early in February [Feb. 4, 1847], and 
weak as he was, Taylor determined to fight the Mexicans, who were now ad- 
vancing upon him. The opportunity was not long delayed. The Americans 
fell back [Feb. 21] to Buena Vista," within eleven miles of Saltillo, and there, 
in a narrow defile in the mountains, encamped in battle order. At about noon 
the ne.xt day [Feb. 22] — the anniversary of the birth of Washington — the Mex- 
ican army approached within two miles of them ; and Santa Anna assuring 
Taylor that he was surrounded by twenty thousand troops, and could not 
escape, ordered him to surrender within an hour. Taylor politely refused the 
request, and both armies prepared for battle.' There was some skirmising dur- 

' Commodore Connor, who commanded tho " Home Squadron" in the Gulf, captured Tampico. 
Tobasco and Tuspan were captured by Commodore Perry [page 512], in October following. 

' Santa Anna was elected provisional President of Mexico, in December, and in violation of his 
peace promises to Commodore Connor, he immediately placed himself at the head of the army. 

' Winfield Scott was born in Virginia in 1786. He was admitted to law practice at the age of 
twenty years. He joined tho army in 1808, was made Lieutenant-Colonel in 1812, and passed 
through the war that ensued, with great honor to himself and his country. Ho was breveted 
major-general in 1814, and was made general-in-chief of the army in 1841. His successes in Me.x- 
ico greatly added to his laurels. On the loth of February, 18,'j5, he was commissioned a Lieu- 
tenant-General. Owing to infirmities, he retired from active duty in the autumn of 1861. He 
died at West Point, May 29, 1866, one of tho greatest captains of the age. 

* The necessity for this order was as painful to General Scott as it was mortifying to General 
Taylor. Before leaving Washington, Scott wrote a long private letter to Taylor, apprising him of 
this necessity, expressing his sincere regrets, and speaking in highest praise of tho victories already- 
achieved in Mexico. ' Pronounced Ag-wah New-vah, or New Water. 

° Pronounced Bwe-naw Ves-tah — Pleasant View. This was tlie name of a hacienda (planta- 
tion) at Angostura. 

' Santa Anna wrote as follows: 

"Camp at Escatada. Febni.iry 22(1, 1847. 

"God and Liberty 1 — Tou are surrounded by twenty thousand men, and can not, in any 
human probability, avoid suffering a rout, and being cut to pieces with your troops ; but as you de- 



486 



T 1 1 K N A T I ( ) X , 



[1845. 



ing tlie afternoon, when tlio battle-ciy of the Americans was, "77(t' Memory 
of Washington .'" Early the following morning [Feb. 23] a terrible conflict 
coninienced. It was desperate and bloody, and continued until sunset. Sev- 
eral times the overwhelming numbers of the Mexicans appeared about to crush 
the little band of Americans ; and finally Santa Anna made a desperate assault' 
upon the American center, commanded by Taylor in per.son. It stood like a 
rock before a Iiillow ; and by the assistance of the artillery of Bragg, Wash- 
ington, and Sherman, the martial wave was rolled back, the Mexicans fled in 
confusion, and the Americans were masters of the bloody field. During the 
night succeeding the conflict, the Mexicans all withdrew, leaving their dead 

and wounded behind them.^ The invaders 
were now in possession of all the northern 
Mexican provinces, and Scott was prepar- 
ing to storm Vera Cruz' and march to the 
capital.' In the course of a few months 
General Taylor left Wool in command 
[Sept., 1847J, and returned home, every- 
where receivinK tt)kens of the hicliest re- 
gard from his countrymen. Let us now 
consider other operations of the war during this period. 

The command of the " Army .'the West"^ was given to General Kearney,' 
with instructions to conquer New Mexico and California. He left Fort Leaven- 
worth in June, and after a journey of nine hundred miles over the Great Plains 
and among the mountain ranges, he arrived at Santa Fe, the capital of New 




UElllON or TAYLOKS Ol'KRATlO.NS. 



serve consideration and particular esteem, I wish to save you from such a catastrophe, and for that 
purpose give you this notice, in order that you may surrender at discretion, under the assurance 
that you will be treated -n-itli tlio consideration belonging to the Mexican character; to which end 
you will be granted an hour's time to make up your mind, to commence from the moment that my 
flag of truce arrives in your camp. With this view, I assure you of my particular consideration. 

" Antonio Lopez dk Santa Anna. 

"To General Z. Taylor, Commanding the Forces of the U. S." 

General Taylor did not take the allotted time to make up his mind, but instantly sat down and 
wrote the following reply: 

" Head-quabters, Aemy of OcotJi'ATioN, Near Buoim Vlsta, Fub. 22(1, 1847. 

"Sin; In reply to your note of this date, summoning me to surrender my forces at discre- 
tion, I beg leave to say that I decline acceding to your request. With high respect, I am, sir, your 
obedient servant, Z. Taylor, Major-General U. S. Army." 

' To deceive the Americans, Santa Anna resorted to the contemptible trick of sending out a 
flag in token of surrender, at the moment of making the assault, hoping thereby to cause his 
enemy to bo less vigilant. Taylor was too well acquainted with Mexican treachery to be de- 
ceived. 

' The Americans lost two hundred and sixty-seven killed, four hundred and fifty-six wounded, 
and twenty-three missing. Tlio Mexicans lost almost two thousand. They left live hundred of 
their comrades dead on the field. Among the Americans slain was Lieutenant-Colonel Cl.ay, sou of 
the distinguished Henry Clay, of Kentucky. Page 500. ' Page 489. 

* On tlie day of the battle at Buena Vi.'Jta, General Minon, with eight hundred cavalry, was 
driven from Saltillo by Captain Webster and a small party of Americans. On the 2Gth of Kebniary, 
Colonels Morgan and'irvin defeated a party at Agua Frio; and on the 7th of March. Major Gid- 
dings was victorious at Ceralvo. ' Page 483. 

" Stephen W. Kearney was a native of New .Terser. ITo was a gallant soldier in the War of 
1812-15. lie Wiis breveted a Brigadier in IStO, and Major-Gener.al in December the same year, for 
gallant conduct in the Mexican War. Ho died at Vera Cruz, in October, 1848, at the age of fifty- 
four years. 



1849.] POLK'S ADMINISTRATION. 487 

Me.xico, on the 18th of August. He met with no resistance;' and having taken 
peaceable possession of the country, and constituted Charles Bent its governor, 
he marched toward California. He soon met an express from Commodore Stock- 
ton" and Lieutenant-Colonel Fremont, informing him that the conquest of Cali- 
fornia had already been achieved. 

Fremont had been sent with a party of about sixty men to explore portions 
of New Mexico and California. When he arrived in the vicinity of Monterey, 
on the Pacific coast, he was opposed by a Mexican force under General Castro. 
Fremont aroused all the American settlers in the vicinity of San Francisco 
Bay, captured a Mexican post and garrison, and nine cannons, and two hun- 
dred and fifty muskets, at Sonoma Pass [June 15, 1846], and then advanced to 
Sonoma, and defeated Castro and his troops. The Mexican authorities were 
effectually driven out of that region of the country ; and on the 5th of July, 
the American Californians declared themselves independent, and placed Fre- 
mont at the head of their affairs. Two days afterward. Commodore Sloat, 
then in command of the squadron in the Pacific, bombarded and captured Mon- 
terey ; and on tlie 9th, Commodore Montgomery took possession of San Fran- 
cisco. Commodore Stockton arrived on the 15th, and with Colonel Fremont, 
took possession of the city of Los Angelos on the 17th of August. On receiv- 
ing this information, Kearney sent the main body of his troops to Santa Fe, 
and with one hundred men he pushed forward to Los Angelos, near the Pacific 
coast, where he met [Dec. 27, 1846] Stockton and Fremont. In company with 
these officers, he shared in the honors of the final important events [Jan. 8, 
1847], which completed the conquest and pacification of California. Fremont, 
the real liberator of that country, claimed the right to be governor, and was 
supported by Stockton and the people ; but Kearney, his superior officer, would 
not acquiesce. Fremont refused to obey him ; and Kearney departed, sailed 
to Monterey, and there, in conjunction with Commodore Shubrick, he assumed 
the office of governor, and proclaimed [Feb. 8, 1847] the annexation of Cali- 
fornia to the United States. Fremont was ordered home to be tried for dis- 
obedience of orders. He was deprived of his commission ; but the President, 
valuing him as one of the ablest officers in the army, offered it to him again. 
Fremont refused it, and went again to the wilderness and engaged in explor- 
ation. 

' The governor and four thousand Mexicans troops fled at his approach, and the people, num- 
berinp; about six thousand, quietly submitted. 

' Robert F. Stockton is a son of one of the New Jersey signers of the Declaration of Independ- 
ence. He entered the navy in 1811, and was appointed commodore in 1838. He left the navy in 
May, 1850, and was afterwards a member of the United States Senate from New Jersey. 

' John Charles Fremont was born at Savannah, Georgia, in January, 1813. His father "was a 
Frenchman ; his mother a native of Virginia. He was born while his parents were on a journey, 
and his infancy was spent among tlie wilds of the .south-west. At the age of thirteen he commenced 
the study of law, b\rt was soon .afterward placed in a good school for the enlargement of his educa- 
tion. He was very successful ; and after leaving school became a teacher in Charleston, and then 
instructor in mathematics on board a sloop-of-war. As a civil engineer, he had few equals, and in 
this capacity he made many explorations, in the service of private individuals and the government, 
«s lieutenant. His several explorations are among the wonders of the age. In 1 846, the citizens 
of Charleston, South Carolina, presented him with an elegant sword, in a gold scabbard, as a testi- 
monial of their appreciation of his great services to the country ; and in 1850, the King of Prussia, 



488 



rilK X AT I ON. 



[1845. 



Other stirring events were occurring in the same direction at this time. 
While Kearney was on his way to California, Colonel Doniphan, by his com- 
iiiantl, was engaged, with a thousand Missouri voluntcci-s, in forcing the Nav- 
ajo Indians to make a treaty of peace. This was accomiilished on the 22d of 
Novcnil)er, 184G, and then Doniphan niarcl]ed toward Chihuahua, to join Gen- 
eral Wool. At Braceti, in the valley of the Kio del Nurte, they met a large 




Mexican force on the 22d of December, under General Ponce de Leon. He 
sent a black flag to Doniphan, with the message, " We will neither ask nor give 
quarter." The Mexicans then advanced and fired three rounds. The Mis- 
sourians fell upon their faces, and the enemy, supposing them to be all slain, 
rushed forward for ]]lunder. The Americans suddeidy arose, and delivering a 
deadly fire from their riiles, killed two hundred Mexicans, and di.spersed the 
remainder in great confusion. Doniphan then pressed forward, and when 
within eighteen miles of the capital of Chihuahua, ho was confronted [Feb. 28, 
1847] by four thousand Mexicans. These he completely routed,' and then 
pressing forward to the city of Chihuahua, he entered it in triumph, raised the 



sent him the grand golden medal Btnick for those who have made essential progress in sdence 
In 1851, ho was elected tlie first United States senator for California: and, in June, 1856, he was 
nominated for the office ( i President of llie ITnited .States. He served as Major-Genera I in the 
National army during a portion of the late Civil War. He has since been Uovenior of Arizona. 
' Tlie .\!nei'icau8 lost, in killed and wounded, only eighteoH mou ; the Mexicans lost about sij- 
Luiidred. 



1849.] 



POLK'S ADMINISTRATION. 



489 



flag of the United States upon its citadel, in the midst of a population of forty 
thousand [March 2J, and took possession of the province in the name of his gov- 
ernment. After resting six weeks he marched to Saltillo [May 22J, where 
General Wool was encamped. From thence he returned to New Orleans, hav- 
ing made a perilous march from the Mississippi, of about five thousand miles. 
The conquest of all Northern Mexico,' with California, was now complete, and 
General Scott was on his march for the great capital. Let us now consider 

GENERAL SCOTT'S INTASION OF MEXICO. 

The Mexican authorities having scorned overtures for peace made by the 
government of the United States in the autumn of 1846. it was determined to 
conquer the whole country. For that purpose General Scott was directed to 
collect an army, capture Vera Cruz," and march to the Mexican capital. His 
rendezvous was at Lobos Island, about one hundred and twenty-five miles north 
from Vera Cruz ; and on the 9th of jVIarch, 1847, he landed near the latter with 
an army of about thirteen thousand men, borne thither by a powerful squadron 
commanded by Commodore Connor.' He invested the city on the 13th ; and 
five days afterward [JMarch 18|, having every thing ready for an attack,* he 
summoned the town and fortress, for the last time, to surrender A refusal 
was the signal for opening a general cannon- 
ade, and bombardment from his batteries and 
tlie fleet. The siege continued until the 27th, 
when the city, the strong castle of San Juan 
d'UUoa, with five thousand prisoners, and 
five hundred pieces of artillery, Avere surren- 
dered to the Americans. The latter had only 
forty men killed, and about the same number 
wounded. At least a thousand Mexicans 
were killed, and a great number were maimed. 
It is estimated that during this siege, not less than six thousand seven hundred 
shots and shells were thrown by the American batteries, weighing, in the ag- 
gregate, moi-e than forty thousand pounds. 

Two days after the siege [March 29, 1847], General Scott took possession 
of Vera Cruz, and on the 8th of April, the advanced force of his army, under 
General Twiggs, commenced their march for the interior by way of Jalapa." 
Santa Anna had advanced, with twelve thousand men, to Cerro Gordo, a difli- 




INTKEXCUUENTS AT \ ERA I. 



' Some conspiracies in New Mexico against the new government, ripened into revolt, in .Janu- 
ary, 1847. Governor Bent and otliers were murdered at Fernando de 'Taos on tlio 19tli. and mas- 
eacres occurred in otlier quarters. On the 23d, Colonel Price, with three hundred and fifty men, 
marched against and defeated the insurgents at Canada, and finally dispersed them at the mountain 
gorge called the Pass of Embudo. 

^ This city was considered the key to the country. On an iisland opposite was a very strong 
fortress called the castle of San Juan d'Ulloa [pronounced S.an-whan-dah-oo-loo-ah], always cele- 
brated for its great strength, and considered impregnable by the Mexicans. 

' Page 480. 

* The engineering operations were performed very skillfiiUy under the direction of Colonel Tot- 
ten, an officer of the War of 1 81 2. For his bravery at Vera Cruz, lie was made Brigadier-General, 
bv brevot. Jle died at Washington City, April 22, 1864. * Pronounced Hah-iah-pah. 



490 '^'"l' N A 11 ox. [1845. 

cult mountain pass at the foot of the eastern chain of the Cordilleras. He was 
strongly fortified, and had many pieces of cannon well placed for defense. 
Scott had followed Twiggs with the main body. lie had left a strong garrison 
at Vera Cruz, and his whole army now numbered about eight thousand five 
huiulred men. Having skillfully arranged his plans, he attacked the enemy on 
the 18th of April. The a.ssault was successful. More than a thousand Mex- 
icans were killed or wounded, and three thousand were made prisoners. Hav- 
ing neither men to guard, nor food to sustain the prisoners. General Scott dis- 
missed them on parole. ' The boastful Santa Anna narrowly escaped capture by 
fleeing upon a mule taken from his carriage." The Americans lost, in killed 
and wounded, four hundred and thirty-one. 

The victors entered Jalapa on the I'.Hli of April; and on the 22d, General 
Worth unfurled the stars and stripes upon the castle of Perote, on the summit 
of the eastern Cordilleras, fifty miles from Jalapa. This was considered the 
strongest fortress in Mexico next to Vera Cruz, yet it was surrendered without 
resistance. Among the spoils were fifty-four pieces of cannon, and mortars, 
and a large quantity of munitions of war. Onward the victorious army 
marched; and on the 15th of May [1847] it entered the ancient walled and 
fortified city of Puebla,' without opjjosition from the eighty thousand inhabit- 
ants within. Here the Americans rested, after a series of victories almost un- 
]i;tj-all{;lcd. Within two months, an army averaging only about ten thousand 
niou, had taken some of the strongest fortresses on this continent, made ten 
thousand prisoners, and captured seven hundred pieces of artillery, ten thou- 
sand stand of arms, and thirty thousand shells and cannon-balls. Yet greater 
conquests awaited them. 

General Scott remained at Puebla until August,* when, being reinforced by 
fresh troops, sent by way of Vera Cruz, he resumed his march toward the cap- 
ital, with more than ten thousand men, 
leavins a larcre number sick in the hos- 
pital.' Their route was through a 
beautiful region, well watered, and 
clothed with the richest verdure, and 
then up the slopes of the great Cordil- 
leras. From their lofty summits, and 
almost from the same spot where Cortez and bis followers stood amazed more 




RUUTt (»*■ THE U. S. AKUY fKOM VfcHA VUVZ 1<J 



' Note G, page 311. . . ,_ „ 

' licCoro tlio battle, Santa Anna saiil. " I will (lio fighting rather than tlio Amoncans shall 
proudly tread the imperial city of Azteea." So prei'ipitato was lii.s tliglit that ho lelt all his papers 
hehiml him, and his wooden log. lie had been so .severely wounded in his leg, while defending 
Vera Cniz again.st tho French, in 1838, that amputation becamo neees-sarj-, and a wooden one was 
substituted. ' Pronounced Pweb-lah. 

* During this long halt of the American army, tho government of the United States made un- 
availing eft'orts to negotiate for peace. Tho Mexican authorities refused tho olive branch, and 
boasted of their patriotism, valor, and strength, while losing post after post, in their retreat toward 

tho capital. , „ . j j 

' At ono time there wore eighteen hundred men sick at Puebla ; and at Perote seven liundred 
died during tho summer, notwithstanding tho situations of these places, on lofty table-lands, were 
«oiisidered exceedingly healthful. 




BOMBAEUMKHT UK VkUA CkUS. 



f 



1849.] 



POLK'S ADMINISTRATION. 



493 



against Cherubusco. 

■whole region became a battle-field 



than three centuries before,' Scott and his army looked down [August 10, 1847] 
upon that glorious panorama of intervales, lakes, cities, and villages, in the 
great valley of Mexico — the capital of the Aztec Empire'' — the seat of " the 
Halls of the Montezumas.'" 

General Twiggs* cautiously led the advance of the American army toward 
the city of Mexico, on the 11th of August, and encamped at St. Augustine, on 
the Acapulco road, eight miles south of the capital. Before him lay the strong 
fortress of San (or St.) Antonio, and close on his right were the heights of 
Churubusco, crowned with embattled walls covered with cannons, and to be 
reached in front only by a dangerous causeway. Close by was the fortified 
camp of Contreras, containing six thousand Mexicans, under General Valencia ; 
and between it and the city was Santa Anna, and twelve thousand men, held in 
reserve. Such was the general position of the belligerents when, a little after 
midnight on the 20th of August [1847], General Smith' marched to the attack 
of the camp at Contreras. The battle opened at sunrise. It was sanguinary, 
but brief, and the Americans were victorious. Eighty officers and three thou- 
sand private soldiers were made prisoners ; and the chief trophies were thirty- 
three pieces of artillery. In the mean while. Generals Pierce' and Shields,' 
with a small force, kept Santa Anna's powerful reserve at bay. 

General Scott now directed a similar movement 
Santa Anna advanced ; and the 
under the eye and 
control of the American commander-in-chief. The 
invaders dealt blow after blow successfully. Antonio 
yielded, Churubusco was taken, and Santa Anna aban- 
doned the field and fled to the capital. It was a 
memorable day in Mexico. An army, thirty thou- 
sand strong, had been broken up by another less than 
one third its strength in numbers ; and at almost 
every step the Americans were successful. Full four 
thousand of the Mexicans were killed or wounded, 
three thousand were made prisoners, and thirty seven 
pieces of cannon were taken, all in one day. The 
Americans lost, in killed and wounded, almost eleven operatio.vs near mexico. 

' Page 43. 

' According to the faint glimmerings of ancient Mexican history which have come down to us, 
the Aztecs, who occupied that country when it first became Ifnown to Europeans [page 43], came 
from the North, and were more refined than any other tribes, which, from time to time, had held 
possession of the country. They built a city within the borders of Lake Tezcuco, and named it 
Mexico, in honor of Mezitii, their god of war. Where the present great cathedral stands, they had 
erected an immense temple, dedicated to the sun, and there offered human sacrifices. It is reLated, 
that at its consecration, almost sixty thousand human beings were sacrificed. The temple was buUt 
about the year 1480, by the predecessor of Montezuma, the emperor found by Cortez. 

' This expression, referring to the remains of the palace of Montezuma in Mexico, was often 
nsed during the war. 

• David K. Twiggs was born in Georgia, in 1790. He served in the War of 1812, and was 
retained in the army. He was breveted a Major-General after the battle of Monterey, in Mexico. 
He deserted his flag, and was dismissed from the army in 1861. Died September 15, 1862. 

' General Persifer F. Smith, of Louisiana. • Page 514. 

' General James Shields, of Illinois, afterward a representative of that State in the Senate of 
•he United States. 




494 T ir K X A T I O X. [1846. 

hundred. Thoy might now have entered the city of Mexico in triumph, but 
General Scott preferred to bear the olive branch, rather than the palm. As he 
advanced to Tacubaya, [August 21], within three miles of the city, a flag came 
from Santa Anna to ask for an armistice, preparatory to negotiations for peace.' 
It was granted, and Nicholas P. Trist, who had been appointed, by the United 
States government, a commissioner to treat for peace, went into the capital 
[August 24] for the purpose. Scott made the palace of the archbishop, at 
Tacubaya, his head-quarters, and there anxiously awaited the result of the con- 
ference, until the 5th of September, when Mr. Trist returned, with the intelli- 
gence that his propositions were not only spurned with scorn, but that Santa 
Anna had violated the armistice by strengthening the defenses of the city. 
Disgusted with the continual treachery of his foe, Scott declared the armistice 
at an end, on the Tth of Septemlier. and prepared to storm the capital. 

The first <lemonstration against the city was on the morning of the 8th of 
September, when less than four thousand Americans attacked fourteen thousand 
Mexicans, under Santa Anna, at E/ Molin.os del Rcij (the King's Mills) near 
Chepultepec. Thoy were at first repulsed, with great slaughter ; but returning 
to the attack, they fought desperately for an hour, and drove the Mexicans from 
their position. Both parties suffered dreadfully. The Mexicans left almost a 
thousand dead on the field, and the Americans lost about eight hundred. And 
now the proud Chepultepec was doomed. It was a lofty hill, strongly fortified, 
and the seat of the military school of Mexico. It was the last place to be 
defended outside the suliurbs of the city. Scott erected four heavy batteries to 
bear upon it, on the night of the 11th of S(;ptember ; and the next day [Sep- 
tember 12, 1847], a heavy cannonade and bombardment commenced. On the 
13th, the assailants commenced a furious charge, routed the enemy, with great 
slaughter, and unfurled the American flag over the shattered castle of Chepul- 
tepec. The Mexicans fled to the city along an aijueduct, pursued by General 
Quitman' to its very gates. That night, Santa Anna and his army, with the 
officers of government, fled from the doomed capital ; and at four o'clock the 
following morning [September 14], a deputation from the city authorities 
waited upon General Scott, and begged him to spare the town and treat for 
peace. lie would make no terms, but ordered Generals Worth and Quitman' 
to move forward, and plant the stripes and stars upon the National Palace. 
The victorious generals entered at ten o'clock, and on the Grand Plaza,' took 
formal possession of the Mexican Empire. Order soon reigned in the capital. 
Santa Anna mside some feeble efforts to regain lost power, and failed. lie 
appeared before Puebla on the 22d of September, where Colonel Childs had 
been besieged since the IStli. The approach of General Lane frightened him 
away ; and in a battle with the troops of that leader at Huamantla, Santa 



' Note 1, page 242. 

' John A. Quitman was a native of New York. He led volunteers to the Mexican war, and 
wa,s pre.seutod with a sword by Congress. lie was Governor of Mississippi in 1851, and was a 
leader of secossioiiist.s. He died July 15, 1858. 

' The approacli of each was along .separate aqueducts. See map, page 493. 

* Place. This is the large public square in the city of Mexico, 




General Soott Entering the City of Mexico 



1S49.] POLK'S ADMINISTRATION. 497 

Anna was defeated. On the 18th of October he was again defeated at Atlixco, 
and there his troops deserted him. Before the close of October, he was a 
fugitive, stripped of every commission, and seeking safety, by flight, to the 
shores of the Gulf ' The president of the Mexican Congress assumed provis- 
ional authority ; and on the 2d of February, 1848, that body concluded a treaty 
of peace, with commissioners of the United States at Gaudaloupe Hidalgo. 
This treaty was finally agreed to by both governments, and on the 4th of July 
following, President Polk proclaimed it. It stipulated the evacuation of Mex- 
ico by the American army, within three months ; the payment of three millions 
of dollars in hand, and twelve millions of dollars, in four annual instalments, 
by the United States to Mexico, for the territory acquired by conquest ; and in 
addition, to assume debts due certain citizens of the United States to the 
amount of three millions five huadi'ed thousand dollars. It also fixed bound- 
aries, and otherwise adjusted matters in dispute. New Mexico and California 
now became Territories of the United States. 

During the same month that a treaty of peace was signed at Gaudaloupe 
Hidalgo, a man employed by Captain Sutter, who owned a mill twenty-five 
miles up the American fork of the Sacramento River, discovered gold. It was 
very soon found in other localities, and during the summer, rumors of the fact 
reached the United States. These rumors assumed tangible form in President 
Polk's message in December, 1848 ; and at the beginning of 1849, thousands 
were on their way to the land of gold. Around Cape Horn, across the Isthmus 
of Panama, and over the great central plains of the continent, men went by 
hundreds ; and far and wide in California, the precious metal was found. From 
Europe and South America, hundreds flocked thither ; and the Chinese came 
also from Asia, to dig gold. The dreams of the early Spanish voyagers,' and 
those of the English who sought gold on the coasts of Labrador,' and up the 
rivers in the middle of the continent," have been more th.in realized. Emisxrauts 
continued to go thither so late as 1875, and the gold seems inexhaustible.' 

The war with Mexico, and the settlement of the Oregon boundary question' 
with Great Britain, were the most prominent events, having a relation to for- 
eign powers, which distinguished Mr. Polk's administration. Two measures of 
a domestic character, appear prominently among many others which mark his 
administration as full of activity. These were the establishment of an inde- 
pendent treasury system,' by which the national revenues are collected in gold 
and silver, or treasury notes, without the aid of banks ; and a revision of the 
tariff laws in 1846, by which protection to American manufacturers was 
lessened. It was during the last year of his administration that Wisconsin was 
admitted [May 29, 1848] into the Union of States, making the whole number 
thirty. At about this time, the people of the Union were preparing for another 
presidential election. The popularity which General Taylor had gained by "his 
brilliant victories in Mexico, caused him to be nominated for that exalted sta- 
tion, in many parts of the Union, even before he returned home ;" and he was 

' Note 6, page 515. ' Page 43. = Page 52. • Page 56. ' Note 3, page 373. 

• Page 479. ' Note 2, page 471. " Page 486. 

32 



498 



THE NATION. 



lUS4a 



chosen to be a candidate for that office, by a national convention held at Pliila- 
delphia in June, 1848. His opponent was General Lewis Cass, of Michigan, 
now [185G] United States senator from that State.' General Taylor was 
elected by a largo majority, with Millard Fillmore, of New York, as Vic»- 
President. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

TAYLOR'S ADMINISTRATION [18 4 9—1850.] 

The 4th of March, 1849, was Sunday, and the inauguration of Zachary 
Taylor,' the twelfth President of tlie United States, did not take place until tho 




^^^^. 



next day. Again people had gathered at the Federal city from all parts of 
the Union, and the day being pleasant, thougii cloudy, a vast concourse were 

' Note 2, page 424. 

' Zacliary Taylor was born in Virginia, in November, 1784. He went witli his father to Ken- 
tucky the following year, and liis childhood was passed near the present city of Louisville. Ho 
entered tho United States army in 1807. He was a di.stiunuishcd sulialtern during -ho war of 
1812-15, and attmnod tho rank of major. Ho was of great service in the Florida War [papo 4G8] ; 
and when hostilities with Mexico appeared probable, ho was sent in that direction, and, as we 
have seen, displayed groat skill and bravery. He died in July, 1850, having performed the duties 
of Preeident for only sixteen moothg. 



I860.] TAYLOR'S ADMINISTRATION'. 499 

assembled in front of the eastern portico of the capitol, long before the appointed 
hour for the interesting ceremonies. In a clear and distinct voice, he pro- 
nounced his inaugural address, and then took the oath of office administered by 
Chief Justice Taney. On the following day he nominated his cabinet officers,' 
and the appointments were immediately confirmed by the Senate. With the 
heart of a true patriot and honest man, Taylor entered upon his responsible 
duties with a sincere desire to serve his country as faithfully in the cabinet, as 
he had done in the field." He had the sympathies of a large majority of the 
people with him, and his inauguration was the promise of great happiness and 
prosperity for the country. 

When President Taylor entered upon the duties of his office, thousands of 
adventurers were flocking to California from all parts of the Union, and ele- 
ments of a new and powerful State were rapidly gathering there. Statesmen 
and politicians perceived the importance of the new Territory, and soon the 
question whether slavery should have a legal existence there, became an absorb- 
ing topic in Congress and among the people. The inhabitants of California 
decided the question for themselves. In August, 1849, General Riley, the 
militiiry Governor of the Territory, established a sort of judiciary by proclama- 
tion, with Peter H. Burnet as Chief Justice. Before that time there was no 
statute law in California. By proclamation, also. Governor Riley summoned 
a convention of delegates to meet at Monterey, to form a State^ Constitution. 
Before it convened, the inhabitants in convention at San Francisco, voted 
against slavery ; and the Constitution, prepared and adopted at Monterey, on 
the first of September, 1849, excluded slavery from the Territory, forever. 
Thus came into political form the crude elements of a Sfcite, the birth and 
maturity of which seems like a dream. All had been accomplished within 
twenty months from the time when gold was discovered near Sutter's Mill. 

Under the Constitution, Edward Gilbert and G. II. Wright, were elected 
delegates for California in the National House of Representatives ; and the State 
JjCgislature, at its first session, elected John Charles Fremont' and William M. 
Gwinn, United States senators. When the latter went to Washington, they 
carried their Constitution with them, and presented a petition [February, 

1 850] asking for the admission of that Territory into the Union as a free and 
independent State.* The article of the Constitution which excluded slavery, 
became a cause for violent debates in Congress, and of bitter sectional feeling 
in the South against the people of the North. The Uni(m, so strong in 
the hearts of the people, was shaken to its center, and prophets of evil 

" He appointed John M. Clayton, Secretary of State; "William M. Meredith, Secretary of the 
Treasury; George W. Crawford, Secretary of War ; William B. Preston, Secretary of the Navy; 
Thomas Ewing, Secretary of the Interior (a new office recently established, in which some of the 
duties before performed by the State and Treasury departments are attended to) ; Jacob CoHamer, 
Postmaster-G-enera! ; and Reverdy Johnson, Attorney-General 

' Page 481 to page 486, inclusive. ' Page 488. 

* At this time our government was perplexed by the claims of Texas to portions of the Terri- 
tory of New Mexico, recently acquired [page 497], and serious difficulty was apprehended. Early 
in 1850, the inhabitants of New Mexico petitioned Congress for a civil government, and the Mor- 
mons of the Utah region also petitioned for the organization of the country they had recently 
settled, into a Territory of the United States. 



500 



T II K X A T I (■> N . 



[1849. 



predicted its speedy dissolution. As in 1832,' tliere were menaces of secession 
from tLo Union, by youtlicrn repruseiitiitivos, and never before did civil war 
appear so inevitable. Happily fur the eountry, some of the ablest statesmen 
and patriots the Republic had ever gloried in, were members of the national 
Legislature, at that time, and with consummate skill tbey directed and con- 
trolled the storm. In the midst of the tunmlt and alarm in Congress, and 
throughout the land. Henry Clay again' appeared as the potent peace-maker 




between the Hotspurs of the North and Soutii : and on the 2r)th of January, 
1850, he oflcred, in the Senate a j)laii of compromise whicli met the difiiculty. 
Eleven days afterward [February 5, 1850] he s|)oke nobly in defense of his 
plan, denounced secession as treason, and implored his countrymen to make 



' PoRe 381. 

' PiiKO 4t;4. Ilonry Clay was born in Ilanovor county, Virginia, in April, 1777. His early edu- 
cation WU.S dol'uctive, ami lie anisi? to groatne.o liy tlio Ibrco of his own genius. His e.xlraordinnry 
intellectual powers be|j;an to develop at an early aRC, luid at nineteen ho commenced the study 
of the law. When admilted to practice, at the ajfc of twenty, ho wont over the mountains to tho 
fiTtilo valleys of Kentui'ky, and tliere laid llie lii\indations of his greatness as a lawyer and orator. 
The latter quality was lirst I'ully ileveloped when a convention was called to revise theConslitulinn 
of Kcntneky. Thin ho worked manfully and unceasingly to procure tho election of delegates who 
would favor tho emancipation of the slaves. He became a member of the Kentucky Legislature in 
ISO:), and there ho t<iok a front rank. IIo was chosen to till a vacant seat in the United States 
Senate in ISOli, and in 1811 he was elected a member of the lIou.se of Hepresentatives, and became 
its Speaker. From that time until his ilealh, he was continually in public life. IIo long held a 
front rank among American statesmen, and died, while a momber of Iho United States Senate, in 
the city of Wa.shington, at tho close of June, 1862. 



1850.J FILLMORE'S ADMINISTRATION. 501 

every sacrifice but honor, in support of tlio Union. Mr. Clay's plan was 
warmly seconded by Daniel Webster;' and other senators approving of compro- 
mise, submitted propositions. Finally, on motion of Senator Foote of Missis- 
sippi, a committee of tiiirleen was appointed to consider the various plaus and 
report a bill. The committee consisted of six northern and six southern sen- 
ators, and these chose the thirteenth. The Seiiiite appointed Mr. Clay chairman 
of the committee, and on the 8th of May following, ho reported a bill. It was 
discussed for four months, and on the 9th of September, each measure included 
in the bill having been tliorougiily considered separately, the famous Cotnpro- 
mixe Act of 1850, having passeil both Houses of Congress, became a law. 
Because several measures, distinct in their objects, were embodied in the act, it 
is sometimes known as the " Onmibus Bill." The most important stipulations 
of the act were, 1st. That California should be admitted into tiie Union as a 
State, with its anti-slavery Constitution, and its territorial extent from Oregon 
to the Mexican possessions; 2d. That the vast country east of California, con- 
taininj' the Mormon settlements near the (Jreat Salt Lake,' should be erected 
into a Territory called Utah, without mention of shivery; 3d. That New Mex- 
ico should be erected into a Territory, within satisfactory boundaries, and with- 
out any stipulations respecting slavery, and that ten millions of dollars should 
be paid to Texas from the National treasury, in purchase of her claims ; 4tb. 
That the slave-trade in the District of Columbia should be abolished ; 5tli. A 
law providing for the arrest in the northern or free States, and return to their 
masters, of all slaves who should escape from bombige. The last measure of 
the Compromise Act produced wide-spread <lissatisfaetion in the Free-labor 
States ; and the execution, evasion, and violation of the law, in several 
instances, have led to serious disturbances .'inil \\\w\\ l>itter Hcciion.il feeling. 

While the great Compromise question was under discussion, the nation was 
called to lament the loss of its Chief Magistrate. President Taylor was seized 
with a malady, similar in its effects to cholera, which terminated his earthly 
care<;r on the 9th of July, 1850. In accordance with the provisions of the 
Constitution,' he was immediately succeeded in office by 

M I I, L A R 1 1 ]•' 1 L L M R K , ' 

who, on the 10th of July, took the oath to ' ' preserve, protect, and defend the 
Constitution of the United States." President T;iylor's cabinet resigned; but 
the new President, with great delicacy, declined to consider their resignations 

' Page 50:',. ' Page 503. ' Article II., Hi;cl.iaii 1, (iC lljo Niilioiial Coi]Mtil;iiHoii. 

■* Millard FiUinoro was born in .Tamiary, 1800, in Oayuga connly, Now York, llis early oilu- 
cation was limited, and at a suitable ago he was apprenticed to a wool-carder. At the ago of nine- 
teen, his talent attracted the attention of .Judge Wo(jd, of 0;iyug;t county, and he took tlie linmblo 
apprentice under his cliarne, to study the science of law. Tie became eminent in his profession. 
Ho was elected to the Aa.sembly of jiis native State in 1829, and in 1832, was chosen to represent 
his district in Congress. He was re-elected in ]8:!7, and was continued in office sc'voral years. In 
1814, ho was an unsuccessful candidate for the office of Governor of his native State, and in 1848 
he was elected Vice-President of the TTnited States. The death of Taylor gave hini the presidency, 
and ho conducted public affairs with dignity and skill. In the summcT of IR.ir,, he was nominated 
for tlio office of President of the United States, by the "American" party, with A. J. Donelson far 
Vicc-I'residcnt. .Sec Note 1, page 479. IIo died Marcli 8, 1874. 



502 



Till-: X AT ION. 



[1850. 



until after the obsequies of the deceiised President had been performed. At his 
rwiuest, they remained in office until the 15th of the month, when President 
Filliiiore appointed new heads of the departments' 

The administration of I'resitlent Tajlor had been brief, but it was distin- 





c/lO^>'yt'<njO> 



guished by events intimately eonneeted, as we shall observe, by men and 
measures, with the late Civil War. One of these was an invasion of Cuba by a 
force under General Lope/., a native of that island, which was orjianized and 
officered in the ITnited Stati's, in violation of existiiitj neiitraiitv laws. It, was 
said thai tlio native Cnbans wero restive uiidor the rule of Spanish Governor- 
Generals,' and that a desire for independence burned in the hearts of many of 
the best men there. Lopez was ranked aniontj these, and, in forming this 
invading e.xi>edition, he counted largoly upon this I'veling for co-operation, lie 

r»aniol 'Webster, Secretarv of State ; Tliomns Corwin, Seoretary of the Treasury ; Clinrlea M. 
Conrad, Secretary of War; Ali'XMiuler 11. ll.Stuurt. Secretary oftlie Iiilerior: William A. tiraliani. 
Secretary (if tlie Navy ; .Tolin ,). Crittenilcii. Attorney-! leneral; Natljan K. JIall, roslnia8ter-(K>n- 
eraL Daniel M'elister %wi8 born in Salisbury, New liainpsbire, in .Tantiary, 1782, and was cdueated 
cliiefly at the Phillips Academy at Ext«r," aiui Dartmouth ColleRc at Hanover. He studied law 
in Boston, and Wius admitted to the bar in 1S05. He commenced prnctiee in his native State, and 
Boon became eminent. He lirst appeared in public life in 1813, when he took his seat as a member 
of the .National House of Re|)resentative9. .\t that session his speeches were remarkable, and a 
southern member remarked, "The North has not his equal, nor the South liis superior." Althouph 
in ]iublic life a jrreater )iortien of the time from that period <uilil his death, yet he always had im 
extensive and lucrative law jiractice. He stood foremost as a coiislilutii>nal lawyer; and for many 
years he was peerless as a statesman. He died at Marshlield, Massachusetts, six October, 1852, at 
the age of almost seventy-one years. ' Page 40. 



1853.] FILLMORE'S ADMINISTRATION. 503 

landed at Cardenas on the 19th of jViiril, 1850, cxpcctuig to be joined by some 
of the Spanish troops and native Cubans, aiul by concei'ted action to overturn 
the Government. But the people and troops did not co-operate with him, and 
he returned to the United States to prepare for a more formidable expedition. 
We shall meet him again presently. 




S^^^zA ^^2^ 



During Taylor's administration, one State was formed and three Territories 
Were org.iuized ; :ind pre|i:iratii)iis wore made for establishing other local 
goverunuMits within the domain of the United States. That State was 
California, and the Territories were of those of New Mexico, Utah, and Minne- 
sota.' The greater portion of tlie inhabitants of Utah are of the religious sect 
called Mormons, who, after suffering much in ^Missouri and Illinois, from their 
opposers, left those States in 1848, and penetrated the deep wilderness in the 
interior of our continent ; and near the Great Salt Lake, in the midst of the 
savage Utah tribes, they have built a large city, made extensive plantations, 
and founded an empire almost as large, in territorial extent, as that of 



I Mmnesota (sky-colored water) is tho Indiau name of tlio river St. Peter, tho largest tributarv 
of tlio Mississippi, in that region. It was a part of tho vast Territory of Lonisiana, and was organ- 
ized m March, 18i9. An embryo village, twelvo miles Ijelow tlie Falls of St. Anthony named 
St. Paul, was made the capital, and in less than ton years it contained more than ten Uiousand 
souls. Its growth was unprecedented, even in tho wonderful progress of other cities of tho West, 
and at one tune it promised to speedily equal Chicago in its population. The whole region of 
Minnesota is very attractive ; and it has been called tho New England of the West. 




504 THE NATION. [1850. 

Alexander the Great.' The sect was fouiuled in 1827, by a sliicwil young- 
in.m naraeJ Joseph Smith, a native of central New York, wiio prot'esseil to 
liave receiveil a special revelation from Heaven, givuig 
him knowleilge of a book which had been buried many 
centuries before, in a hill near the village of P:i]inyra, 
wliose leaves were of gold, upon which were engraved 
the records of the ancient people of America, and a 
new gospel for man. He found dupes, believers, and 
followers ; and now [1S83] there are Mormon mission- 
aries in m.niy |)ortions of the globe, and the communion 
numbers, ))robably, not less than two hundred ami iifty 
josEi'u SMITH. thousand souls. There has long been a sufficient number 

in Utah to entitle them to a State eon.«litution, and admission into the Union, 
but their social system, which embraces jiolygamy, sanctioned by authority, is 
a liar to such admission. Their permission of polygamy, or men having more 
than one wife, will be a serious bar to their admission, for Christianity and 
sound morality forbid the custom. The .Mormons have ]>oetically called their 
country Deseret — the land of tiio Honey Bee — but Congress has entitled it 
Utah, and by that name it nuist be known in history. 

The country inhaliited hy the Mormons is one of the most remarkable on the 
face of the globe. It consists of a series of extensive valleys and rocky mar- 
gins, spread out into an immense basin, surrounded by rugged mountains, out 
of which no water.s flt)W. It is midway between the States on the Mississippi 
and the Pacific Ocean, perfectly isolated from habitable regions, and embracing 
a domain covering sixteen degrees of longitude in the Utah latitude. On the 
east are the sterile spurs of the Rocky Mountains, stretching down to the vast 
plains traversed by the Platte river ; on the west, extending nearly a thousand 
miles toward the Pacific, are arid salt deserts, broken by barren mountains; 
and north and south arc immense mountain districts. The valleys afford pe- 

' Tho Mormon exodus was? one of tlio most wonderful events on record, when considered in all 
Its phasi'S. In Sfpteniber, IS-K!, the la.st linu-iiini; Mormons at Nauvoo, Illinois, where they had 
built a splendid temple, were driven away at iln- point of tho bayonet, by l.UOO troops. In Febru- 
ary preeedint;, some sixteen hundred men, women, and children, fearful of the wrath of the people 
ajound them, had crossed the Mississippi on tho ice, and traveling with ox-teams and on foot, they 
penetrated the wilderness to the Indian country, near Council BluQ's, on the Missouri. The rem- 
nant who started in autumn, many of whom were siek men, feeble women, and delicate pirls, were 
compelled to traverse the samo dreary region. Tho united host, undi-r the guidance of Ijrigbam 
Young, who is yet their temporal and spiritual leader, halted on the broad prairies of Missouri the 
following suimner, turned tip the virgin soil, and jilaiited. Hero leaving a few to cultivate and 
gather lor wanderers who might come aller them, the host moved on. making the wilderness vocal 
with preaching and singing. Ortler marked e\ery step of their progress, lor the voice of Young, 
whom they regarded as a seer, was to tlieni as tho voice of God. On they went, forming Taheinatle 
Camps, or temporary resting-places in the wilderness. No obstacles impeded their progress. They 
forded swill-running streams, and bridged the deeper floods; crept up the great eastern sloiiesofthe 
Rocky Mountains, and from the lofty summits of the Wasatch range, they beheld, on the 20th of 
July. 1847, the valley where they were to rest and build a city, and tho placid waters of the Great 
Salt Lake, glittering in the beams of the Betting sun. To those weary wanderers, this moiitain top 
was a Pisgab. From it thi'V saw the Promised Land — to them a scene of wondnnis interest. 
Westward, loflv peaks, l>athed in purple air, piiTeed the sky; and as f:ir .as the eye could reach, 
north and south, stretched the fertile Valley of Promise, and here and there the vapors of hot 
springs, gushing from rocky coverts, curled above tho hills, like smoke fVora tho hearth-fires of home. 
The Pilgrims entered tho valley on the 21st of .Inly, and on tho 21th the President and High 
Council arrived. There they planted a city, the Jerusjdem — the Holy City — of the Mormon people. 



.-C^^J^^ ^- 




MOKMON EiUGRATION. 



1861.] 



FILLMORE'S ADMINISTRATION. 



507 



rennial pasturage, aiul llio soil is exceedingly fertile. Wild game abounds in 
the mountains ; the streams are filled with excellent fish ; the climate is 
delightful at all seasons of the year; and "breathing is a real luxury." 
Southward, over tho rim of the great basin, is a fine cotton-growing region, 
into wliicli tho Mormons are ])on('trating. Tlio vast hills and mountain slopes 
])rcsent tho finest pasturage in the world for sheep, alpacas, and goats. The 
water-power of tho whole region is immense. Iron-mines everywhere abound, 
and in tho Groon river basin, tlioro an; inexhaustible beds of coal. In tlioso 
great natural ivsourcos and dol'cnsos, possessed by a people of such indoniitiiblo 
energy and perseverance as the Mormons have shown, we see the ^•ital ele- 
nu'iits of a powerful mountain nation, in proportions, in the heart of our conti- 
nent, and in the direct jialhway from the Atlantic to the ]\'icific States, that 
may yet play a most important part, for good or for evil, in the destinies of 
our country and of the world. 

Tho most important measure adopted during the early part of Fillmore's 
administration was the Compromise Act, aln^ady considered.' During his offi- 
cial career the I'rcsidont firmly supported the measure, and at the close of his 
administration, in the spring of 1853, there seemed to be very little disquie- 
tude in the public Tiiiiid on the subject of slavery. That calm was llii^ lull 
before a tempest. The Fugitive Slave Law was so much at variance with tho 
spirit of free institutions. Christian ethics, and the civilization of the age, that) 
the hearts of the ])eople of tlu^ free-tabor States, and of thousands in the slave- 
labor Slates, burned with a desire not only t.o purge t)ie National statute-books 
of that law, but to stay the further s|>re;id of slavery over the .loniaiii of the 
Ilepublic. That desire, and a detcruiiii.ition of the slave-holders to extiMid tho 
area of their labor system, speedily led to terrible results, as we shall observe 
presently. 

In the spring of 1851, Congress made important and salutary changes in 
the general post-office laws, chiefiy in the reduction of letter postage, fixing 
the rate ujjon a letter weighing not more than half an ounce, and pre-))aid, at 
three cents, to any part of the United States, excepting California and the 
Pacific Territories. The exception was afterward 
abandoned. At the same time, elecrtro-niagnetic tele- 
graphing had become quite perfect; and by means of 
the subtile agency of electricity, communications were 
speeding over thousands of miles of ii'on wire, with 
the rapidity of iigliluiiig. Tiu^ establishment of this 
instantaneous communication between distant ]ioints 
is one of the most important achievements of this age 
of invention and discovery ; and the names of Fulton 
and Morse" will be forever indissolubly connected in ' 7 
the commercial and social history of our republic. 
During the summer of 1851, there was again con- 

' Page 501. 

' In 1832, Professor Samuel P. B. Mor.so had his attention directed to tlio c.xporiinonts of 
Frankhn, upon a wire a few miles in lengtli on tlio banks of tho .ScluiylkiU, in which tho velocity 



y^. 



^'tt.^' 




508 I'^E NATION. [1851. 

siderable excitement produced throughout the country because other concerted 
movements were made, at difl'creiit points, in the organization of a military 
foree lor tlie purpose of invading Cuba.' The vigihmee of tlie government of 
the United States was awakened, and orders were given to its marslials to 
arrest suspected men, and seize suspeeted vessels and munitions of war. Pur- 
suant to these orders, the steamboat Cleopatra was detained at New York; 
and several gentlemen, of the liighest respectability, were arrested on a charge 
of a violation of existing neutrality laws. In the mean time the greatest 
excitement prevailed in t'ulia, and forty thousand Spanish troops were coneen* 
tratcd there, wliile a considerable naval force watched and guarded the coasts, 
riiese hindraiiees caused the dispersion of the armed bands who were jirc- 
paring to mvade Cuba, and quiet was restored for a while. Hut in .Inly the 
e.xcitement was renewed. General Lope/.,' M'ho appears to have been under the 
control of designing politicians, made a speech to a large crowd in New 
Orleans, in favor of an invading expedition. Soon afterward [August, 1851], 
be sailed from that |)ort with about four hundred and eighty followers, and 
landed [August 11] on the northern coast of Cuba. There he left Colonel 
William L. CrittiMulen, of Kentucky, with one hundred men, ami proceeded 
toward the intei-ior. Crittenden and his ]iarty were captured, carried to 
Havana, and on the Kith were shot. Lopez was attacked on the Kith, and his 
little army was ilis]n'rsed. He had been deceived. There appeared no signs 
of a promised revolution in Cuba, and he became a fugitive. He was arrested 
on the 28th, with six of his followers, taken to Havana, and on the 1st of 
September was executed. 

In the autumn of 1851, more accessions were made to the vastly extended 

of elccti-ioity was found to bo so inappreciable that it was supposed to bo instantaneous. Pro- 
fessor Morse, pondering upon this subject, suggested that electricity might be made the means of 
recording characters as signs of intelligence at a distance: and in the autumn of 18:i2 he con- 
structed a portion of the iiistniraeutnlities for that purpose. In 18:!5 ho showed the first com- 
plete instrument for' tihjnipliic recording, at the New York City University. In lS:i7 he 
completed a more perfect machinery. In 18;i8 ho subuiitted the matter and the telogrnphic 
iDStrumeuts to Congress, asking their aid to construct a line of suflicient leiigtli "to test its 
practicability and utility." The cnmmittee to whom the subject was referred reported favorably, 
and proposed an appropriation of ifCiD.OOO to construct the first lino. The appropriation, how- 
ever, was not made until the ;id of March, lS-i:i. The posts for supporting the wires were 
erected between Washington and Baltimore, a distance of forty miles. In the spring of 1S44 
the line was completed, and the proceedings of the Democratic Convention, then silting in Balti- 
more, which nominated James K. Polk for the Presidency of the United States, was the first use, 
for public purposes, ever made by tlu> telogroph, whose lines liave been extended to all parts of 
the civilized world, the totiil length of which, nt this time [188;!], is more than 2r)0,0(10 miles. 
Professor Morse's system of Kecoi-diiig Telegraphs is ailo))teil generally on the contiiieiit of 
Kurope, iuul has been selected by tlie goveriimeiit of Auslraliji lor tlie telegrnjihic systems of 
that country. Avery ingenious machine f<ir recording telegraphic eoiiiiminicalioiis wilii iiriut- 
iiig types, so as to avoid the necessity of copying, was const nicted, a few years ago. bv llouse, 
and is now extensively used. Professor Morse was the eldest son of Rev. .ledediah Jlorse, the 
first .\merican geographer, lie was liorn in ("liarlesluwii, INIassachusetls, in 17!M. anil was 
griiduali'd at Yale t'cjilegi' in 1810. lie studied iiainting in Knglaiiii, and was very success- 
ful, lie was one of the founders of the National Academy of Design in New York, and he 
was the fiist to deliver a course of lectures upon art in America, He became a (irofcssor in 
the University of the City of New York, and llieie perfected his magnetic telegraph. Mr. 
Morse resided on his beautiful estate of Locust (iiove, near P<mghkeepsie, New York, fait siiieo 
the summer of IStifi hadsiient much time in Kurope. He received maiiv testimonials of appre- 
ciation from eminent iiulividuals and societies beyond the Atlantic, ile dicil April 'i. 1872. 
' Page 503. " I'age 503. 



1851.] FILLMORE'S ADMINISTRATION. 509 

possessions of the United States. Population was pouring into tlic regions of 
the Northwest, beyond the Mississippi, and crowding the dusky inhabitants of 
the Indian reservations in Minnesota. Negotiations for a cession of those 
lands to the United States were opened. These resulted in the purchase of 
many millions of acres from the Upper and Lower Sioux tribes of Indians,' 
their removal to another reservation, and the blooming of the wilderness they 
occupied under the hands of the white man. And while inter-emigration was 
seen flowing in a continuous stream in that direction, i)opulation was also 
flowing in large volume from Europe, increasing the inhabitants and wealth 
of the country. There had been for some time unwonted activity everywhere, 
and this was one of its many phases. States and Territories were growing. 
Additional representatives in the National Legislature were crowding its halls.' 
These were becoming too narrow, and Congress made provision for enlarging 
them. Accordingly, on the 4th of Jidy, 1851, the corner-stone of the addition 
to the National Capitol was laid by the President, with appropriate cere- 
monies.' 

Circumstances at about the time we are considering, caused a remarkable 
American expedition to the polar regions. Sir John Franklin, an English 
navigator, sailed to that part of the globe, with two vessels, in JMay, ltS-15, iu 
search of tlic long-sought northwest passage from Europe to the West Indies." 
Years passed by, and no tidings of him came. Expe- 
ditions were sent from England iu search of him; 
and in May, 1850, Henry Grinnell, a wealthy mer- 
chant of New York, sent two shi|)s, in charge of Lieu- 
tenant De Haven, to assist in tlie benevolent eflbrt. 
They returned, after remarkable adventures, in the 
autumn of 1851, without success. The cftbrt was 
renewed by the opulent merchant, in connection with 
his government, in 185;i, and in Alay of that year 
two vessels under the command of Elisha Kent Kane, 
M. D., the surgeon of the first ex])edition, sailed from 
New York, while a similar expedition was sent out 

from England. Kane and his party made valuable discoveries, among which 
was that of the " open polar sea," whose existence was believed in by scien- 

' Page 31. 

' Each Stato is entitled to two senators. The number of States now [1S67] being thirty- 
eight, tlio Senate is composed of .seventy-six members. The number of Representatives to wliicli 
each State is entitled, is determined by tlie ninnber of inhabitants and the ratio of representation. 
Tha present number of the members in the House of Representatives is two hundred and fifty- 
three, ineUidiug delegates from nine Territories. 

' Note 1, page 3S8. On tlie occasion of laying the corner-stone, an oration was pronounced 
by Daniel Webster, in the course of which he said: "If, therefore, it shall hereafter bo the will 
of God that this striictiiro shall fall from its base, that its foniidations be upturned, and the 
deposit beneath this stone brought to the eyes of men, bo it tlieu known, that cm this day the 
Union of the United States of America stands firm — that their Constitution still exists iinimpaired, 
and with all its usefulness and glory, growing every day stronger iu the affections of the great 
body of the American people, and attracting, more and more, the admiration of tho world.'' 

' Note 2, page 47, also page 52, and note 8, page 59. 

' Elisha Kent Kane was born in Philadelphia, iu February, 1822, and ho took his degree in 
the Medical University of Pennsylvania iu 1S43. He entered the American nary as assistant- 




510 TIIK NATION [1801. 

tific men, but they failed to i'liid Sir John Franklin.' They suffered nuKh, 
and were finally compelled to al)an<U)i\ their ships and make their way in 
open boats to a Danisli settlement in tireenland. Their long absence created 
fears for their safety, and a relief expedition was sent in search of them. la 
the vessels of the latter tliey returned home in the autumn of 185.5.' 

Tlie public attention was directeil to, and popular synipathy was strongly 
e.xcited in behalf of Hungary, by the arrival in tlie United St.atcs, toward the 
close of 18.51, of Louis Kossutli, the e.viled (rovernor of that country, whose 
people, during the revolutions of 1S4S,^ had sought independence of tlie crown 
of Austria. He came to ask material aid for his country in its struggle which 
then contiimed. The sympathy of the people with the Hungarians, and the 
eloquence of the exile, as he went from jilace to place ])leading the cause of his 
nation and enunciating important international doctrines,'' made his mission 
the chief topic of thought and conversation for a long time. The policy of our 
government forbade its giving material aid, but Kossuth received the exjjres- 
siou of its warmest sympathies.' His advent among ns, and his bold enuncia- 

surf^eon, and was attaelied as a physician to the first American embassy to China. While in the 
East, he visited many of the Islands, and met with wild adventures. After that he ascended the 
Nile to the coiitines of Nut)i;i. ;iiid passed a season in I'luypt. After traveling throuirh Greece 
and a part of Knrope, on foot, lie returned to the Unlted.states in 184G. He was immediately sent 
to the coast of Africa, where he narrowly escaped death from fever. Soon after his recovery he 
went to Mexico, as a volunteer in the war then progressing, where his bravery and endurance 
commanded universal admiration. His horse was killed under him. and himself was badly 
wounded. He was ap|)ointed senior surgeon and naturalist to the " Grinnel E.xpcdition," nieii- 
tioiied ill the text: and after his return ho prepared an interesting account of the exjiloration. 
He was appointed to the command of a second expedition, and he accomplished much in behalf 
of geographical .science. Dr. Kane held an aceomplished pencil and ready pen. and his .>;cicnlitic 
attainments were of a high order. The records of this wonderful expedition, preoared l>y himself, 
were published in two superb volumes, illustrated by engravings from drawings by his hand. The 
hardships which he had endured made great inroads on the health of Dr. Kane (who was a very 
light man. weighing only 106 pounds); and in October, 1856, ho sailed for Englantl, and froiu 
thence to Havana, where he died on the IGth of February, 1857. 

' In 1855, an overland exploring party, sent by the Hudson's Bay Fur Company, were 
informed by the Ks<iuiinaux that about four years before a party of white men had perislied in 
the region of Montreal Island. They .saw among the Indians articles known to have belonged to 
Sir John and his party, and the belief is tliat they perished on the northern borders of North 
America, so late as tlie year 1851. 

' In the mean time the great problem, which for three hundred years had perplexed the mari- 
time world, had been worked out by an English navigator. The fact of a northwest passage 
around the Arctic coast of North America, from Baffin's Bay to Behring's Straits, has been 
imqiiestionably demonstrated by Captain MetMure, of the ship Investigator, who was sent in search 
of Sir .lohn Franklin in October, 185:!. Having passed through liehriiig's Straits, and sailed 
eastward, he reached a point, with sleds upon the ice. which had been penetrated by navigatora 
tiom the Kast (Canlaiu I'arry and others), thus esialilishing the fact tliat there is a water connec- 
tion between Ballin's Bay and those straits. Alreaiiy the mute whale had demonstrated this fact 
to tne satisfaction of paturalist.s. The same si»eies are found in Behring's Straits and Baflin'a 
Bay, and as the waters of Ih.e tropical regions would be like a sea of lire to them, they nuist have 
had communication through the polar channels. Subsequently traces of tlie lost explorers 
were discovered. 

' In February, 1818, the French people drove Louis Philip))e from his throne, and formed a 
temporary repulilic. The revolutionary spirit spread; and within a '(i^w months, almost every 
country on the continent of Europe was in a state of agitation, and the monarchs made many 
concessions to the pcojile, Hungary made an eH'ort to become free from the rule of Austria, but 
was, crushed by the power of a Hussian army. 

* He asserted that grand principle, lliat one nation has no right to interfere with the doipestio 
concerns of another, and that all nations are bound to use their elforts to prevent such interference. 

' Matters connected with his reception, visit, and desires occupied much of the attention of 
Congress, and elicited warm debates during the session of 1852. The Chevalier Hulseman. the 
Austrian minister at ■Washington, formally protested against the reception of Kossuth by Con- 



1852.] FILLMORE'S ADMINISTRATION. 5JJ 

tion of the liitherto unrecognized national duties, are important and interesting 
events in the history of our republic. 

Some ill-feeling between Great Britain and the United States was engen- 
dered during the summer of 1852, when the subject of difficulties concerninof 
the fisheries' on the coast of British America was brought to the notice of Con- 
gress, and for several months there were indications of a serious distui-bance 
of tlie amicable relations between the two governments. American fishers 
were charged with a violation of the treaty of 1818, which stipulated that they 
should not cast their lines or nets in the bays of the British possessions, except 
at a distance of three miles or more from the shore. Now, the British govern- 
ment claimed the right to draw a line from head-land to head-land of these 
bays, and to exclude the Americans from the waters within that line.^ An 
armed naval force was sent to sustain this claim, and American vessels were 
threatened with seizure if they did not comply. The government of the United 
States regarded the assumption as illegal, and two steam-vessels of war 
{Princeton and Fulton) were sent to the coast of Nova Scotia to protect the 
rights of American fishermen. The dispute was amicably settled by mutual 
concessions, in October, 1853, and the cloud passed by. 

During the summer of 1853, another measure of national concern was ma- 
tured and put in operation. The great importance of commercial intercourse 
with Japan, because of the intimate relations which must soon exist between 
our Pacific coast and the East Indies, had been felt ever since the foundation 
of Oregon' and California.* An expedition, to consist of seven ships of war, 
under the command of Commodore Perry, a brother of the " Hero of Lake 
Erie,"° was fitted out for the purpose of carrying a letter from the President 
of the United States to the emperor of Japan, soliciting the negotiation of a 
treaty of friendship and commerce between the two nations, by which the ports 
of the latter should be thrown open to American vessels, for purposes of trade. 
The mission of Commodore Perry was highly successful. He negotiated a 
treaty, by which it was stipulated that ports on different Japanese Islands 
should be open to American commerce ;' that steamers from California to China 
should be furnished with supplies of coals ; and that American sailors ship- 
wrecked on the Japanese coasts should receive hospitable treatment. Subse- 
quently a peculiar construction of the treaty on the part of the Japanese 
authorities, in relation to the permanent residence of Americans there, threat- 
ened a disturbance of the amicable relations which had been established. The 



gress; and, because his protest w.is not heeded, he retired from his post, and left the duties of 
his oEfice with Mr. Auguste Belmonte, of New York. Previous to tliis. Hulseman issued a 
wTitten protest against the policy of our government in relation to Austria and Hungary, and 
that protest was answered, in a masterly manner, in January, 1S51, by Mr. Webster, the Secre- 
tary of State. 

' Pages 47 and 453. 

' This stipulation was so construed as to allow American fishermen to catch cod within the 
large bays where they could easily carry on their avocations at a greater distance than three miles 
from any land. Such had been the common practice, witliout interference, until the assumption 
of exclusive right to their bays was promulgated bv tlie British. 

" Page 479. ' Page 487. ' Page 423. 

° Previous to this, the Dutch had monopolized the trade of Japan. See note 5, page 59. 



512 THE NATION. [1852. 

iiiattor was adjusted, and in 1800, a large and imposing embassy fioni the 
onipiro of Ja])ar. visited tlie United States. Tlie iiitereoiirse between the two 
countries is becoming more ami more intimate. 

The rehitions between the United St.ates and old Spain, on aer^junt of Cuba, 
became iiitiTesting in the autumn of 1S52. The Spanish autlv.rities of Cuba, 
being thoroughly alarmed by the attempts at invasion,' am' the evident sym- 
pathy ill the movement of a Large portion of the people ( x the United States, 
became excessively suspicious, ami many little outra'^es Avero committed at 
Havana, which kej>t alive an irritation of fct'linir ' .consistent witli social and 
commercial friendship. The idea became '. .valcnt, in Cuba and in Europe, 
that it was the ])olicy of the government of tiie I'nitcil States to ultim.ately 
aequii-e absolute jtossession of that island, and thus have the control over tho 
commerce of the Gulf of Mexico (the door to California), and the trade of tho 
West India group of islands, which are owned, chiefly, by France and England. 
To prevent such a result, the cabinets of France and England asked that of tho 
United States to enter with them into a treaty which should secure Cuba to 
Sp.ain, by .agreeing to disclaim, " now and forever hereafter, all intention to 
obtain possession of the Island of Cuba," and " to discountenance all such 
attemi)ls, to that effect, on the ])art of any power or individiud whatever." 
Edward Everett, then Secretary of State, issued a response [December 1, 1852] 
to this extraordinary j)roposition, which the American people universally 
applauded for its keen logic and ]>atriotic and eidightenecl views. He told 
France and Englanil plainly, that the question was an American and not a 
Eurojiean one, and not properly within tho seo])e of their interference; that 
while thelT^nited States government disclaimed all intention to violate existing 
neutrality laws, it woul,d not ri'lini[uish I hi' right to act in relation to Cuba 
independent of any other power; and that il cduld not see with indifference 
"the Island of Cid)a fall into the hands of any othei' jtower tiian S])ain."' Lord 
John Kussell, the English prime-minister, answered this letter [February, 
]8,"):i], and tints ended the dijilomatic correspondence on the subjei'l ot" tho 
])ro])oseil "Tripartite Treaty," as it was called. 

The most important of the closing events of Mr. Fillmore's adrainistr.ation 
was tlie creation by Congress of a new Territory called Washington, out of tho 
Borthern part of Oregon.' The bill for this ))urpose became a law on the 2d of 
March, 185:!, two days before Fillmore's successor, Franklin Fierce, of New 

• Pngea 502 and 508. 

' As early iis 1 S'.':!, when tho Spanisli iirovineos in South Amcricft wero in roboUii)n, or forming 
into inilt'ponili'nl repiiblios, I'resiiient Motiroo, in ii spociiil nicssiifte upon thy siibjoot., proinul)fat('d 
tlio lioctriup. since acted upon, that tlie United Stales ought to resist tho extension of foriMpu 
domain or inlhience upon tlie American continent, and not allow any European govcrnuicnt. by 
colonizing or otherwise, to gain a I'ootliold in the New World not already acquired. [Seo note 5, 
page -lis.] This was directed siiccially against tho elVorls expected to bo niudo by the allied 
sovereigns who had crnshod Xapoloon, to assist .S)iain against lier revolted colonies in Aniericii, 
«nd to suppress the growth of denioeraey there. It bi'cauio n settled iioliey iif our goveniiuent, 
and Mr. Kverett reas.scrted it in its fullest extent, .'^ueh expression .xeenied to lie iniiiort;iiit and 
seasonable, because it was well known that Great Britain was then makuig strenuous elVorts to 
obliiin potent intlueuco in Central America, so n.s to prevent tho United Swtos from aeipiirnix 
exclusive property in Iha routes across tho isthmus from tho Gulf of Mexico to tho Pacilic Oceau. 

' Pugo ns. 







imiB ipmEsnnDisuT^Ki) tmi jjaipamie^ie imjeas^t. 



1853.] 



PIERCE'S ADMINISTRATION. 



513 



Hampshire, was inaugurated. The hitter was nominated for the office by the 
Democratic convention liehl at Baltimore early in June, 1852, when William 
R. King, of Alabama, was named for the office of Vice-President. At the 
same place, on the 16th of June, Winfieki Scott was nominated for President 
and William A. Graham for Vice-President, by a Whig convention. The 
Democratic nominees were elected, but failing health prevented the Vice- 
President taking his seat. He died in April, 1803, at the age of sixty-eight 
years. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

PIERCE'S ADMINISTRATION. [1853 — 1857.] 

A DRIVING sleet filled the air on the 4th of March, 1853, when Franklin 
Pierce,' the fourteenth President of the United States, stood upon the rude 





.-''Z7^y9Z^r^^Zy^2ls^c 



'^^zcS^ 



platform of New Hampshire pine, erected for the purpose over the steps of tht. 
eastern portico of the Federal capitol, and took the oath of office, administered 
by Chief Justice Taney. The military display on that occasion was larger 

' Franklin Pierce was bom at Hillsborough, New Hampshire, in November, 1 804. He is the 
son of General Benjamin Pierce, an active officer in the old Wa. for Independence, and one of the 
most useful men in N«w Hampshire. In 1820, when sixteen years of age, young Pierce becam* 

33 



514 



THE NATION. 



[186S 



tliMii liail over Ix'Cii seen in llic streets <il'llie N;iti(iii:il city, ami it was estimated 
that at. least twenty tluuisaiiil sli'anu;ers were in \VasliiTn;lon on tlio morninrr 
of" llie inauguration. Untrannneled 1>y special ]>arty )ile(lires, tlic new Chief 
Magistrate entered n|Min the dulies ol" his dllice nmlei- iilcasant, auspices; and 
his inaugural a<ldri'ss, lull of prouiises and ])a(i'iotic sentiments, received the 
general aj)[ir()val of his counlryuien. 'I'liree days afterward [March 7] tho 
Senate, in special session, conllriued his cahinet a))pointments.' 

> Tho most serious difficulty which President Pierce was called upon to 
encounter, at the conmienci'nient of Ids administration, was a disj)ute concern- 
ing the l)oundary-line betwecit tho Mexican province of Chihuahua'' and New 
Mexicio." The Mosilla valley, a fertile and extensive region, was claimed by 
both 'IVrritories ; and under the direction of Santa Anna,* who was again Presi- 
dent of tho Mexican l{i'])ublic in 1854, Chihuahua took armed possession of the 
disputed territory. For a time war seemed inevitable between the United 
States and Mexico. Tho dispute was llually settled by negotiations, and 
friendly relations have existed between tho two governments ever since. 
Those relations wore delicate during a largo portion of the late Civil War in 
tho United States, while French l)ayonots kept the Austrian Arcliduke Maxi- 
niilian in the attitiid(^ of a ruler, with tho title of emperor, over tho Mexican 
peoj)le, whose liheities ]S'a|>ole(Mi the Third, emperor of France, was thereby 
trying to destroy. The repuMican government in ])ower when Maximilian 



n Bliulont in Bowitoin r!nll(');o, nt Brimswick, Jfaiiio. TTo wiia pradiintotl in 18'Jl, oliosc law ns n 
liroU'Ssidn, ai\il was aiiinillcil to iiractioo at tlio bar in 1S27. Itc ln'ciinio n warm jiolitician, nnJ 
)iarlisaii o( (icncnil .l;;i'l\S(m in 1S28 ; and llio noxt yi'ar, wlu<n lio was twcntv-livo years of ngo, 
iio was clocti'il a mcnil.i'r (iftlic Loifislalurn of liis native Stall-. Tlu'rn lie .served fonr years. Ho 
was eleetml to Con^;res3 iu ls:!3, mitl served his eenstitnenls in tlie Iknise of Hepresentatives for 
fonr years. Jn l.s:t7, the I.eirislfilnro of New IIanii)»liire elected him to a seat in tho Federal 
Sciiato. Ho resiirned his seal in .Fune, 1812, and remained in ))rivato lifo nntil 18'I5, when ho 
wi\s appointed I'niled Stales Dislriel Allornev for New Hampshire, lie was connnissioned a 
Brigndier-liener.tl in Mareh, 1841, and joined tho army in Mexico, nnder Oenernl Scott, .\lter 
the war he relin'd from inililie life, where ho remained imlil called to (he hijthest ollleo in lh» 
t,'in< of Ihe |)eojilo. When, in t lie spring of ISoi, li(> left the chair id' stale, he ajraiii nlireil 
into private life, and was never in pnlilie einployineiit afterwards. He <lied Oel. 8, IStiU. 

' William Ij. Marey, Secretary of State; .lames (Inthrie, Secretary of (ho Tri'usury; Holiert 
McClelland, Seeretary of the Interior; JelVerscai Davis, Seeretary of War; James 0. Dobbiii, Soo- 
rotary of tho Navy; .Tamos Campbell, Poatmastor-(.ieneral; Caleb 
Cii.shinjj;, Atlornev-denoral. 

" Note 1. pa^e -181. 

' I'aK'O in". 

* Anlonio I.opez do Sania Anna is a native of Mexico, and first 
came into pnl)lie life in 1S21, duriai,' the excitements of revolntion. Ho 
has been one of the ehief revehdicansts in that mdiapjiy conidry. Ho 
was chosen Tresident of the llepnblie in 18.'t3. After an oxcitintf career 
as u commanding (ieneral, ho was again elected Tresidenl in 18-11, bnt 
was lunled from power in 18-lfi. After tho cuptnre of the city of Mexico 
by the Anierieans, niuler ("ieneral Scott [page ■IDIJ, ho retired (o tho 
West Indies, and llnally to Carlhagena, where he resideil nntil 1853, 
when he riilnrned (o Mexico, and was elected President again. In the 
mnnmer of ISft'l, he was accnsed of u design to as.><>nno imperial power, 
and violent inanrrections were tlie eonseipience. These resulted in his 
being again deprived of power, and ho has never been able to regain it. 
Mnch of the timo since he was driven from pnblic life ho lias lived in exilo in Cuba, and in 188(J 
ho was n resident of the United States. He went to Mexico d\iring the earlier period of 1867, 
■when ho was arrested, and thrown into prison. Few nieu have experienced greater vidssitudM 
than Santa Ainiu. lie dieii in tho city of Mexico in the spring of ISTti. 




SAITTA ANHiu 




1853.] PIKUOI'VS ADMINISTRATION. gjg 

cuiao was sl,o.'iilil_v recoifiiizcd by lliat of" the ITuilcil States as tlio loffitiinato 
govenuiKMit ot'Me.vico, and, diplomatically, iMaxiiiiiliaii was uiikiiowii to it. 

Tho oarlicr portion of Pierce's adiiuiiistratioii was distiui^uislied liy impor- 
tiint explorations by sea and land, in tho interest of American coniinerce. The 
ac(|iusition of California, and the marvelous rapidity with which it was filling 
with an enterprising population, opened to 
the view of statesmen an immense commer- 
cial interest on the Pacific coast, which de- 
manded the most liberal legislation. Con- 
gross seems to have compreliended tho 
importance of tho matter, and nnder its 
authority four armed vessels and a supjily- 
ship sailed [l\[ay, 185.')] from Norfolk, mider 
Captain Itintjgold, for the eastern coast of 

..,.," J, r^ TT T.t 1 • i- 1 AN OCEAN STRAMSnn>. 

Asia, by tho way of Cape Horn. Its ehiei ob- 
ject was a thorough cxplor.ation of those regions of the Pacific Ocean which it was 
then evident would soon bo traversed between the jiorts of our own western 
frontier and tho East Indies ; also of the whaling-grounds of the Kamtchatka 
Sea aiul ilehriug'.s Straits, on tlic borders ot wliicli tho United States piu'- 
chascd front lliissia, in 1807, at the cost of f 7,:iOO,000 in gold, a hirgo and 
important territory. Steamships had then just commenced making stated 
and regular voyages from California to China and Japan. 

While the expedition just iiK'utioned was away, plans were maturing for 
the construction of one or more railways across the continent, to connect, by a 
continuous lino of transportation, the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Congress 
authorized surveys for such road or roads, and by midsummer [l85;i] four 
expeditions were fitted out for tho purpose — one to explore from the upper 
waters of tho Mississippi, at St. Paul, to Pnget's Sound, on the Pacific ; another 
to cross the continent from the Mississippi, along a line .adjacent to the thirty- 
sixth ]iarallel of latitude; another from the J\Iississip[)i, by way of the Great 
Salt Lake, in Utah ; and a fourth i'rom some ]K)int on the Lower Mississippi to 
the coast of Southern California, at San Pedro, Los Angelos, or San Diego, 
These expeditions performed their duties well, in the midst of great hardshi|is,' 
and over one of the routes then explored, calleil the Central, wliich trav- 
erses Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Utah, Nevada and California, a railway 
was completed in May, 18G9. Who can estimate the effect of these 
gigantic operations upon the destiny of our lleptiblic, so connected in 
commercial relations with that "Farther India" whose wealth tho civilized 
world so long coveted ? 



At the timo theso explorations woro poing on, Colonel Froinont (.see page 488) was at the 
head of a similar party among the Uocky Mountains. That exploring in the direction of tho 
Great Salt Lake, was in chasge of Captain Gunnison, of tho National army. Ho found 
tho Indians hostile when he approached tho Mormon country, and among the Wasatcli 
mountains thoy fell upon the explorers and killed a nnmlier of them, nicluding the leader. 
Fremont's party suffered dreadfully for want of food in tho midst of deep snow. For forty-tiTS 
days they fed on the meat of exhausted mules which they slew, and every particle was devoured, 
even the entrails! They were met and saved by another party in February, 1854. 



516 



THE NATION. 



[1853. 



While the government was putting forth its energies in preparing the way 
for the triumph of American commerce, ])rivate enterprise was busy in the 
promotion of general industry, and in the noble work of international fraternity 
in the great interest of Labor. In the year 1851, an immense building, com- 
posed of iron and glass, was created in Hyde Park, London, under royal 
patronage, for the purpose of giving an exhibition of the results of tlie industry 
of all nations. It was a World's Fau', and representatives of every civilized 
nation on the globe were there mingling together as brothers of one family, and 
all equally interested in the jjcrfection of each other's productions. The idea 
was one of great moral grandeur, fur it set an insignia of dignity upon labor, 
hitherto withheld by those who bore scepters and orders. There men of all 
nations and creeds received a lesson tipon the importance of brotherhood among 
the children of men, such as the pen and tongue could not teach. For the 
conception and consummation of that noble work, mankind will forever revere 
its author, Prin<'e AlhiTt, the husband of Queen Mcturia. The enterprise was 
repeated in this country in 18513, when, at the expense of the money and 

energy of private republicans, a 
" Crystal Palace " was built and 
a " AVorld's Fair" was held in 
the city of New York. It was 
opened in July of that year, with 
imposing ceremonies, led by the 
Chief Magistrate of the nation.' 
The emperor of the French has 
twice imitateil the act of the 
Hritish queen and her consort. 
During the spring and sumnler 
of 1807, an immense " World'a 
Fair " was open in Paris. These were important historical events, for they 
marked a new and most promising epoch in the annals of mankind. They 
have since been repeated." History often has better stories to tell than those of 
wars and military conquests, and the rise and fall of dynasties ami emjiiros. 




ORrSTAL PALACE IN NEW YORK. 



' On that occasion, a prayer was maiie by Dr. 'Wainwright, provisional bishop of tho Protest- 
ant E])iscopal Chiircli iu the diocese of New York (since deceased); an aJdress was pronouncad 
by Tlieodore Sedgwic^Jc, president of tlie Association by wliich tlie Ijuilding was erected ; and on 
tlie 16th of tho month, a jrrand entertainment was given by the directors to distinguished piiests, 
among whom were tlie President of the United Stales and members of liis cabinet, Sir CliarJea 
LyeH, tho eminent Eiighsli geologist, and others. 

One of the speaker.s on iliat occasion [Klihu Bnrritt] said : " Wortliy of the grandest circnm- 
Btances which conld be tlirown aroinid a luinian assembly, worthy of this occasion and a hundred 
like this, is that beautiful idea, the coronation of Labor. * * * Not American labor, not 
Briti.sh labor, not French labor, not the labor of tlio New World or the Old, but tho labor of man- 
kind aa one undivided brotherliooil — labor as the oldest, the noblest jirerogativo of duty and 
liunmnity." And Kov. E. H. Chapin closed with the beautiful invocation: "01 genius of Art. till 
us with the inspiration of still higher and more -spiritual beauty. 1 instruments of invention, 
enlarge our dominion over reality. Let iron and fire become as blood and muscle, and iu this 
electric net-work lot heart and brain inclose the world with truth and sympathy. And thou, 
0! beautiful dome of light, suggestive of the brooding future, tho future of human love and divine 
communion, expand and spread above the tribes of men a canopy bro»d as the earth, and glorioui 
.•13 the uiipcr heaven." ^ See [lage 74G. 



1853.] PIERCK'S A D M I N 1ST U A T 1 ON. 52^ 

When the Thirty-third Congress assembled, on the first Monday in Decem- 
ber, 1853, a greater degree of good feeling seemed to prevail among the mem- 
bers than had been exhibited for the several preceding years, when the chief 
tojiics of their deliberations were connected with the subject of Shivery. The 
conntry was at peace and amity with all the world, as a general pi'oposition,' 
and the people looked to their representatives for the conception and adoption 
of measures for the public welfare, which the circumstances of the nation 
required. The construction of a railway across the continent was expected to 
absorb much of their attention. Important treaties were pending between our 
government and those of Mexico and Central America, concerning territory 
and inter-oceanic communications across the Istlinius between North and South 
America ; also concerning boundary-lines in the region of New Mexico and 
California. 

There was an interest, too, far away in the Pacific, that demanded serious 
consideration. Tlie government of tlie Sandwich Islands was then making 
earnest overtures for annexing that ocean empire to our republic. This was a 
matter of great moment, for these Islands are destined to be of vast impor- 
tance in the operations of the future commerce of the Pacific Oeean. A large 
majority of the white people there are Americans by birth ; and the govern- 
ment, in all its essential operations, is controlled by Americans, notwithstand- 
ing the ostensible ruler is a native sovereign. The consuls of France and 
England, when they perceived a disposition on the part of the reigning 
monarch to have his domain annexed to the United States, charged the scheme 
upon certain American missionaries, and ofticially protested against their 
alleged conduct. They declared that France and England would not remain 
indifferent spectators of such a movement. Tlie missionaries, as well as the 
United States commissioner, disclaimed any tampering with the native authoii- 
ties on the subject ; at the same time, the latter, in a published reply to the 

' There waa a little feeling of hostility between our government and that of Austria for a while 
in 1853, but it soon subsided. It grew out of a circumstance connected with tlio e.tereise of tlio 
power of our goveriinicDt in defense of a citizen of foreign birtli in a foreign port, as follows: 
"When Austria, by aid of Russia, cruslied the rebellion in llnngary, in 18-18, many of the active 
patriots became o.xiles in foreign lands. A large number came to the United States, and many 
of them became naturalized citizens — that is, after due legal preparation, took an oath to sniiport 
the Constitution and laws of the United States, and to perform faithfully all tlie duties of a citizen. 
One of these, named Martin Koszta, a native of Hungary, liad taken such steps. While engaged 
in business at Smyrna, on the Mediterranean, ho was seized, by order of the Austrian consul- 
general, and taken on Ijoard an Austrian brig, to be conveyed to Trieste as a rebel refugee, not- 
withstanding he carried an American protection. Captain Ingraham, of the United States sloop- 
of-war St. Louis, then lying in the harbor of Smyrna, immediately claimed Koszta as an American 
citizen. On the refusal of the Austrian authorities to release the prisoner, Ingraham eleareil his 
vessel for action [.July 2], and threatened to fire upon the brig if Koszta was not delivered up 
within a given time. The Austrians yielded to the powerful arguments of forty well-shotted 
cannon, and Koszta was placed in tlio custody of the French consul, to await tlie action of tlio 
respective governments. Ingraham's course was everywhere applauded; and Congress signified 
its approbation by voting liim an elegant sword. The pride of the Austrian government was 
severely wounded, and it issued a protest against the proceedings of Captain Ingraham, and sent 
it to all the European courts. Mr. Ilulseman, the Austrian minister at Washington, demanded 
an apology, or other redress, from o\ir government, and menaced the United States with the tlis- 
pleasure of liia royal master. But no serious difficulty occurred. It was plainly perceived that 
the Austrians were in the wrong; and Koszta, under the protection of the United States flag, 
returned to this land of free opinions. 



518 THE NATION. [1854 

protest, (lonieil tlio riglit of foreign govoriimoiits to interfere to prevent such 
a result, if it slioiild be deemed mutually desirable. Preliminary negotiations 
were eommenced, and a treaty was actually formed, when, on the 15th of 
December, 1854, King Kamehameha died, at tlie age of forty-nine years, and 
Iwas succeeded by his son, Prince Alexander Liholiho. The new king imme- 
diately ordered the discontinuance of negotiations with the United States, and 
the subject of annexation was not revived until after the visit of Emma, 
Queen of the Islands, to England and the United States, in 1866. Tliat such 
annexation will linally occur, seems to be prohesied by the history of the past 
and the teachings of the present. 

Just as the jiroliniinarics were arranged in Congress for entering vigorously 
upon the business of the session, the chairman of the Senate Committee on 
Territories (Mr. Douglas, of Illinois) presented a bill [Jan., 1854] wliich dis- 
turbed the harmony in Congress, and the quietude of the ])eo])le. In the center 
of our continent is a vast region, almost twice as large, in territorial extent, as 
the original thirteen States,' stretching between ]\Iissouri, Iowa, and Minne- 
sota, and the Pacific Territories, from the thirty-seventh jiarallel of north lati- 
tude to the l>ritish possessions," and embracing one-fourth of all the public 
lands of the United States. The bill alhided to proposed to erect this vast 
region into two Territories, the southern ])ortion, below the fortieth j)arallel, to 
be named Jva/isas, and the northern and larger portion, Arbras/i-a. The bill 
contained a provision which would nullify the Compromise of 1 820,' and allow 
the inhabitants of those Territories to decide for themselves whether they 
would have the institution of slavery or not. This proposition surprised Con- 
gress and the whole country, and it became a subject of discussion throughout 
the Union. The slavery agitation was aroused in all its strength and rancor, 
and the whole North became violently excited. Public meetings were held by 
men of all parties, and petitions and remonstrances against the measure, 
especially in its relation to JVebraska, were poured into the Senate,'' while the 
debate on the subject was progressing, from the 30th of January [1854] until 
tlie 3d of March. On the latter day the bill j>assed that body by the decisive 
vote of thirtj'-seven to fourteen. The measure encountered great opposition in 
the House of Representatives; and by means of several amendments, its final 
defeat seemed almost certain, and the excitement subsided. 

At about tliis time a bill was re]wrted in the Senate [March 10], providing 
for the construction of a railway to the Pacific Ocean; and on the same day 
when the Nebraska IJill passed that body [March 3d], the House of Represen- 
tatives adopted one called the Homestead Dill, which provided that any free 
white male citizen, or any one who may have declared liis intentions to become 
one previous to the pass.age of this act, might select a quarter section [one 
hundred and sixty acres] of land on the jMiblic donmin, and on ])roof being 
gl\eu tliiit he had occupied and cultivated it for live years, he might receive 



' Page 174. ' Pago 48ft. • Page 452. 

' A iietition against the measure was presented to the Senate immediately after the passsgv 
">f the bill hy tliul body, signed by three thousand clergymen of New England. 



1854.] PIERCE'S ADMINISTRATION. 5I9 

a title to it in fee, without being required to pay any thing for it. This bill 
■was discussed in both Houses for several weeks ; and finally an amendment, 
graduating the prices of all the public lands, was adopted in its stead.' The 
public mind had become comparatively tranquil when, on the 9th of May 
[1854], the Nebraska bill was again called up in the House of Representatives. 
It became the absorbing subject for discussion. During a fortnight, violent 
debates, with great acrimony of feeling, occuiTed, and on one occasion there 
was a session of thirty-sis consecutive hours' duration, Avhen an adjournment 
took place in the midst of great confusion. The country, meanwhile, was 
much excited, for the decision of the question was one of great moment in its 
relation to the future. While it was pending the suspense became painful. 
But it did not last long. The final question was taken on the 22d, and the 
bill was passed by a vote of one hundred and thirteen to one hundred. Three 
days afterward [jMay 25], the Senate agreed to it as it came from the Plouse 
by a vote of thirty-five to thirteen, and it received the signature of the Presi- 
dent on the last day of May."' 

New difiiculties with the Spanish authorities of Cuba' ajipeared, while the 
Nebraska subject was under discussion. Under cover of some pretense, the 
American steamship, Black Warrior, was seized in the harbor of Havana 
[February 28, 1854], and the vessel and cargo were declared confiscated. The 
outrage was so flagrant, that a proposition was immediately submitted to the 
lower House of Congress to suspend the neutrality laws,* and compel the 
Havana officials to behave properly. Under the provisions of such laws, any 
number of citizens of the United States, who may be engaged in hostilities 
against Spain, would forfeit the protection of their government, and become 
liable to punishment for a violation of law. It was on this account that Crit- 
tenden and his party were shot at Havana,' without the right of claiming the 
interference of the government of the United States in their behalf Tiie Presi- 
dent sent a special messenger to the government at Madrid, with instructiona 
to the American minister to demand immediate redress, in the form of indem- 
nity to the owners of the Black Warrior. But the Spanish go\'ernment justi- 
fied the act of the Cuban authorities, when such formal demand was made. In 

' It provided that all lands which had been in market ten years should be subject to entry at 
one dollar per acre; fifteen years, at seventy-Hve cents; and so on, in the same ratio — those 
•which had been in maricet for thirty years being offered at twelve and a half cents. It also pro- 
Tided that every person availing himself of the act should make affidavit that he entered the 
land for his own use \ and no one could acquire more than three hundred and twenty acres, or 
two quarter-sections. 

* A few days after the final passage of the Nebraska bill, t^ie city of Boston was made a 
theater of great excitement, by the arrest of a fugitive slave there, and a deputy-marshal was shot 
dead, during a riot. United States troops from Rhode Island were employed to sustain the officers 
of the law, and a local military force was detailed, to assist in the protection of the court and the 
parties concerned, until the proceedings in the case should be completed. The United States 
Commissioner decided in favor of the claimant of the slave, and he was conveyed to Virginia by a 
government vessel. This commotion in Boston is known as the Burns Riot — the name of the 
fugitive slave being Burns. 

' Page 502. 

' These are agreements (still existing) made between the governments of the United States 
and Old Spain, to remain neutral or inactive, when either party should engage m .war with 
another. 

' Page 508. 



520 THE NATION. [1864. 

the mean while the perpetrators of tlie outrage became alarmed, and the Cap- 
tain-General (or Governor) of Cuba, witli pretended generosity, oiFered to give- 
up tlie vessel and cargo, on the j)ayment by the owners of a fine of six tliou- 
sand dollars. They complied, but under protest." The matter was finally 
settled amicably between tlic governments of {lie United States and Spain," and 
suice then nothing has materially disturbed the friendly relations between the 
two countries. 

The irritation caused by the diHiculties with Cuban officials was made the 
pretext, after the passage of the Nebraska bill, for a conference of three of the 
American ministers plenipotentiary in Europe. In August [1854], the Presi- 
dent directed Mr. Buchanan, then American embassador at London, !Mr. Mason, 
embassador at Paris, and Mr. Soule, embassador at Madrid, to meet at some 
convenient place, to confer upon the l)est means of settling the difficulties about 
Cuba, and gaining possession of tlie island, by purchase or otherwise. They 
accordingly met at Ostend, a seaport town in IJelgium, on the 9th of Octobeiv 
1854. After remaining tlicrc three days, they adjourned to Aix-la-Chapelle, in 
Rhenish Prussia, and iVoin thence, on tlie ISth of the same month, they 
addressed a letter to the United States government, which embodied tlieir 
views. That letter is known in history as The Ostend Circular, and is 
regarded as one of the most disgraceful passages in the history of American 
diplomacy. Its arguments were the plea of the highway robber, enforced by 
the doctrine that " Might makes Right." It recommended the purchase of 
Cuba, if ])ossible ; if not, the acquisition of it by force. "If Spain," said the 
authors of that infamous letter, " actuated by stubborn pride and a false sense 
•of honor, should refuse to sell Cuba to the United States," then " by every 
law, human and divine, we shall be justified in wresting it from Spain, if we 
possess the ])ower." The bald iniquity of the proposition amazed lionest 
people in both hemispheres. Wliy it should have been left unrebuked by tlie 
government at Washington was a mystery which the light of subsequent 
events revealed. It seems clear, in that light, that it was a part of the scheme 
of those disunionists who, a few years later, attempted to destroy the Repub- 
lic, that they might establish a dazzling empire whose comer-stone should be 
Human Slavery, of which they dreamed, and which they promised their 
deluded followers— an empire wliich was to be comprised witliiu what they 
called The Golden Circle, whose cetitci- was Havana, the capital of Cuba.' 



' Protesting against an act which a party is compelled to perform, leaves the matter open for a 
ftiture discussion and final settlement. 

" The President of the United States, having been informed that expeditions were preparing m 
different parts of the Union, for the purpose of invading Cuba, issued a proclamation against such 
moTcments, on the 1st of June, 1S54, and called upon :ill good citizens to respect the obligations 
of existing treaties, between the governments of our Republic and Spain. 

' The (Juldeii Circle, as dcliiicci by these disun ionists, had a radius of sixteen degrees of latitude 
and longitude, with its center at Havana. It will be perceived, by drawing that circle on a map, 
that it included the Slave-labor States of our Republic. It reached northward to the Pennsyl- 
vania line, and southward to the Isthmus of Darien. It embraced the West India Islands, and 
those of tiie Caribbean Sea, with a greater part of Mexico and Centr.il America. The plan of the- 
disunionists seems to have been, first, to secure Cuba, and then the other islands of that tropical 
region, with Mexico and Central .Vmerioa; and then to sever the Slave-labor and the Free-labor Stale* 
of our' Republic, making the former a part of the great empire, whose corner-stone, as one of th& 



1854.] PIEKCE'S ADMINISTRATION. 52^ 

While the good name of the government was suffering at the hands of 
unfaithful citizens, who were plotting mischief against its weaker neighbors,, 
some salutary measures were adopted wliich gave a little relief to the picture 
of that dark pei-iod in our history. While a conspiracy for obliterating the 
boundary-line between the United States and Mexico, by blotting out the 
nationality of the latter, was fast ripening, the two governments successfully 
negotiated a treaty by which that boundary was defined and fixed. The treaty 
was ratified early in 1854, and it was agreed that the decision of the commis- 
sioners appointed to nm the boundary should be final. By that treaty the 
United States were to be released from all obligations imposed by the treaty 
of Guadalupe Hidalgo,' to defend the Mexican frontier against the Indians, 
and as a consideration for this release, and for the territory ceded by Mexico, 
the United States agreed to jjay to the latter ten millions of dollars — seven 
millions on the ratification of the treaty, and the remainder as soon as the 
boundary-line should be established. These conditions were complied with,^ 
and a good understanding between the two governments has ever since 
existed. 

At about the same time, a reciprocity treaty was negotiated between the 
United States and Great Britain, which lowered, and in some instances effaced, 
the barriers to free commerce between the British provinces in America and 
our Republic. It provided that the fisheries of the provinces, excepting those 
of Newfoundland,'^ should be open to American citizens ; that disputes respect- 
ing fisheries should be settled by arbitration ; that the British should have a 
right to participate in the American fisheries as far as the 36th degree of north 
latitude, and that there should be free commerce between the provinces and 
the United States, in flour, breadstuffs, fruits, fish, animals, lumber, and a 
variety of natural productions in their unmanufactured state. It stipulated 
that the St. Lawrence River and the Canadian canals should be thrown open 
to American vessels ; and the United States government agreed to urge the 
respective States to admit British vessels into their canals, upon similar terms. 
This treaty was submitted to the provincial Legislatures, and to the govern- 
ments of the contracting powers, and was ratified by all. The arrangement 
was terminated, in accordance with the provisions of the treaty, early in 1866. 

When the Fugitive Slave Law began to bear the bitter fruit which its 
author, James M. Mason, of Virginia, desired and expected;^ when tlie Kansas- 
less reticent of their number avowed, was to be human slavery. A secret association, kno^vn 
as the Order of the Lorn Star, and another subsequently organized as its successor whose 
members were called Knights of the Golden Circle, were lormed for the purpose of cormpting 
the people and carrynig ont the iniquitous design. The latter played a conspicuous part in 
the Civil War which broke out in 18U1. as the secret friends and efficient allies of the dis- 
umonists, who were making open war on the Republic. 

' Page 497. ^ Pagg 47_ 

1 . ^■'^^?^^}' ^'^"^^o"' "J"^ °f t'le most persistent of these disunionists who brought about the 
late Civil War, was the author of this Act. The writer was informed by a personal acquain- 
tance of Mason, at Winchester, that the Senator declared to him that he made the law as ob- 
noxious as possible to the people of the Free-Labor States, in order that it shoidd excite uni- 
versal disgust and opposition, and cause such violations of it, and a general refusal to comply 
with its repulsive requKements, as to give a plausible pretext to the slaveholders to revolt and 
attempt to dissolve the Union. 



523 



THE NATION. 



[1854. 



Nebraska bill had opened afresh the agitiil ion of (lie Slavery question, and when 
the extraordinary declaration of tlio " Osfeiid Ciirnliir" !iii]ioarcd to give no of- 
fense to tlio Chief Magistrate of the nation and 
his advisers, the disunionists jilanned more ac- 
tiv(!lyaiid worked more boldly tlian ever. Tiie 
" Great Idea of the Age," as they called it, was 
tJie extension of the area of slavery, by the 
conquest and annexation of countries adjacent 
to our Kcjiublic. 'J'hcir attempts on Cuba 
l^wero bafileii, and tlicy Itiiiu'd their attention 
Ho Mexico and Central America. Their ope- 
* rations at first assumed the form of emigra- 
tion scliemes, and llicir lirsfc tlieater was a 
region on the great Istiimns, inliabited cliiefly 
by a race of ilegraded natives, and belonging 
to the State of Nicaragua, known as the Mos- 
(piito coast. It promised to be a territory of 
great importance in a commercial point of view.' Under the specious ])retext 
that tlie ]}ritish were likely to possess it, armed citizens of the United States, 
ai)])ealing to iJie Monroe doctrine' for justification, emigrated to that region. 
Already tlio great guns of tlio American navy had been heard on the Mosquito 
iShoro, as a herald of coming jjowcr." 

It was in the antinnn and early winter of isr>l that llic lirst iormidable 
"emigration" to the Mosquito country was undertaken. It was alleged that 




JAMES U. UASON. 



' A niihvay iicros.t llio Tsthimis of rniimtm has been ccinstnictcd. Tlio first trains |>asse4 
over it, I'riMii Asiiiinvall to ruiiaiiia, on tlin 'JStli of .January, 1865. Tho project of a sliip-canal 
across thp Istlinuis of Darion, or Panama, lias oroiipiod llio ntlontion of statosmon anil romnuTcial 
mon for many years. The llrsl netnal exploration of tho Islhnuis, with a view to enltin); a ship- 
canal iieross it," was niiute in ISSH, liy a party of Iwenly-thiee, under tlio direetion of William 
Kenii.sh, of New York. They wore sent out by .T. ('. I'revosI, commander of the British sleam- 
shi|) Virmio, in pnrsnanep of orders from the commander of the Brilisli sipiadron then in the 
l>(cil\e. Thov eomiiK'nird on the raeilio coast, and traveled northward to the Atlantic shore. 
l'\ir ten daysUu'y travcrsi'd a dense forest, which covered a line, fertile, and well-watered jilain, 
which at no tiiiui rose more tliau lilty foot above tho level of tho sea. The party became short 
of iirovisions ; and havintt separated ' lor some prudent pnrpose, a portion of them were murdered 
and pliuiderei) by the Indians. The survivors returned to the Viraijo, without aecumplishinB 
iniicli. In .Tannarv, IS.'i-l, l.icnienant Strain, of the United Stales Navy, with a party of twenty, 
started from the ,\ll!Uitie side to explore the Islhmus. Thi'V snllcrcd dreadfully; and as iiullung 
was heard from Iheiii for several weeks, it was su|ipnsed that all had perisln-d. Tlu-ir jirovisious 
liceamo exhinisted, and som(> died from famine. The Indians, however, did not molest them, but 
(led to the monnl.iiiis. When Lieutenant .Strain and the survivors reached the racitic const, they 
were ileslitule of both clolhiii;; and food. Other e\|ilorations have been made l>y officers of 
the United States service, but no result has been reached. 

• See note 2, p»KO 512. 

" There was a litllo viUaKO on the Mosquito coast called Oreytown, in wliieli some American 
citizens resided, 'fliese alle^red that they had been outraged by the local authorities, who professed 
to derive their power directly from the Moscinilo king', orchief of the native tribes. An appeal was 
made U> the commander of I'l vessel of the United States navy, then lyiiiR near. That shallow 
olllcial, named llollins, who was slways valiant when there was no danger, actually bond)arded 
the little town, as a punishment for tiie acts of its authorities. This brought out the dcnuncia- 
tioiiH of Knglish residents, who alleged that, by arrangements with the Mosquito monarch, their 
Hovcrnment was tho protector of his doniinioiis. The Hritisli irovernment itself assumed that 
position, uud for a while tho folly of llollins caused expectations of serious dilBcnlty. 



1855.] PIERCE'S ADMINISTRATION. 503 

a large tract of the territory liail been granted l)y the Mosquito king to t wo 
Britisli subjects,' and upon tliis, by arrangement, tlie emigrants, led by Colonel 
H. L. Kinney, proceeded to settle. The government of Nicaragua protested 
against this invasion of that State, in violation of the neutrality laws of the 
United States. The Nicaraguan minister at Washington called the attention 
of our government to the sulyect [January IG, 1855], and especially to the fact 
of the British claim to political jurisdiction there, and urged that the United 
States, while asserting the "Monroe doctrine" as a correct political dogma, 
could not sanction the act complained of, as it was done under guarantees of 
British authority. Our government, as a matter of policy, interfered, but with 
a mildness that allowed the emigration scheme to go on, and assume more for- 
midable proportions and aspects. 

An agent of the fillibusters named William Walker, who had already, with 
a few followers, invaded the State of Sonora, Mexico, from California, and been 
repulsed, rea])peared on the theater in connection with Kinney, who invited 
him to assist him "in improving the lands and developing the mineral 
resources" of his grant on Lake Nicaragua. Ostensibly for that purpose. 
Walker left San Francisco with three hundred men, and arrived on the coast 
of Nicaragua on the 27111 of June. He cast off all disguise the next day, and 
attempted to capture the town of Rivas, believing that one of the factions 
opposed to the Nicaraguan government, which hc^ proposed lo unite himself 
with, would aid in his scheme. In this he was mistaken. Even one hundred 
and fifty Central Americans, who had joined him, under General Castillon, 
deserted when they saw the forces of Nicaragua apjiroaching. It was with 
great difficulty that Walker and his followers retreated to the coast and es- 
caped in a schooner. 

Walker, who appears to have been a special favorite of Jcffei'son Davis, 
the chief leader of the Confederates in the late Civil War (and who was then 
the Secretary of War and ruling spirit in President Pierce's cabinet), was not 
allowed to remain idle, for the sclieme to open Central America to the slave 
system of our Southern States" was to be consummated, as far as jiossible, while 
that functionary was in power in the government and could have its sanction 
to the practical operations of the doctrine of the "Ostcnd Circular." Walker 
accordingly made his appearance again on the soil of Nicaragua, witii armed 
followers, in August; and on the 5th of September following [1855] the 

' For some time the British had l)e('n endeavoring to obtain a controlling influeneo in this 
region, and they had induced the chief of 'the Mosquito nation to assume authority inde- 
pendent of tlie State of Nicaragua. 

^ While, so early as 1850, Davis and his political friends were evidently fostering t lio 
scheme for seizing (Julia, that it might become a part of the slave cnipii-e ali-eady alhulcd to, 
they ai)pear to have been planning for the seizure of the Central Americiiii Slads lor llie same 
purpose, and in tliis project the obsequious politicians of the, Nortli wlio were cner I'eady (o |)ro- 
mote the slave-holding mterests were in complicity. A month before t he sailing of the Cuban 
expedition under Lojiez [see page 508], a Pennsyjvanian, named John lii-odliead, in a let lei- to 
Davis, expressed his desire to be appointed a minister to Nicaragua, saying : "I should like 
to go into that covmtry and help open it to civilization and niggers. I could get sti'ong re- 
commendations from the President's (Taylor's) special friends in Pennsylvania for tlie j)lace, 
were the mission vacant, and I think I would prove a live minister. I am lired of being a 
white slave in the North, and long for a homo in the sunny South." President Taylor was 
Secretary Davis's father-in-law. 



524 THE NATION. [185R 

"emigrants" in the Mosquito country, assuming independence of Nicaragua, 
organized a civil government tiiere by tlic appointment of Kinney as diief 
magistrate, witli a council of five assistants. At that lime tlie iiiliahitaiits of 
Nicaragrua were in a state of revolution, and tlie troxeniment was weak. 
Taking advantage of tliis state of things, Walker jiushed his scheme of armed' 
occupation vigorously'. He fought and vancpiished [September 3, 1855] four 
hundred government troops at Virgin Bay, and marched triumphantly upon 
and cai)tured Grenada [October 12], the capital of tlie State. Then he placed 
General llivas, a Nicaraguan, in the Presidential chair; treated Kinney with 
contempt, and drove him from his Mosquito domain, and busied himself in 
strengthening his military power by "emigrants" from the United States. A 
British consul recogniy.ed the new governtnent of Nicaragua, and John II. 
Wheeler,' the American minister resident there, gave it the nurture of the sun- 
shine of his kindly regard. 

This attempt to establish a ixililical ])o\ver in Central America, by armed 
adventurers' from the United States, created alarm among the other govern- 
ments on the Isthmus, and in the Avinter of 185(5 an alliance of those States 
against Nicaragua under its foreign usurpers was attempted. Early in March 
Costa Rica made a formal declaration of war against that State; and on the 
10th of the same month Walker, wiio was the real head of the new govern- 
ment, made a corresponding declaration against Costa Rica. The latter called 
upon all the Central American States to " unite and destroy the invaders from 
the Nortii," while Walker sliainelessly declared that he was there by invitation 
of the liberal ])arty in Nicaragua. Hostilities commenced on the 20th of 
March. Tiie Costa Ricans marched into Nicaragua, and on the 11th of April 
a sanguinary contlict occurred, in which Walker's troojjs were victorious, and 
the invaders were driven from the State. This made the usurper arrogant. 
He levied a forced loan on the people in support of his power. General Rivas,' 
becoming disgusted with him, finally abdicated the presidency, abandoned 
Walker, and proclaimed against him. This was followed on the 24th of .June 
[1856] by a new election for President, when Walker received two-thirds of 
the popular vote. On the 12th of July he was inaugurated President of 
Nicaragua, and thus the first grand act of the conspiracy against our weak 
neighbors was accomplished. The government at Washington hasteneil to 
acknowledge the new nation, and Walker's embassador, in the person of a 

' John H. Wheeler was a resident of western Korth Carolina, and while on his war to New 
York, to embark for Nicaragua, two of his slaves, who attended him, were detained in Philadel- 
phia [July 18, 1H55J, through the instruineutality of persons there who sought to make them 
free. One of these (Passmore Williamson) was ordered by Judge Kane (father of Dr. Kane, tho 
Arctic explorer), of the United Stiites District Court, to bring tho slaves before him. Williamson 
declared that tho slaves had never l:)ecn in his custody, and of course ho Could not produce them. 
On motion of Colonel Wheeler, Judge Kane committed Williamson to prison, for contempt n(\ 
court, where lie remained for several months. This case, in connection with other questions in 
regard to slavery, produced great excitement tliroughout the country. Williamson, after big 
release, jirosecuted Kane for false imprisonment. 

' Rivas, who, by Walker's power, had been made President of Nicaragua, as wo have 
seen, had sent a minister to Washington named Parker 11. French. The Government 
refused to receive him. Davis's scheme was not ripe, and would not be imtil Walker, his pliant 
inetrumeut of mischief, was at the head of tho government, with an army at his back. 



1855.] PIERCE'S ADMINISTRATION. 525 

Roman Catholic priest named Vigil, was cordially received by President 
Pierce and his cabinet. Thus strengthened, Walker ruled with a high liand, 
offending commercial nations by his interference with trade. The other Cen- 
tral American States coalesced against him, when lie declared all their ports in 
a state of blockade ; and he performed other acts which showed his imiate 
weakness, and led to his ruin. 

For about two years Walker held possession of Nicaragua by hard strug- 
gling, but the combined power of the other states finally crushed him. On 
the 20th of May, 1857, he was compelled to surrender two hundred men, the 
remnant of his army, at Rivas, and by the interposition of Connnodore Davis, 
of our navy, then on that coast, he and a few of his followers were brought 
away unharmed. So soon as he arrived at New Orleans, he commenced fit- 
ting out another Nicaraguan expedition. He left there in November, 1857, 
and on the 25tli of that month he landed at Puenta Arenas, where Commodore 
Paulding, of our navy, seized him [Dec. 3] and two hundred and thirty-two of 
liis followers, and took Walker to New York as a prisoner. James Buchanan 
was then ] 'resident of the United States. lie ^wjyate^y commended Pauld- 
ing's act,' but " for prudential reasons," lie said — that is, to avoid giving offense 
to the slavery propagandists — he publicly condemned the Commodore, in a 
special message to Congress [January 7, 1858], for thus "violating the sove- 
reignty of a foreign country !" He declined to hold Walker as a prisoner, 
and then that willing agent of our Secretary of "War and his friends was allowed 
to freely traverse the slave-labor States, preaching a new crusade against Cen- 
tral America, and collecting funds for tlte purpose of a new invasion. Walker 
sailed from Mobile with a third expedition, and was arrested off the mouths of 
the Mississippi, but only for having left port without a clearance ! He was 
tiied by the United States Court at iHQW Orleans and acquitted, when he re- 
commenced operations, went again to Central America, made much mischief, 
and was finally captured and shot at Truxillo. Thus ended one of the first 
acts in the sad drama of the late Civil War. 

While these fillibustering movements were in progress on our Southern 
frontier, the attention of the government was called to other important matters. 
Among these was a war by the Indians u])on the white settlers in the Territo- 
ries of Oregon and Washington, on the Pacific coast, toward the close of 1855, 
caused, in a great measure, by the bad conduct of government agents and 
speculators ; and probably in a measure by the machinations of their English 
neighbors.' United States troops were sent to suppress hostilities, but they 
failed to accomplish it. They were defeated in battle, and not long afterward 



' Oral statement to tlie author by Commodoro Tatnall (late of the United States Navy), at 
Sackett's Harbor, New Tork, in July, 1800. Tatnall expressed much indignation at this dis- 
graceful conduct of the President, so calculated to demoralize the public service, and said : — " Few 
of us will he likely to do our duty hereafter for fear of punishment, by public censure, while the 
hand that inflicts it gives us a certificate of private approval." 

' Circumstances seemed to give the color of justice to the suspicion, that tho savages were 
incited to war on tho settlements by persons connected with the English Hudson's Bay Company, 
who had married Indian women, and who were desirous of monopohzing tho fur-trud» of that 
region. 



526 'I'UE NATION. [1855. 

several white families were murdered by the savages. Finally, Major-General 
Wool,' then stationed at Sau Francisco, proceeded to Portland, in Oregon, to- 
organize a campaign against them. The Indians had formed a powerful com- 
bination, and during the winter and spring of 1855-'56, hostilities were so gen- 
eral in both Territories, that it appeared at one time as if the settlers would be 
compelled to abandon the country. This " Indian trouble," as it was called, 
was brouglit to a close in Oregon during the ensuing summer, but there was 
restlessness observed everywhere among the savage tribes westward of the 
Rocky Mountains. 

The friendly relations between our Government and that of Great Britain 
were slightly disturbed early in 1855, by the enlistment, in the United States, 
of recruits for the British army, then, in connection with a French army, at 
war with the Russians on the Crimean Peninsula. It was done under the 
sanction of British othcials in this country, in violation of our neutrality laws. 
In this business the British minister at Washington was implicated, and our 
government demanded his recall. The British government refused compli- 
ance. After waiting patiently several months, while diplomatic correspond- 
ence was going on, the President dismissed the oifending minister ; also the 
British consids at New York, Philadelphia, and Cincinnati, who had been 
guilty of a similar oflense. Irritation followed these measures for a while, but 
law and equity so clearly vindicated the action of the United States, that a 
new minister was soon sent to Washington, and friendly feeling was restored. 

The most prominent events to be considered in the history of the adminis- 
tration of President Pierce and his immediate successor, are what may be 
called the preliminary skirmishes before the late great and final battle waged 
between the powers of Slavery and Freedom. The former, made bold and trucu- 
lent by success, was rapidly bringing not only the government, the commerce, 
and the varied industries of the Republic in abject subserviency at its feet, but 
was making the conscience of the nation, as manifested in morals and religion, 
plastic in its hands, and giving it its own shape and proclivities. Tlie Chief 
Magistrate at that time appeared to sympathize witli its sentiments, and smile 
complacently upon its deeds ; and so, having disposed, as it thought, of all its 
serious opponents, it began to work its will with a high hand, apparently 
unconscious of the fact that there were moral forces at work in opposition, 
which, like those of the material universe, are sometimes, though invisible, 
intangible, and latent, more potent in action than those which are seen and 
felt. That such forces existed was speedily made manifest. 

The virtual repeal of the Missouri Compromise Act* and the passage of the 
Kansas-Nebraska Act' lefl all the territory of the Republic open to the social 
institutions of every section of the Union. The question immediately arose, 
Shall the domain of the Republic be the theater of all free or all slave labor, 
with the corresponding civilization of each as a consequence ? It was evident 
that one or the other of these social systems must prevail, for the antagonism 
was so pronounced that one or the other must immediately yield. That ques- 



Pages 413 and 484. ' Pages 452 and 501. ' Page 618. 



1855.] Pierce's admi^tistkation. 527 

tion was scarcely uttered, ivlien ]iositivo action proceeded to answer it. The- 
power alluded to, complacently viewing its coucpiests, and the abjectness of 
its captives in its jiresence,' had no doubt of its snjDremacy, for on the sur- 
face of society there seemed to bo only slight ripples to indicate the agitation 
of serious opposition. So it sounded the trumpet for battle, and the newly 
organized Territory of Kansas was its chosen field of conflict. 

The offensive Fugitive Slave Act, and the aggressions and arrogance of its 
iil^holders, had aroused the Christian manhood of the nation, and the Cham- 
pion of Wrong, to its own utter astonishment, saw the gauntlet it had cast 
down immediately taken up boldly by the Champion of Right. The latter 
commenced the contest with the peaceful weapon of the ballot-box. Suddenly 
emigration began to ilow in a copious stream from the free-labor States, and 
especially from New England, into the new Territory. It was obvious that the 
settlers there from those States would soon out-vote those from the slave-labor 
States, and the dominant power thus far, alarmed and exasperated, began to 
organize physical forces in Missouri, to counteract the moral forces of its oppo- 
nent, if necessary. Combinations were formed under various titles,^ and both 
parties founded settlements and planted the seeds of towns.^ The government 
put forth its strength in that direction in October, 1854, when A. H. Reeder, 
appointed Governor of the Territory, arrived, and took measures for the elec- 
tion of a territorial legislature. 

With the election of members for a legislature, at the close of March, 1855, 
the struggle in Kansas fairly commenced. The men from the Free-labor States 
plainly perceived that they must contend against fraud and violence in every 
form. The Missouri slave-holders were prepared to go into the Territory and 
secure the election of men in sympathy with them. Already in November 
[1854], when a delegate to Congress was elected, out of nearly twenty-nine 
hundred votes cast, over seventeen hundred were put in by Missourians who 

' Merchants having a large "Southern trade," have confessed that for some time before the 
breaking out of the late civil war, they were careful not to allow tlie New York Trihune, and sim- 
ilar publications that advocated the righteousness of freedom for all, to be seen in their stores 
when their "Southern" customers were there! 

"They were respectively called "Social Band," "Friend's Society," "Blue Lodge," "The 
Sons of the South," et cetera. So early as the 24th of July, 1854, or about two weeks after the 
repeal of the Missouri Compromise Act, an "Emigrant Aid Society," under an act of incorpora- 
tion by the Legislature of Massachusetts, in April previous, when the cloud of difficulty was 
gathering, was formed in Boston, and was efficient in sending settlers to Kansas. This move- 
ment created great exasperation among the slave-holders, and at a meeting held at Westport, 
Missouri, early in July [1854], it was resolved that Missourians, who formed the associations there 
represented, should bo ready at all times to assist, when called upon by pro-slavery citizens in 
Kansas, to remove from the Territory by force every person who should attempt to settle the-f 
" under the auspices of the Northern Emigrant Society." They recommended the slave-holders 
of other counties in Missouri to take similar action. 

^ The settlers from Eree-labor States founded the towns of Lawrence, Topeka, Boston (after- 
ward Manhattan), Grasshopper FaUs, Pawnee, and one or two others. Those from the Slave- 
labor States founded Kickapoo, Doniphan, Atchison, and a few others on or near the Missouri 
River. A few days after the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, hundreds of l^issourians 
went over into Kansas, selected a tract of land, and put a mark upon it, for the purpose of 
establishing a sort of pre-emption right to it, and finally, at a public meeting, resolved as follows: 
— "That we will afford protection to no abolitionist as a settler of this Territory. That we 
recognize the institution of slavery as .already existing in this Territory, and advise slave-holders 
to introduce their property as early as poijsible." 



528 THE NATION. [1866 

had no business tlierc' Now, these ilissounans were more open in their usur- 
pation of the riglits of the citizens of Kansas. Wliile only ciglit liundred and 
thirty-one legal electors voted for members of the Legislature, there were no 
less than si.K thousand three hundred and twenty votes ])()lled. A tliousaiid 
men came from ISIissouri, armed with deadly weapons, two cannon, tents, and 
other things that apjiear in time of war, and encamped around Lawrence.' 
Tlu'se carried the election by the most shameful fraud and violence; and in 
like numner such ruffians controlled every other jioll in the Territory. Then » 
reign of terror commenced in Kansas, and actual ci\ 11 war darkened that beau- 
tiful land for more than a year. All classes of men carried deaiUy weapons, 
and a slight t>r accidental quarrel frecnu'utly produced unusual violence. 

The Legislature of Kansas, thus illegally chosen, was called by the Gov- 
ernor to meet at PaAvnce City, on the Kansas IJiver, nearly a hundred miles 
from the ]\Iissouri line. It iuiniediately adjourned to Shawnee jMission, on the 
Missouri border, and there proceeded to enact the most barbarous laws for the 
u))holding of slavery in the new Territory. These were regularly vetoed by 
the (iovernor, and as I'cgularly passed over liis veto. He was so obnoxious to 
the pro-slavery party, that they asked President Pierce to remove liiui. He 
did so, and sent ex-Governor Wilson Shannon, of Ohio, to fdl his place. That 
official was acceptable to the Missourians, for he declared that he was for slavery 
in Kansas, and that the Kansas Legislature was legal, and its laws Mere bind- 
ing on the people ! 

The actual settlers in Kansas, the larger ])ortion of whom Mere from the 
p-ree-labor States, held a mass convention on the 5th of September [1855], 
M'hen they resolved not to recognize the hiM-s of the Legislature, fraudulently 
chosen, as binding upon them. They refused to vote for a delegate to Congress 
at an election apjiointcdby that Legislature, and they called a delegate conven- 
tion at Topeka ou the 1 9th of October. l>y that convention Governor Keeder 



' A Domocrat, named John W. Wliitfield, was elected. He was an officer in the Confederate 
army diirintf a portion of tlio late rebellion. David 11. Atchison, then a niember of the United 
States Senate from Missouri, was One of the chief promoters of the frauds and ruffianism by 
which attempts were made to seize Kansas. Tie, loo, was a leader in the rebellion. 

' This band of lawless men were led by Claiborne F. Jackson, who was elected Governor of 
Missouri by the Democrats in I8t>0. He took an active part in the rebellion ajjainst his Govern- 
ment, and died n refugee in Arkansas, in 1S62. On tlie evening before the election we are con- 
siderinji, his followers held a meeting at his tent, near Lawrence, and took measures to crush 
any attempt to have a legal polling of tho votes. They threatened to hang an lionest judge of 
the election, should ho appear, and compelled another, under similar tlireats, to receive every vote 
offered by a Missonrian. Some of these voted several times; and three of the men elected were 
residents "of Missouri. Everyman who did not sympathize with them, if known, was not allowed 
to vote. Tho result satisfied the slave-holders. Tho newspapers in their interest advi.«ed tho 
Mi-ssourians who h.id thus "coufiiiercd Kansas" to "hold it, or die in tho attempt;" and when 
Governor Uoeiler refused to give certilicates to some of the men thus illegally elected, and 
ordered a new election on the 22d of May, to till their places, he was threatened with death. " This 
infernal scoundrel," said a Missouri pupor (The lirurmoickfr), "will have to bo wiped out yet." 
No man was safe who dared to express his views in support of law and order. One example of 
tho methods u.sed by the slave-holders in conquering Kansas, cited by Mr. Greeley in his Amrrican 
Confiict (i. 23!)), will suffice: — "William Phillips, a Free-State lawyer of Leaveuwortli. saw lit to 
sign the protest against the wholesale frauds whereby the election at that place was carried. A 
few days thereafter, ho was seized by a crowd of Missouri ruffiaus, taken by force to Weston, 
Missouri, eight miles distant, and there tarred and feathered, ridden o» a rail, and finally gold at 
*uction to a negfro, who was compelled to purchase him." 



lt>56.] PIERCE'S ADMINISTRATION. 529 

was nominated lor delegate in place of Wliitfield, and was elected by tlio 
legal votes of the Territory. On the 23d of the same month a convention of 
the same party, chosen by the settlers, assembled at Topeka and formed a con- 
stitution, which was approved by the legal ^otes of the Tenitory, whereby 
Kansas should become a Free-labor State, and under this they asked for the 
admission of their Territory into the Union as such. By this act a j)ortion of 
the strife between freedom anil slavery for supremacy in Kansas was now 
transferred to Washington City. There Reeder and Whitfield contested the 
claim of each to a seat. In the mean time elections had been held [January 
17, 18.50] under the new State Constitution, and matters seemed dark for the 
pro-slavery party in that State, when President Pierce gave them comfort by 
sending in a special message to Congress [January 24], in which he represented 
the action of the legal citizens of Kansas in forming a State Constitution as 
rebellion ! 

All through the si)ring of 1856, violence and bloodshed prevailed in Kansas. 
Seeing the determination of the actual settlers to maintain their rights, armed 
men flocked into the Territory from the Slave-labor States, and, under pretext 
of compelling submission to the laws of the illegal Legislature, they roamed 
over the land, committing excesses of every kind.' Finally, Congress sent a 
committee of investigation" to Kansas, whose majority made a report on the 
1st of July [185G], in which the political action of the legal voters of Kansas 
was fully vindicated, and the frauds by which the pro-slavery Legislature had 
been chosen, and Whitfield elected a delegate, had been fully exposed. The 
Missouri member of the connnittee dissented from the report, and the mission 
failed to produce positive action, to the great disappointment of the country. 

As the antumn advanced, and the time for the election of a President of the 
Republic drew nigh, that qnestion so absorbed public attention, that troubles 
in Kansas almost ceas(>d. There were now three distinct political parties, and 
three candidates for the Chief Magistracy were before the people. A new and 
powerful party, composed chiefly of the opponents of the extension and exist- 
ence of slavery, had l.itely appeared. It was formed of men of every political 
creed, who were willing to cut loose from old organizations for the purpose of 
opposing the scheme of the slave-holders, and the leaders of the party of which 
President Pierce was the head, to make slavery a national instead of a sectional 
institution. This was called the HepuMican party. In the autumn of 1850, it 
bad assumed vast proportions in the Free-labor States, and was kindly regarded 
by large numbers of patriotic men in the Slave-labor St.ates. There was another 
powerful ])olitical organization, known as the American or Kiuno-N'othuuj party, 
whose proceedings were at first in secret. Its chief bond of union was opposition 
to foreign influence and the denunciation of lioman Catholicism in our political 

' A regiment of reckless younpr men, from South Carolina and Georgia, entered the Territory, 
under a man named Buford, in the spring of 1856, for the purpose, as they said, of making 
Kansas a Slave-labor State at all hazards. These, witli armed men under Atchison, Stringfellow, 
and other ruffians, traversed the Territory, executing their wicked wills at pleiiaure, without even 
a rebuke from the E.xecutive of the nation. 

' Composed of William A. Howard, of Michigan, John Sherman, of Ohio, and Mordecai Olivei; 
of Missouri. 

34 



530 'I''"' NATION. [18f,a 

alVairs. Tlic Deiiiorratic parly, ilatiiiL; its iiiinlcni (irj,'ani/.:iti<pii M tlio cU'ctioii 
i>r (uncial Jackson, in IH'.'S,' had bcon dividod and wi-akcncd by tlif slavery 
(lucslion, lor many wise imimi Iiail Idl it when it bccanio the avowcil supporter 
of that instiditioii, or hail fornied a new organization within its fold; while the 
old Wlihj party' was virtually annihilatcil as a distinct mic. 

On the 'J'Jd of I<\'l)ruMry, I sfiO, a national convention of the jVnii'rican jiartv, 
beld at l'hiladel|iliia, uoMiinated ex-President l''illniore' for the oflice of Chief 
Ma<;istrale, with A. .1. Donelson, of Tennt'ssee, for \'ice-l'residcnt. On the 
5th of June foUowini;', a national Democratic Convention^ in Cincinnati nomi- 
nated for President, of the l{e|)ul)lic James ]>\icluinan, of Pennsylvania, one of 
the authors of the"Ostend Circular,'" with John ('. Pirei'kenridge, of Ken- 
tucky, for Vice-I 'resilient. This nomination was satisfactory to the Slave 
power, anil the conxcnlion t;ave the coveters of Culia and nlhci- territory 
within tiie (iohlen Circle" to understand that the |iarly it icprtsented was ii* 
sympathy with their doctrines and schemes.'' 

On the ITIh ol' .lune [1850], a national couMMilion of Hepulilicans, asscm' 
bled al Philadelphia, nominated John V. Fremont, of California,* for President, 
and William L. Dayton, of Ni'w Jersey, lor N'ice-I'resiilent. That convention 
j)ul forth strong resolutions, indicative of the ereed of the new and powerful 
jiaily it represented." All exciting canvass followed these several nominations, 
and the vote | November 4, \M6\ resullecl in the choice of James Buchanan. 
After this, nothing of great importance occuncd during the remainder of Presi- 
dent Pierce's administration, which e.vpired on the 4th of March, 1857. 

' rnp< 469. ' Notd 2, piiK'O 4fi«. ■ Nolo 5, impo 501. 

' Tlui two wings of the Donioprntio iini-ly (tliiit loaiiiiip toward tho nntl-sliivory policy of tlie 
RopiiblicMiis bcinp: onllod tlio " Kroci-Soil ni'inoeraoy ") liml boon rocoiicilcd, iiml tho orpiiiizntioii 
wiiH iicnrly a iiiiit iit tliis tiiiio. lVli>piti's IVoiii oiicli wing mot in tliia convention, luul lliey gcn- 
orully iigrcc'il npon nioii.sinos tliul woro ailoplod. 

'" I'ago r>20. " Nolo ."i, imgo r.'JO. 

' III a Horios of resolutions, tho oonvonlion tuok groiiml in lavor of llio ollbrts then making by 
JUibrnteros, as tho Si)aniar(ls call small boilios of invaders, in Central America, .saying, in allusion 
to Walker's outrages in Nicaragua: "Tlie people of the United States cannot but syinpathi/e willi 
tho ellbrts which are being naule by the ]icople of Central America to regenerate tliat purl ion of 
tho continent which covers tlu' passage across the inter-oceanic isthnuis." They declared that 
tho Tu'xl ailniiiiistration would bo expected to use every proper ellbrt "to insure our ascendenoy 
in the (luU'of Me.vico," and " Hesolvcd, That the llcmocratie party are in favor of the aeipiisition 
of the Islaial of Cuba, lai sia'h terms as shall bo honorable to ourselves and just to .Spain." A. 
O. Brown, Senator from Mississippi, who was one of a connuitteo appointed to visit HiK'haiain at 
his homo near I/ancaster, and apprise him of his nomination, was so well salislled lliat tho 
nominee was in favor of tho national policy of the slavc-lioldcrs, that he wrote a cheerful letler to 
that ell'ect [.lune 18, IS.'iGj to S. II. Adam.s, whieli he closed by saying: " In my judgment, he is 
as worthy of Southern eonlldenco and Southern votes as ever Mr. ('alhoun was." .Mr. liuchanaa 
did not disap]ioint his moat sanguine ".Southern" friends. 

" Page ■IS.S. 

' In the matter of aggression upon weak neighbors, the convention took direct issue with tho 
llomoeratic parly, by resolving, "That the highwayamn's plea that 'might aadics right,' enitiodied 
in the dsiend Circular, was in every respect unworthy of .\mcrican diplomacy, and would bring 
aliumo uud dibtiouur ou any govormuout or puoplu thul gave it thuir souutiuu." 



1867.] 



BUCHANAN'S A. D M I N 1 S T R A T 1 N . 



631 



CHAPTER XV. 

BUCHANAN'S AD M I .VI ST 1{ AT 1 ON. [1857—1861.] 

James Buchanan,' the iit'tcciitli riosidi'iil ol' the IJepublie, took tlie oath 
of office at Washington City on the 4th of March, 1857. It was administered 
to him by the venerable Roger J>. Taucy, the Cliii'l' Justice of the United 




States. Among the spectators on that occision wns a citizen who bore a near 
relationship to the great Washington, and who liail been present at the inaugu- 

' Jaines Biiclianiin was bom in Franklin County, Pennsylvania, on tlio 2;iJ of April, 1791. 
He was edncatecl at Dickonson College, wlicM'o ho was p-radnatcd at tho afro of eighteen year.s. In 
1H12 ho wa.s ndniittcd to tho bar, and was soon in sueccssrulpraetico in liis native State. In 1814, 
when only twenty-three years ofaps, he was elected to a seal iu the I.egislatnro ol rennsylvajiia. 
This was his first proniinont appearaneo in piililio life. In 1815 he dislingnished hini.self in hi«' 
State Legislature as un opjionent of the United States Batdj, and became one of the foremoBt men 
iu tho Democratic party, lie was elected to C)ongres9 in IS'JO, and there he soon became distin- 
guished as n speaker and (U'bator. Aftei .en ye.-irs' service, he retired from Congress in I8:U, 
when President Jackson appointed him minister to Russia. In IS.'ili ho was elected to the United 
States Senate, wliero lie also served ten years. President Polk called liiin to liis cabinet, as Sec- 
retary (if State; and iu 1849 ho again retired to private life. In ISTi.'! ho was appointe<l minister 
to Engliad ; and in June, 1850, ho was nominated for President of the United. States. In NoveiD 



532 '^^'^^ NATION. [1867. 

ration of every Chief Magistrate of the Itupuldic' Two days afterward, the 
Senate contirined Mr. Buchaiiau's cabinet appointment.''' 

The beginning of Buchanan's administration was marked by an event wliich 
greatly intensilied tlie sectional strife concerning slavery. Dred Scott, a 
negro, had been held as a slave in Missouri until 1834, when liis master, who 
was a surgeon in the army, being ordered to a post in Illinois, took him into 
that Free-labor State. Tiiere Scott married the slave girl of another officer, 
with the consent of the masters. They liad two chihh-en, born witliin Free- 
labor territory. The motlicr had been bought by tlie master of Scott, and 
when he returned to IMissouri he held the parents and children in bondage. 
They were sold, and Scott finally sued for liis freedom, on the ground of his 
involuntary residence for years in a Free-labor region. The State Circuit Court 
of St. Louis County, in which the case was tried, gave judgment in liis favor. 
This was reversed by the Supreme Court of the State, and the question was 
carried to and heard by the Supreme Court of tlie United States, at Washing- 
ton, in May, 1854, Chief Justice Taney presiding. The decision was reserved, 
for alleged prudential reasons, until after the Presidential election, in the 
autumn of 1856.' That decision, uttered by the Chief Justice, was against 
Scott, the majority of the court agreeing with its head in denying to any per- 
son, "whose ancestors were imported to this country and sold as slaves," any 
right to sue in a court of the United States ; in other words, denying the right 
of citizenship to any person who had been a slave, or was the descendant of a 
slave. 

The legitimate business of the court was simply a denial of jurisdiction ; 
but the Chief Justice took the occasion to give the sanction and aid of that 
august tribunal to the efforts of the slave-holders to nationalize the institution 
of slavery. With a strange disregard of popular intelligence, he asserted, in 
opposition to testimony to the contrary, found in abundance in our records of 
legislation and social life, that the framers and supporters of the Declaration 
of Independence did not include the black race in our country in the great 
proclafnation that " all men are created equal ;" that our Revolutionary fathers 
and their progenitors, " for more than a century before," regarded the black 
race among us as " so far inferior, that (hei/ had no ru/IUs which the white man 
was bound to respect," and that they " were never thought or spoken of except 

bor following lio was olcoted to tliiit IhkIi office, and on the 4th of March, 1861, he nfrnin 
retired to private life at liis seat, called "Wlieatland," near Lancaster, I'ennsylvaniii, where 
he died June 1, 1868. 

' Georpo Wnsliiiigtoii Parko Custis, the graiidson of Mrs. 'Wasliington, the adopted sou of the 
patriot, and tlie last surviving executor of his will. Mr. Custis died at Arlington House, near 
Washington City, in the autumn of 1857. 

' He appointed Lewis Cass. Secretary of State; Howell Cobb, Secretary of the Treasury ; John 
li. Floyd, Secretary of War; Isaac Toucey, Secretary of the Navy ; Jacob Thompson, Secretary 
of the interior; Aaron V. Brown, Postmaster-General; and Jeremiah S. Black, Attorney- 
General. 

' The majority of the Judges of tlie Supreme Court at that time, whose sympathies were with 
the slave-holders, decided that, on account of the excitement produced by the Nebraska bill and 
events in Kansas, it was best to postpone the decision. '' It is quite probable." says the 
author of The American Conflict, i. 2.t2. "that the action of the court in the premises, if made 
public at the time origioaUy intended [Term of 1865-6J, would have reversed the issue of that 
Presidential oloction." 



JS57.] BUCHANAN'S ADMINISTRATION. 533 

as property^'' He further alleged that the frainers of the Constitution " held the 
same views, as is equally evident from its provisions and language," when in 
that instrument slaves are always spoken of as " persons," and not as property, 
riavmg, with these and other statements, equally discordant with the facts of 
history, declared the colored people of our country incapable of being citizens, 
he proceeded to declare also that the Missouri Compromise Act, and all otlicr 
acts of Congress restricting slavery, were unconstitutional, and that neitlur 
Congress, nor local Legislatures, had any authority for restricting the sproail 
of the institution of slavery The majority of the court agreed with the Chief- 
Justice in these extra-judicial opinions, and the leaders of the dominant politi- 
cal party assumed that the r.ation was bound to acquiesce in the judgment of 
these five or six fallible men, who proposed to turn back the tide of civili- 
zation into the darker channels of a barbaric age from which it had broken, 
and was making the desert of humanity " blossom as the rose." The conscience 
of the nation refused acquiescence.' 

The newly elected President, who appears to have been informed of this 
decision before its promulgation, regarded it with great favor, and acted 
accordingly. In his inaugural address, delivered two days before the decision 
was promulgated, he hinted at the measure as one that would "speedily and 
finally " settle the slavery question.' " The whole Territorial question," he said, 
"being thus settled upon the principle of popular sovereignty — a principle as 
ancient as free government itself — every thing of a practical nature has been 
decided," and he expressed a hope that the long agitation of the subject of 
slavery was " approaching its end." A council of priests could not stop the 
motion of the earth, and Galileo knew it, and said so ; the opinions of a few 
men could not prevent the great heart of the nation beating with strong 
desires to have our Republic in fact, as in name — 

" Tlie land of the free and the home of the brave." 

Kansas was still a battle-field on which Freedom and Slavery were openly 
contending. The energetic measures of John W. Geary, who had succeeded 
Shannon as governor of the Territory, had smothered the fires of civil war for 
a time. He was succeeded by Robert J. Walker, a Mississippiau, who was 
Secretai-y of the Treasury under President Polk ; and Frederick P. Stanton, of 
Tennessee, was appointed Secretary of the Territory. The two parties were 

' Roger Brooke Taney was born in Maryland, on the 17th of March, 1777, and was admitted 
to the bar as a practicing lawyer in 1799. He served, at an early age, in the Senate and Assembly 
of Maryland. He was appointed Attorney-General of the United States in 1831, and Secretary of 
the Treasury in 1833. Ho wasappoiutodCliief Jnstiee of the United States on the death of Judge 
Marshall, and took his seat as such in .lannary, 1837. He remained in that office until his death, in 
the city of Washington, on the 12.th of October, 1864, when his place was tilled by Salmon P. 
Chase, of Ohio. 

' Discussing the right of the citizens of a Territory to settle the question whether or not 
slavery should exist in such Territory, lie said: "It is a judicial question, which legitimately 
belongs to the Supreme Court of the United States, before whom it is now pending, and will, it is 
understood, be speedily aud finally settled. To their decision, in conunon with all good citizens, 
I shall cheerfully submit." It should be remembered that the subject of discussion was never 
before the court for adjudication in any shape, and that the decision was an extra-judicial opinion 
of the Chief Justice, supported by some of his associates, and of no more biu<hng force in law 
than the opinion of any other citizen. That opinion was promulgated on the 6th of March, 1857. 



534 1''"^ NATION. [18D8. 

■working energetically for the admission of Kansas as a State, with opposing 
ends in view. The pro-slavery ])arty, in convention at Lecompton early in 
September, 1857, formed a constitution, in which was a clause providing that 
" the rights of property in slaves now in the Territory shall in no manner bo 
interfered with," and forbade any amendments of the instrument until 1864. 
It was submitted to a vote of the people on the 21st of December following, 
but, by the terms of the election law, no one might vote a(/ainst that Consti- 
tution. The vote was taken : "For the Constitution, j^'iV/t slavery," or "For 
the Constitution, without slavery;" so that, in either ease, a Constitution that 
protected and perpetuated slavery would be voted for. The vote for the Con- 
stitution with slavery was, of course, largely the majority. 

Meanwhile, an election for a Territorial Legislature was held. Assured by 
Walker that justice should rule, the friends of Free labor generally voted, and, 
notwithstanding enormous frauds,' they carried the Legislature and elected a 
delegate to Congress. The new Legislature, nnquestionably legal, ordered the 
Lecompton Constitution to be submitted to the people of the Territory for 
their adoption or rejection. The result was its rejection by over ten thousand 
majority.'-' Regardless of this strong expression of the will of the people of 
Kansas, the President sent the pro-slavery Lecompton Constitution to Con- 
gross [February 2, 1858J, wherein was a large Democratic majority, with » 
message in which he recommended its acceptance and ratification.^ It was 
accepted by the Senate (32 yeas, 25 nays), but in the House a substitute pro- 
posed by the venerable Senator Crittenden, of Kentucky, was adopted, which 
provided for the re-submission of the Lecompton Constitution to the people of 
Kansas. It was done, and that instrument was again rejected by about ten 
thousand majority. The political power in Kansas was now in the hands of 
the friends of freedom, and finally, at the close of January, 1861, that Territory 
was admitte<l into the Union as a Free-labor State, and the thirty-fourth 
member of the family. So ended one of the most desperate of the skirmishes 
before the great battle between Freedom and Slavery, which we shall consider 
presently. And in 1862, the opinion of Chief Justice Taney, that a descendant 
of a slave could not become a citizen of the Republic, was jiractically rejected 
as unsound, by the issuing of a passport to one, by the Secretary of State, to 
travel abroad as a " citizen of the United States." 

While the friends of freedom were anxiously considering how they should 
save their country from the perils with which the institution of slavery threat- 
ened it, the friends of that system, emboldened by the sympathy of the 
government, formed plans for its perpetuity, and their own profit and aggran- 
dizement, which would practically disregard the plain requirements of the 

> ' One or two examples maybe given. In a little precinct on the Missouri border, where thero 
'were but forty-three legal votes, 1,600 votes were taken: and at another place, where no poll was 
openril, 1,200 were retnrneJ. 

' The vote was, for the Constitntion with slavery, 138; for it witliont slavery, 24; against it, 
10,22G. 

' In that message ho said, referring to the opinion of Chief Justice Taney, already considered : 
"It has been so'iemnly adjudged, by the highest judicial tribunal known to our laws, that slavery 
exists in Kansas by virtue of the Constitution of the United States. Kansas is, therefore, al 
tj.i* moment, as much a slave State as Georgia or South Carolina." 



1857.] 



BUCHANAN'S ADMINISTRATION. 



535 



J^ational Constitution, and defy tlie laws of the land and the humane spirit of 
the time. They resolved to re-open the African slave-trade. In direct viola- 
tion of the laws, native Africans were landed on the coasts of the Southern 
States, and placed in hopeless bondage. In Louisiana, leading citizens engaged 
in a scheme for legalizing that horrid traffic, under the deceptive guise of what 
they called the "African Labor-supply Association,'" and in Savannah, Georgia, 
a grand jury, wlio were compelled by law to find several bills against persons 
charged with complicity in the slave-trade, actually protested against the laws 
they were sworn to support." Southern newspapers openly advocated the 
traffic ;'' and a prominent Southern clergyman asserted his conviction that the 
liorrible African slave-trade was "the most worthy of all missionary societies."* 
"Southern legislatures and conventions 
openly discussed the subject of re-opening 
the trade.' John Slidell, of Louisiana, 
one of the fomenters of hatred of the 
Union, urged in the Senate of the United 
States the projiriety of withdrawing Ameri- 
can cruisers from the coast of Africa, that 
the traffickers in human beings might not be 
molested; and the administration of Mr. 
Buchanan was made to fa\'or this scheme 
of the great cotton-planters, by protest- 
ing against the visitation of suspected 
slave-bearing vessels, cariying the American 
flag, by Bi'itish cruisers.' 

The Fugiti\-e Slave Act was now bear- 




JOHN SLUJELL. 



' The President of that association was the hite Mr. De Bow, editor of De Bow's Review, pub- 
lished in New Orleans. That magazine was the acknowledged organ of the oligarchy of slave- 
holders, ani was one of the chief promoters of the late rebellion. 

- " We feel luunbled," tliey said, " as men. in the consciousness that we are freemen but la 
name, and that we are living, during the existence of such laws, under a tyranny as supreme as 
that of the despotic governments of the Old 'WorM. Heretofore the people" of the Soutli, firm in 
their consciousness of right and strength, have failed to place the stamp of condemnation upon 
such laws as reflect upon the institution of slavery, but have permitted, unrebuked, the influence 
of foreign opinion to prevail in their support." 

' The T>-ue Southron, published in Mississippi, suggested the "propriety of stimulating the 
zeal of the pulpit by founding a prize for the best sermon in favor of free-trade in negroes." This 
proposition was widely copied with approval, and in many pulpits professed ministers of the 
gospel e,xhibited "zeal" in the service of the slave power, without the stimulus of an offered prize. 

* Doctor James H. Thornwell, President of the Presbyterian Theological Seminary at Columbia, 
South Carolina. Dr. Thornwell, who died at the beginning of the late rebellion, was distinguished 
as "the Calhoun of the Church" in the South. 

' The "Southern Commercial Convention," held at Yicksburg, Mississippi, on the 11th of 
May, 1859. resolved, by a vote of 47 to 16, that "all laws, State or Federal, prohibiting the 
African slave-trade, ought to be abolished." There is ample evidence on record, that Jefferson 
Davis, Alexander K. Stephens, William L. Yancey, and other leaders in the late rebellion, were 
advocates of the foreign slave-trade. 

* By an arrangement between the governments of the United States and Great Britain, the 
cruisers of each were empowered to board vessels of either nation suspected of being engaged 
in the African slave-trade. When, in the summer of 1858, it was known that the trade 
was about to be carried on actively by men of the Slave-labor States, the British cruisers 
in the Gulf of Mexico were unusually vigilant, and in the course of a few weeks boarded 
'.about forty suspected American vessels. Our government, inspired by men hke Slidell, protested 



53(5 TUK NATION [185T. 

Iw'j:, tlic fruit (Icsirctl by its author.' The evident intention oi tlie slavo-liol.Iois, 
jissistt'il l)y tho Tffsidont and tho Cliicf Justice, to nationalize slavi-ry, increaso<l 
tlie sense of its oftensiveness ; and tlie denial of the obvious meaning of the 
vital doctrine of the Declaration of Independence awakened in the breast of 
the people, especially in the Freo-labur Slates, strong desires for removing 
from the national escutcheon the horrid stain of human Ijondage.' The Let;is- 
latures of se\-eral Free-labor States adojjtcd measures to pi-event, by lawful 
means, its most injurious actions, and in a special manner to jjrevent the 
carrying away of free j>ersons of color into slavery, the law denying the right 
of the alleged fugitive to trial by jury. The Legislature of New York re- 
affirmed the determination of the State authorities to make every slave free 
that should be brought involuntarily within its l)orders, and denounced the 
opinion <if the Chief Justice, whi(-h denied citizenship to men of color. Ohio 
passed a bill of similar character; and Maine, Jlassachusetts, Connecticut, 
Michigan, and "Wisconsin took strong ground in favor of the freedom of the 
slave, without assuming an attitude of actual resistance to the obnoxious Act, 
which all were bound to obey so long as it remained uin-epealed. Tliese " Per- 
sonal Tiiberty Laws," as they were called, exasjjerated the slave-holders, and 
they were iised by the politicians as a pretext, as it was intende<i they should be, 
for kindling the flames of civil war. At about the same lime a "National 
Emancipation Society" was formed at Cleveland, Ohio [August 26, 185T] 
having for its object tlie maturing of a jilan for ending slavery by the purchase 
of the slaves by the National government. 

aprainst what it was pleased to call the odious British doctrine of "tlie right of search," and the 
}Jritish government, for "prudential reasons," put a stop to it, and laid the blame on the ofiBcers 
of the cruisers. 

' See page 521. 

' When the Declaration of Indcpeiiilence was ])romulgated, its precepts struck at the root of 
human bondage in every form ; and cfl'orts were made, in several States, to eradicate the institu- 
tion, sometimes in the form of propositions for immediate, and at otiiers lor gradual, emancipation. 
It had been expelled from England by tlie decision of Lord Manslield. just before the kindling of 
tho American Uovohuion. This decision was in the case of James Somerset, a native of Africa, 
who wa.s carried to Virginia, and sold as a slave, taken to England by liis master, and there 
indueeil to assert his freedom. Tlie lirst case of a similar nature on record in England was in 
1697, when it was held that negroes "being usually bought and sold among mereliants, as nier- 
chandiso, and also being inlidels. there niiglit bo a property in thcni sufficient to mainlain trover." 
This position was overruled by Chief Justice Holt, who decided tliat "so .soon as a negro lands in 
England, he is fr<'e." To this decision Cowper alludes, when he says, "Slaves cannot breathe in 
England." In 1702, Justice Holt also decided that "there is no such thing as a slave by the law 
of England." In 1729, an opinion was olilaiucd, that "negroes legally enslaved elsewhere might 
1)6 held as skves in England, and that baptism was no bar to the master's claim." Tills was 
held as good law until Manstield's decision above mentioned. 

In the English colonies in America, the most enlightened men, regarding slavery witli great 
disfaxor, made attempts from time to time to limit or to eradicate it. The utterances and actions of 
George Washington, Ileiny Laurens, Thomas Jellerson, and other slave-holders, and of I'r. 
Franklin, John Jay, and many other leading patriots, directly refute the assertion of Judge Taney, 
that in tlieir time Africans by descent "were never llioiiglit or spoken of except as property." 
Among tho important public acts of those men so nnsre])reseuteil, was the famous Ordinance of i 
1787 [si'C page ."5(12], adopted before tlio National Constitution was framed, which was the linal' 
result of an elTort coiiimeiiced in the Continental Congress some years before [17 8-1] to restrict 
slavery. That action was in relation to a plan for the goverrmient of the Western Tcrrilonj. then 
including tho whole region west of the old thirteen States, as far south as the thirty-tirst degree 
of north latitude, and embracing several of the late Slave-labor States. The plan was submitted 
by a committee, of wliieh Tliomas Jeflerson was chairman. It contemplated the idtimate division 
of that territory into seventeen States, eight of them below the latitude of the present city of 



1859.] BUCHANAN'S ADMINISTRATION. 537" 

The attention of tlie public mind was somewhat diverted for a while from 
the absorbing topic of slavery by the movements of the Mormons in Utah,' 
early in 1857. Incensed because their Territory was not admitted as a State^ 
they commenced revolutionary proceedings. They destroyed the records of 
the United Spates Court for the District; and under the instructions of their 
Governor and spiritual head, Brigham Young,* they looked to him for all lawr. 
The President detennined to enforce those of the United States. He appointed 
Colonel Gumming Governor of Utah, and sent an army to uphold his authority. 
Young issued a proclamation, declaring his intention to resist the troops ; but 
when Gumming arrived there, in April, 1858, while the army was at Fort 
Bridger, Young received him with courtesy, and surrendered to him the Seal 
of the Territory ; at the same time he and his people ])rcpared to leave the 
country, declaring that they would emigrate to a new land rather than submit 
to military and Gentile rule. The troops, who had lost a provision train, 
destroyed by the Mormons, were recalled ; the " Mormon War " ended, and 
Young and his people were soon again applying for the admission of their 
Territory as a State.' They are yet [1883] unsuccessfuL Polygamy is the 
hindrance. Measures have been taken by Congress to remove the evil. 

The autumn of 1859 was the witness of a most extraordinary excitement 
on the subject of slavery. The feverishncss in the public mind, produced by 
the discussions of that topic, had somewhat subsided, and there was unusual 
calmness in the political atmosphere. Utah was quiet ; difficulties which had 
arisen between our government and that of Paraguay, in South America, had 
been settled, and the Indian troubles on the Pacific coast were drawing to a 
close.'' Walker's fillibustering operations against Nicaragua were losing much 
of their interest in consequence of his fixilures,^ and the Xational Lcgielature, 
during its short session, had been much engaged in action upon the Pacific 
Railway, Homestead, Soldiers' Pension, and other bills of national interest. 
The summer had passed away in general quietude throughout the country,, 
and the weary in the political field were hoping for rest, when the whole na- 
tion was startled, as by a terrific thunder-peal, by an announcement from Balti- 



Louisville, in Kentucky, ^mong the rules for the government of that region, reported by Mr. 
Jefferson, was tlie following: "That after the year 1800 of the Christian era, there shall be neither 
slavery nor involuntary servitude in any of the said States, otherwise than in pnuislnnent of erinioe, 
whereof the party shall have been convicted to be personally guilty." This clause was stricken 
out [April Ifl, 178+], on motion of Mr. Spaight, of North Carolina, seconded by Mr. Read, of South 
Carolina. A majoritv of the States were against striking it out, hut the Articles of Confederation 
required a vote of nine States to carry a proposition. See Journals of Conr/resx. In the Ordinance 
of 1787 [see page 362], this rule, omitting the words, " after the year 1800 of the Christian era," 
was incorporated. 

' See page 504. 

' The successor of Joseph Smith [page 504], who was duly appointed Governor of Utah by 
President l''illmoro in 1850. 

' Early in 1SG2 they formed a new State Constitution, elected senators and representatives 
under it, and applied for admission when Congress assembled, near the close of tlie year. No- 
action w-as had on the application: but Congress passed a lav," "to punish and prevent tl.e prac- 
tice of polygamy in the Territories of the United States," and in otlier places, and disapproving: 
and annulling certain acts of the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Utah. The law 
against polygamy has been a dead letter in our statute-books. 

* Page 525. ' Page 525. 



;538 ^'"^ NATION. (iH5a. 

more |()(^t()l)i'r 17, 1859] lliat, " :ui iiismrcclidii li;iiil linikcn out la Iliirper'a 
Kerry,' wlii'rc uii !iriiic(l Ijiiiul (if AliolilioiiislM luiv*' Cull posscsHioii of the (Jov- 
friiiiH'iit ArsciiHl." Tliirt wiis tlii' fdcln-.-ilril ".loliii IJrown'H JUiJ," wliich 
kiii<llcil !i l)l:i/.(' of intense! cxciti'niiiii I liiuunlidni | ho Slave-labor MatcH, and 
rcvivrcl till! "slavery ajfitation" willi liriccsl, intensity. 

'I'll*! outlini' ol'tlic story III' " .Iiilni llidwn's Kaiil " may be fjivcu in few 
words. I!r-ci\vn'' had actc(l ami siillri( d niiich in Kansas ihirinnj tlio civil war 
there, wheie he was a iiioniinent, anti-slavery man. lie was enthusiastic, fanat- 
ical, ;in(l liiave, ami Ix'Tieved hiniseU" to lie t lu! destine(l liberator of the slaves 
in (lUf hind, lie went into ('ariada IVoni Kansas by way of Detmil, with a 
low followers ami twelve slaves IVom Missouri, whom he led to lree(lom in tlio 
dominions of the llrilish (2ueen. At ('liatham he helil a convention [.May 8, 
1H,%;)|, « hei-e:il a " I 'I'ovisional Constitution and ()i-dinances fur tho Poo|ilo of 
the United States " was adii]ite(l, not, as the instrument itself declared, for the 
overtlirow of any fjovernmenl,, "but siin)ily to amend and repeal;" adding, 
''and oui- li.ej; shall bo tho same that our liithcrs fouf^ht under in the Ucvolu- 
tion." It was p.u-t <if a sclieme foi- an uprisiiii^ of the slaves lor tln' obtainlni^ 
of their IVeedom. 

The summer of 185!) was spent in preparations for a decisive moveiiioiit, 
and llrown lin.ally hired a farm a few miles IVom Harper's Ferry, where he was 
know n hv the nam(! of Smith. 'I'hiie a few followers stealthily congregated, 
an<l piki's and other weapons were gathered, and ammunition was provided, 
for the purposi! of sti-iking the first blow against slavery in Virginia. The 
iippiiinled lime for delivering that blow was Sumlay evening, the 10th of 
Ocdiber, when Ibdwn, moving in prolSiund daikness, witli seventeen whiteand 
five colored men, entered the little village of Harper's I'"erry, extinguished the 
public lights, Boizod the aiinoiy and the railway bridge, and (piietly arrested 
ami inipris<ined in the government buildings citizens as they ap|ieared in tho 
streets, oiu! by one, in tho morning, ignorant of what had h;ippened. Tlio 
lu'ws s<ion went abroad. N'irijinia militia llocked to tlie rescue, and in tho 
course of twenty-four hours Colonel Ivobert K. Lee was therewith goverinnent 
troops and camion. Struggles between tlu! raiders and llu! militia and citizens 
rcHiilled in several deaths. Two of llrown's sons were killed, and the leader 
was captureil. He e.\])ected a general uprising of tho negroes in that region, 
but was disaii]ioint<'(l. lie was indicted for exciting slaves to insurrection, 

' At tho oonlliioiico of tlio Potnnmo niul Sl\pnnii(lonli Hvors, in Virginin, where tho iinitod 
■troiiiiiH Iniinl tliiiiuK'li IImi HIiu' UuIki'. Tlicro wim a Nalioiml iirmciry, in wliieh u larjjo inmntity 
of aniiM wiiri' sljircil at llu' liini' wi' am ccinsiilci'iii)?. 

" .loliii Hrowii was Imni in Kiiniiiiint"", CoiiiiciMiciil, on tlio S)th of May, 1800. Whoii lio 
was llvo years ol" ii^i' liis laniily sctllcil in llmlson. Ohio, ami, n.s n oatllo-drivinfj hoy, lio was nt 
tlio HniTomlor of Hull iil. Detroit, in 181'.'. His srliool cihicalion was meanor, ami lio loarnoil tho 
trade of tanner unit currier, lio coniliK'iiced slndyinn for the niini.xtry, hul weak oyes eoiii|iellod 
him to desist, lie wurKed at his trade and farniiiiK' in holh ( Miio and I'ennsylvania. lie oiinan<'<l 
oxti'iisively in wool dealini;, and on aceouni of thai husiness went to Knrope. inenrrinjf heavy 
loHH, and retiirniiiK' a luinkriipt. lio moved froni place lo place, and llnally went to Kansa.-i with 
HoiiH liy his Ih'Ht wile, where he was active in pnhlic matters. Ho became an aholilioiiist ill early 
life. iiikI tho eonvielion that he was to he a liherator of the slaves possessed him so early as IHHU. 
Jh' was twice married, and hncl seven children liy his tlrsl wife and thirteen liy his last wiXo, 
who yel [lH8d| .survives liini. 



1859.] BUCHANAN'S ADMIN I S T li A T 1 O N . 539 

iiiul lor treason and luuriliT. llcwas lrii'(l ami louini s;uilly |()('Uilii'r 'J'.>|,aii(l 
was oxiH'ulod on llie '2d of Dci'i'mhor, uiuUt tlii' laws of \'iri;inia. 

Tho most exaiigcratoil roporls conccriiini:: lliis rai<l went abroad. Terror 
sjiroad over Virginia. Its (iox irn.ir (I Icniy A. \\'is(') w.is ahnost crazy with 
oxi'itonu'nl, and incnrrod llic ]uly and ridiiMilc ol' liu^ wiiolo connlry.' 'Piironu'li- 
out tiio Slave-labor Stales llicre was a, wiilc-sprcad a|i]iri'lu'nsion ol' slave 'nsnr- 
rections, and ovory man Iherc Ironi llic 1'' fee-labor Slales was sns|ieet,ed ol" 
being an emissary of the abolilionisls. .Vllenipls were made lo iin|ilieatvi 
leaders of llie It.epnbliean i)arly, and llu> inliabilanls of the l''ree-labor 
Slates generallv, in lliis sclu'nie for lili<Talin'_;' llie slaves. Tlie aullior of llio 
Fngilive Slave law, .lames M. iMason," was ehairman of a eominillee of llio 
United States Senate a])|)ointed (o investigate the matter; and C 'lenient K. 
Yallandigham, of Ohio, then a number of the i.owei- House, volunteered lo 
aid in ])roving tho charge against the ])eo]>le of \\to Xoilli. 'i'he resnll was 
positive ]iroof tliat 15i'own had no a('eom])iices, and ot\ly about Iwculy follow- 
ers. Although Ih'owrfs mad alleni|il lo free I li<' slaves was a total lailure in 
itst^lf, it proved to be one of llie irnpoi'l.-uit e\i'uts wliieli speedily bi'ought 
jibout the result he so luueli desired. 

The elet'lions in I.S58 and IS.Mt indiealeil a. remarkable and growing strength 
in the Ki'pnbliean partv, and it was e\ideul lo llie slave-holders thai theii' dom- 
ination in the councils of the nalion would speedily end. I'hey saw no cliance 
for the election ol' another President of their clioic(i, and some Ica.ilcrs of thai, 
jiowerl'ul oligarchy, who had been bu' yi'aivs aii.xious for I he overthrow of 
tho llepublic by a <lissolul ii>n of the Union, so as to establish llu> gi'cat slavo 
om])ire of their dreains w il bin ihc tiohh'n Circle,'' ])creeived that they mimt 
titrike the blow during or .il the inunediate close of Afr. Ihichanan's a(hninis- 
tralion, or perhajts ne\ cr. They must \\:\\r a |)i'eli'\l- for the crime, and they 
set diligently to wiu-k lo cre.-ile one moris specious than llu' o]ip',nili<ui to tho 
Fugitive Slave Law would alhu-d. They were iu full poliii.al allianci^ with tho 

' Tho oxoitod Oovornor was )iT'oimn>il, nm-onliTiK In liis own words, to iimUo w»r upoM nil Mio 
Proo-lahor Status, tor tlio liniior of Virninia. ]ii a loiter lo tlio I'lVHidciil, | Nov. 2!>. \Hy.i], al'lor 
finyiiiji' tliat lie liiid ^immI aulliorily for tin' liclli'l' lliiil a niiispiracy to ri'scuo .lolm liniwa c.xisl.od 
in Ohiii, rc'iiiisylviiiiia, New York, and ol.lior .Sliilcs, lie said: — I prolost llial my piii'iioMoirt 
jioaci'l'iil, niid Uial I disclaim all lluvals wlicn 1 say, with all thominlit ol mo.'iiiiiiK', that il'anotlior 
invasion assuds this Slato or its citizrns IVom any qnartor, 1 will inirsiio ilio invaders wlii'ri>vor 
tlioy niay ^o, into any torriUiry, and luniisli thorn whorovor arms can rciuOi llicm. 1 shall send a 
copy of this to tho (love-nors of Miirylaiid, Ohio, and I'oinisylvania. — Aidnijmjih Lrltfr. licloro 
tho close of tho lato civil war, of which Wisp was ono of tho foniontors, a dantfhlor of .lolm 
tirown was .a teacher of a scliool of colored children in llie ex-tlovernor's house, near Norfolk, 
Virginia, then in jiossossion of tho n'ovurnnuMit. 

Wi.'io was willinj; to Ihid viclinis to "pninsh" hy socret and ilishomirahh' means. In a lot- 
lor to tho I'l-osidonl, written twelve days liolbre JNoveinlier ]:i| llio one above cited, lie asked 
tho I'l.voentivo and tho Postmaster-deiieral to aid liiiii in a scheme for sciziiiK' and lakinffU) Vir- 
ginia l'"roderick Dounlas, an eminent and widely-known colored citi/.on, who had escaped from 
.slavery nnniy years before, and was then livin^j; in the western part of the Stale of New York, 
thoun-h \Vi.so, as appears by the letter, supposed him lo bo in Michigan. Douglas was an clo- 
(pient and inllnontial pleader for tho eniaiici|iation of his race, and was feared and intonsely hated 
liy the Hhive-holders. lie was giiilly of no crime— no .act thai a slave-holder could complain of 
lint escape from boii:lat;e. That was a. crime ipiile Hiillicaeiit for the crazy (ioveruor of VirRiiiltt 
to have justillod himsulf in hanging Doiiglaa ou tho sumo gallowa with John Drown. 

" PiigO 521. • l>„gc B20. 



540 



T H K NATION 



[1860. 



Democratic party then in jjower, and might, by acting with it in good faith, 
and electing a President of its choice in 18C0, maintain its possession of the 
government for some time longer, but with no certainty of a lasting tenure, 
for a large faction of that party, under the leadership of Senator Douglas, 
showed tangible proclivities toward affiliation with the opponents of slavery. 
So the leaders of the oligarchy resolved to destroy the supremacy of that 
party, and allow the Republicans to elect their candidate, whoever he might 
be, and thus, with the pretext that he was a sectional President, and an enemy 
to the institution of slavery, they might, with plausible aj)peals to the domi- 
nating passions of their class, " fire the Southern heart," and make a success- 
ful revolution possible. This was a plan formed by disunionists like Jeffer- 
son Davis, of Mississipjii ; John Slidell and Judali P. Benjamin, of Louisi- 
ana ; William L. Yancey, of Alabama ; Eobert Toombs and Howell Cobb, 
of Georgia; the Rhetts, W. P. Miles, and L. M. Keitt, of South Carolina; 
T. Clingman, of North Carolina ; D. L. Yulec, of Florida ; Louis T. Wigfall, 
of Texas ; and James M. Mason and R. M. T. Hunter, of Virginia, who ap- 
peared most prominently as actors at the opening of the late Civil War. 
These men, as the ordeal to which their actions soon exposed them proved, 
were lacking in the true elements which constitute statesmen, but had for 
years assumed the character of such. They were acknowledged leaders of 
opinion and action in the more southern Slave-labor States, to the mortal 
hurt of the Southern people. 

Almost si.x: hundred chosen representatives of the Democratic party assem- 
bled in convention in the hall of the South Carolina Institute, in Charleston, 

South Carolina, on the 
23d of April, 1860, for 
the purpose of nomi- 
nating candidates for the 
Presidency and Vice- 
Presidency of the Repub- 
lic. It was evident froni 
the first hour of the ses- 
sion that the spirit of the 
slave system was there, 
full of mischief, and as 
potential as Ariel in the 
creation of elementary 
strife. For months there 
had been premonitions of 
a, storm which might topple from its foundations the organization known as 
the Democratic i)arty. Violent discordant elements were now in close con- 
tact, and all felt that a fierce tempest was impending. 

Caleb Gushing, of Massachusetts, was chosen the Chairman of the Conven- 
tion. The choice was in accordance with the wishes of the slave-holders. In 
his inaugural speech Mr. Cnshing declared it to be the "higli and noble part 
of the Democratic party of the Union to withstand — to strike down and con- 




SOLITII CAKuLlNA INSTITUTE. 



1360.] BUCHANAN'S ADMINISTRATION. 541 

qut'r" the " bauded enemies of the Constitution,'" as lie styled the anti-slavery 
Republican party. But those in the Convention most clamorous for the Con- 
stitution were not anxious, at that time, to " strike down " the llcpublicau 
party. They were more intent upon striking down their own great party, for 
the moment, by dividing it ; and a greater ])ortion of the delegates from the 
Slave-labor States came instructed, and were resolved to demand from the 
Convention a candidate and a platform which should promise a guaranty for 
tlie speedy practical recognition, by the general government and the people, 
of the system of slavery as a national institution. Senator Stephen A. Doug- 
las," of Illinois, was the most prominent candidate of the party for a nomina- 
tion before the Convention. It was well known that he was committed to a 
course that would not allow him or his friends to agree to such a platform of 
principles. His rejection by the representatives of the slave-holders would 
split the Democratic party asunder, and then the first great and desired act in 
the drama of rebellion against their government would be auspiciously begun. 
They resolved to employ that wedge. 

The Democratic party throughout the Union had accepted the doctrine of 
" Popular Sovereignty," of which Douglas was the sponsor and exponent, and 
which was put forth in the resolutions of the Convention at Cincinnati that 
nominated Buchanan," as the true solution of the slavery question; but now it 
■\vas rejected by the slave-holders as too dangerous to their interests. Their 
experience in Kansas taught them that positive law, and not public opinion, 
must thereafter be relied on for the support of slavery. So when the Conven- 
tion, by a handsome majority, reaffirmed the Cicinnati platform of principles — 
adopted the " Douglas platform " of Popular Sovereignty — preconcerted rebel- 
lion lifted its head defiantly. Le Roy P. Walker, who was Jefferson Davis's 
so-called " Secretary of War" at the beginning of the late rebellion, declared 
that he and his associates from Alabama were instructed not to acquiesce in or 
submit to any such platform, and, in the event of such being adopted, to with- 
draw from the Convention. That contingency had now occurred, and the 
Alabama delegates formally withdrew. 

This action of the Alabamians was imitated by delegates from other States. 
They were followed out of the Convention by all the delegates from Missis- 
sippi, all but two from Louisiana, all from Florida and Texas, three from 
Arkansas, and all but two from. South Carolina. On the following day twenty- 
six of the thirty-four delegates from Georgia withdrew. Two delegates from 
Delaware followed, and joined the seceders ; and all met that night in St. 
Andrew's Hall, to prepare for a new organization. The disruption of the 
Democratic party represented in the Convention was now complete, and the 
disloyal intentions of the seceders were foreshadowed by Glenn, of Missis- 
sippi, one oi' their number, who said to the Convention, before leaving it : 
" I tell Southern men here, and for them I tell the North, that in less than sixty 
days you will find a united South standing side by side with us." He was 
vehemently cheered, especially by the South Carolinians, and Charleston was 

' Page 6X8. » Page 530. 



542 '''"'■■ NATION. [isir. 

the scene of great delight tlnit night, because of tliia auspicious beginning of a 
rebellion by ttic loaders of llio oligarcliy of slave-holders. 

The scceders, with James A. Bayard, of Delaware, as their chosen head, 
assembled the next day, organized what they called a " Constitutional Con- 
vention," sneeringly called the majority they had deserted a " Rump Conven- 
tion," and ]ire]iared i'or xigorous action. On the evening of the 3d of May, 
they adjourni'il to nuct in IJichmond, Virginia, in June, and invited the 
"Democracy" who synip.ithizcd with them to join them there. The original 
Convention adjoui'ncd to meet in Haltimore, jMarylaiid, in June, to which time 
the nomination of a candidate was postponed. The latter reassembled in the 
Front Street Theater, in that city [June 18, 18G0], with Mr. Cushing in the 
chair. There was a stirring time again, the subject of slavery being the 
exciting cause, and Cushing and most of the Massachusetts delegation with- 
drew.' The scceders, who had met at Richmond, were now in Baltimore, and 
these and the Cushing malcontents organized a Convention in the ^Maryland 
Institute. The regular Convention chose David Tod, of Ohio, for their presi- 
dent, and jirocecdcd to nominate Mr. Douglas for the Chief Magistracy.' The 
seceders, calling themselves the National Democratic Convention, nominated 
John C Breckenridge, tlicn Vice-President of the Republic, for President. 

On the Otli of May [I8G0J, representatives of a party then about six months 
of age assembled in convention in Baltimore, styled themselves the National 
Co7istiti(tion<(l Uniuit P(trti/, and was presided over by the late Washington 
Hunt. They nominated ibr President John Bell, of Tennessee,' and for Vice- 
President, Edward Everett, of Massachusetts. They adopted as their platform 
the National Constitution, witli the motto, The Un'iox, the Constitutiox, 
AND TiiK En'1''oim:icme.\t OK TiiK IjAWS. A fcw davs hitcr, clioscu representa- 
tives of the Republican ]>arty, and a vast concourse of people, assembled [May 
10, 18C0] in an immense building in Chicago, erected for the purpose, and 
called a " wigwam," to nominate a candidate for the Presidency. George 
Ashmun, of Massachusetts, presided. The Convention adopted a platform of 
principles in the form of seventeen resolutions,* and on the 19th nominated 

' Bcnj.nmin F. Butler, one of tho Massaoluisctts sccedcr-s from llie Convention in B.iltimore, 
said boforo leavinR it : " We p\it our witlidrawal before you npon the simple gro\ind, amonfi^ 
others, that tliero had been a withdrawal, in part, of a majority of the St.atos; and, further (and 
that, perhaps, more personal to myself), upon tho ground that I will not sit in a convention where 
the African slave-trade — which is piracy, by the laws of my country — is approvingly advocated." 

' .lames Fitzpatrick, of .\labama, was nominated for Vicc-rresident. He declined, and 
Herschol V. Johnson, of Georgia, was substituted. 

' When the Rebellion brol<e out, in tlic spring of ISGl, Mr. Bell was one of the earliest, if not 
tlie very lirst, of tho professed Unionists of distinction who joined the enemies of his country, in 
their attempt to overthrow the Constitution, and destroy the nationality of the Republic. Breck- 
enridge, the caiuli<latc of tho pro-slavery wing of the Democratic party, became a major-general 
in tlio Coiifcdoralc uniiy and fought against the life of tlw Uepublic. 

* After affirming that tho niaiiitenance of tlie principles jiromulgated in the Declaration of 
Independence, and embodied in the National Constitution, is essential to the preservation of our 
Uepublicau institutions; congratulating the country that no Republican member of Congress liad 
nttered or countenanced any threats of disunion, " so often made by Democralic members without 
rebuke, and with apjilause from their political associates,'' and denouncing such tlireats as "an 
avowal of contem])lated treason," the resolutions made cvplicit declarations upon the topic of 
slavery, so largely occupying pnblic attention. In a few paragraphs, they declared that coch 
State iiad Uio absolute right of control in tho mauagemont of its own domestic concerns ; that the 



I860.] 



BUCHANAN'S ADM I NI STRATI ON. 



54S 



Abraham Lincoln,' of Illinois, for the Presidency, ami Hannibal Hamlin, of 
Maine, for the Yico-Presidency of the Republic. There, in that " wigwam," 
war was openly declared against the principles and ]>urposes of the oligarchy 
of the Slave-labor States, and the standard of revolt was raised against the 
operations of a tyranny which was rapidly enslaving the nation, materially 




THE " WIGWAM " AT CH10A80. 



and morally. In that " wigwam " Abraham Lincoln was made the standard- 
bearer in that revolt which resulted in the overthrow of slavery, and the puri- 
fication and strengthening of the nation. 

And now, in the early summer-time of 1860, the most important political 
campaign known in this country was opened with four parties in the field, but 
only two of them (the Republica7i, and the pro-slavery wng of the Democratic 



new dogma, that tlie Constitution, of its own force, carries slaTery into any or all of the Terri- 
tories of the United States, was a dangerons political heresy, revolutionary in its tendency, and 
subversive of the peace and harmony of the country ; that the normal condition of all the territory 
of the United States is that of freedom, and that neither Congress nor a Territorial Legislature, 
nor any individuals, have authority to give legal existence to slavery in any Territory of th© 
United States, and that the reopening of the African slave-trade, then recently commenced in the 
Southern States, inidcr the cover of our national flag, aided by perversions of judicial power, was 
a crime against humanity, and a burning shame to our country and age. 

' Abriiliam Lincoln was born in Hardin County, Kentucky, February 12, 1809. His ancestors 
were Qualcers in Pennsylvania. When lie was seven years of age, his father settled, with his 
family, in Indiana. He received but little education. He worked hard for ten years on a farm, 
and, at the age of nineteen years, went to New Orleans as a hired hand on a flat-boat. In 1S30 
he settled in Illinois, became a clerk in a store, and was a captain of volunteers in the Black 
Hawk war, in 183'2. Ho was elected to the Illinois Legislature in 1834, in which he served 
four years. He was licensed in 1836 to practice law, and commenced the profession in Spring- 
field in 1837. He rose to distinction. He was elected to Congress in 1840. He was named for 
the position in which Fremont was placed by the Republicans in 1856 [page 530]. He was 
always an anti-slavery man, but did not rank with " Abohtionists." In November, 18G0, he was 
elected President of the United States, and performed the duties of his office with singular fidelity, 
zeal, and wisdom, during the terrible Civil War that ensued. He was re-elected President in 
1864, and was inaugurated for his second term on the 4th of March, 1865. On the evening of the 
14th of April ne.xt ensuing he was shot by an assassin, and expired early the following morning, 
at the age of little more than fifty-sLx years. His remains repoee in a vault in the Oak Ridge 
Cemetery, at Springfield, Illinois. 



544 THE NATION. ri860. 

party) exhibiting tangible convictions, as units, on tlie great topic which had 
80 long agitated the nation,' ami these took issue, sciuarely, (Icfiiiitely, and 
defiantly. It had been declared by the former, whose standard-bearer was 
Abraham Lincoln, that there was "an irrepressible conflict between Freedom 
and Slavery,"— " that the lleiiublic; cannot exist half slave and half free," and 
that " freedom is the normal condition of all territory." It had been declared 
by the latter, whose standard-bearer was John C. Breckenridge, that no power 
existed that mi<fht lawfully control slavery in the Territories ; that it existed 
in any Territory in full force, whenever a slave-holder and his slaves entered 
it ; and that it was the duty of the National government to protect them. 
This was the issue. The conflict during the canvass, from July to November, 
was severe. The chief opponents and enemies of the Republic were with the 
Breckenridge faction, and they aiul their followers used every means in their 
power to excite the slave-holders, ami the masses of the people in the Slave- 
labor States, against those of the Free-labor States. During the summer and 
autumn of 1800, they traversed the latter States, everywhere vindicating the 
claims put forth by the extremists of the pro-slavery party. Among these 
orators, in the interest of the oligarchy, William L. Yancey, a leading politi- 
cian of Alabama, was the most conspicuous. He was treated kindly, and 
listened to patiently. Then he went back to his State, and by misrc]U'esenta- 
tious of the temper of the citizens of the North, and with the zeal of an ear- 
nest man regardless of consequences, he aroused into rebellion the confid- 
ing i)eoi)le he was about to betray. Like an incarnation of discord, he cried 
substantially as he had written two years before:" — "Organize committees 
all over the Cotton States ; fire the Southern heart ; instruct the Southern 
mind ; give courage to each other ; and at the proper moment, by one organ- 
ized, concerted action, precipitate the Cotton States into revolution." 

Yancey, in principles and action, was a type of politicians in the other 
Slave-labor States who now worked in co-operation with him in bringing about 
a rebellion against the government, by the slave-holders. Their jirctext was 
found in the doctrities andpracticesof the Republican party, as revealed in their 
convention, during the canvass, and at the election [November 6, 1860], which 
resulted in the choice of Abraham Lincoln for President.' Although ]\Ir. Lin- 
coln had a large majority over each candidate, and was elected in accordance 
with the letter and spirit of the National Constitution, yet the fact that he 
received 979,163 votes less than did all of his opponents, gave factitious vigor to 

' The wing of tlio Democratic party leil by Mr. Doujrlas, in its platform, assumed not to know 
positively wliether slavery niinht or mi^'ht not have a lawful existence in the Territories, without 
the action of the iuliabitants thereof, but expressoti a willingness to abide by the decisions of tlio 
Supreme Court in all cases. The National Constitutional Union party, led by John Bell, declined 
to express any opinion upon any subject. 

" In a letter to James Slaughter, June 15, 1858. 

' The electoral college [see Article XII. of the Amendments to the Constitution] then chosen 
was composed of 303 members. Mr. Lincoln received 180 votes, or 57 more than all of his oppo- 
Bcnts. Bell received 3i>; Donglas, 12; and Breckenridge, 72. Of the popular vote, Lincoln 
received 401.295 over Douglas, 1,018.499 over Breckenridge, and 1,275.871 over Bell. Tlie voles 
for the four candidates were, respectively: For Lincoln. l,8Gfi,452; for Bell, 590,631 : for Oougla.s, 
1,375. 141 ; and for Breckenridge. 847,953. A fair analysis of this popular vote sliowa that of the 
4,690,180 ballots cast, at least 3,500,000, or three-foiirths of the whole, were given by men 
opposed to the further extension of the institution of slavery. 



ISOO.] BUCHANAN'S A H M I N I tiT K A TI O N . 545 

the plausible crv, which was imiuediatcly raised by I lie disloyalists ami their 
friends, that the President-elect would be a usurper when in office, because ho 
luid not received a majority of the aggregate vote of the peo])le ; and tliat his 
antecedents, the principles of tlie Republican platform, and the fanaticism of 
his supporters, pledged him to wage relentless war upon the system of slavery 
and the rights of the Slave-labor States.' 

When it was known tliat Mr. Lincoln was clioscn for the Presidency, there 
w;is great rejoicing among the politicians in the Slave-labor States. Tt was 
the pre-concerted signal for open rebellion. Slaking that choice and its alleged 
menaces a pretext, the disloyalists and the politicians in their service at once 
adopted measures for precipitating "the cotton States into revolution."' A 
system of terrorism was organized and put in vigorous operation, to crush 
out all active loyalty to the government. In it social ostracism and threats of 
personal injuiy and of the confiscation of property were ])rominent features 
in the regi(ni below North Carolina; and the promise of Senator Clingman, 
of the latter State, that Union men should bo hushed by " the swift attention 
of vigilance committees," was speedily fulfilled. In this work the Press and 
Pulpit became iiowcrful auxiliaries, and thousands upon thousands of men 
and women, regarding these as oracles of truth and wisdom, followed them 
reverentially in the broad highway of open opposition to their government. 
'•' Perhaps there never was a jicople," wrote a resident of a Slave-labor State 
in the third year of the war, "more bewitched, beguiled, and befooled, than 
we were when we drifted into this rebellion." 

The disunionists, who had been colleagues or were disciples of John C. 
Calhoun,' and had been for years plotting treason against their government, 
now organized rebellion. They were of one mind in regard to the overt act ; 
they differed somewhat as to time and manner. Those of South Carolina, who, 
by common opinion, were expected to lead in (he great movement, were anxious 
for immediate action, and when they found those of sister States hesitating, 
they resolved not to wait for their co-operation. For a while this question 
divided the Secessionists, but it was soon settled l)y general co-o}ierMtion. 
Every thing was favorable to their plans. The governors of all the Slave- 
labor States had been elected hy the Democratic party, and were ready, with 
the exception of those of Maryland and Delaware, to act in sympathy, if 
not in open co-operation, with the Secessionists. Three, if not four, of the 
leading disunionists were then members of President Buchanan's cabinet,' and 
the President himself and his Attornej'-Gcncral (Jeremiah S. Black, of Penn- 
sylvania) were ready to declare that the Constitution gave the Executive no 

' The fact was unobsorvcd, tliat in nine of the Slave-labor States the loaders had not put in 
the field an electoral tieket, and therefore an expression of the popular will was not obtained. 
These States were North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Louisiana, 
Arkansas, Floi'ida, and Texas — the States which the politicians of each attempted to sever from 
the Uii ion. The electors of South Carolina were chosen by the Legislature, and not by the people. 

' PaKc 544. " Page 458. 

' The disloyal members of the cabinet were ITowi'Il Cobb, of Georgia, Secretary of the 
Treasury: .loliii I?. Floyd, of Virginia, Secretary of War; and. lace ili Thoiii|isoii, of Mississippi, 
Secretary of (lie Interior. Floyd and Cobb became Kcueral olU<'ers in the army of the Con- 
federates. The former perished miserably. Thompson was charged with the most heinous 

35 




546 'i'llK NATION. [186ft 

]((iwoi- to stay tlu- arm vf rclii'llion. Of the I'rcsiik'iit, Jacob Thompson, of 
his cabinet, said : " Buchanan is the truest friend of the South I have ever 
known in the Nortli. He is a jewel of a man.'" Cobb, the Secretary of tlie 
Treasury, wished to hold back the blow until the close of Buchanan's term, but 
he was overruled ])y the otlun disunionints, who counted upon the President's 
passive, if not active, sympatliy with them. 

According to agreement, the ])olilicia7i9 of South Carolina took the first 
Btep toward open rebellion. For that ]nirpose, an extraordinary session of the 
Legislature was held at the time of the Presidential election [November C, 
18G0], and on the morning afler, when the residt was known, the Governor of 
that State was the recipient of many congratulatory electographs from officials 
in Slave-labor States, giving assurance of co-operation.' In Charleston, badges 
called Palmetto cockades^ were everywhere seen, and they 
were freely worn even in Washington City. Members of 
both Houses of Congress, fi-om South Carolina, made trea- 
sonable speeches at the capital of that State,'' and the Legis- 
lature authorized a convention of delegates, for the purpose 
of declaring the State separated from the Union, and taking 
measures for maintaining wliat they called tlie "Sove- 
reignty of South Carolina." The members of that Convention 
were chosen on the 3d of December, and on the 1 7th of that 
PALMETTO oooKADB. Ki«"th tlicy assembled at Columbia, when the prevalence of 
the small-pox in that city caused them to adjourn to Charles- 
ton. There, on the 20th [December, 1860], they adopted an Ordinance of 
Secession,' and that evening, in the presence of the Governor and his council, 

crimes durinp the rebellion, even of complicity in the assassination of President Lincoln. William 
H. Troscot, the Assistant Secretary of State, was also one of the disloyalists; and of Mr. Bu- 
chanan's seven cabinet ministers, only two (General Cass, Secretary of State, and Joseph Holt, 
Postmaster-General) seem to have boon wholly disconnected with Uio plotters against the Gov- 
ernment. 

' Antograph letter, November 20, ISfiO. 

' "The people are much excited. North Carolina will secede," said one. "Large numbers 
of Boll men," said another, from Montfronicry, Alabama, "headed by T. IT. Walts, have declared 
for secession since the announcement of Lincoln's election. The State will undoubtedly secede." 
"The State is ready to assert her rights and independence; the leading men are eager for the 
business," said a dispatch from the capital of Georgia. "If your State secedes," said another, 
from Richmond, "wo will send you trooiis and volunteers to aid you," and so from other States 
came greetings and olTers of aid. 

• Made of blue silk ribbon, with a button in the center bearing the image of a palmettn-troc. 

' James Chestnut, Jr., member of the United States Senate, spoko of the undoubted right of 
South Carolina to secede, and recommended its immediate action in that direction, saying: "The 
other Southern States will flock to our standard." W. W. Boyce, member of Congress, said: 
"I think the only policy for us is to arm as soon as we receive authentic intelligence of the elec- 
tion of Lincoln. It is for South Carolina, in the (juickost manner, and by tho most direct means, 
to withdraw from the Union. Then wo will not submit, whether tlie other States will act with us 
or with our enemies." 

' This ordinance was drawn by John A. Inglis, and is as follows: ■ We, the people of Soutn 
Carolina, in convention assembled, do declare and ordain, and it is hercliy declared and ordained, 
that tlio ordinance adopted by us in convention, on the twenty-tliird day of May, in the year of 
our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight, whereby the Constitution of tho United 
States was ratified, and also all Acts and parts of Acts of the General Assembly of the State, 
ratifying Amendments of the said Constitution, are hereby repealed, and tho Union now subsisting 
between South Carolina and other States, under the name of the United States of America, !■ 
hereby dissolved." 



l*^''!-] lilC'IIANAN's A DM I X ISTUATION . '>i7 

the Lcgi.sliitnrc, and a vast concourse of citizens, it was signed in the great 
Hall oi the South Carolina Institute,' by one hundred and seventy of the niom- 
1)ers. This action was S])ci'dily imitated by the jiojiticians in the interest of 
the disunionists in the States of Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, 
Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee." On the 
4th of February, ISCl, delegates appointed by the secession conventions in six 
of the States in which there had been action on the subject, assembled at 
Montgomery, in Alabama, and formed a league, with the title of Confederate 
States of Aiiekica.' A provisional constitution was adojitcd ; Jefferson 
Davis,' of Mississippi, was chosen "Provisional President," and Alexander H. 

' Soe page 540. This Iniilding, nnd others identiflecl with tlie revnlutinnary movements of 
the Secessionists and Iheir followers in Charleston, were in niins early in the Civil War that 
ensued, and long stood as ghastly illustrationsof one of the darkest pages in the history of oiir 
Republic. On the occasion of tho signing of the Ordinance of Secession, asignilicarit banner 
was hung back of the chair of the president of the convention. UiKin it was represented an 
arch composed of fifteen stones (each indicating a Slave-labor State) rising out of a heap of 
broken and disordered stones, representing the Pree-laboi' States. The key-stone was South 
Carolina, on which stood a statue of Callionn. This banner was a declaration of tlie inten- 
tion of the convention to destroy the Republic, and to erect uixni its ruins an empire whose 
corner-stone should be slavery. Beneath the design on tho banner were tho words: "Built 
FROM THE Ruins." 

' Secession ordinances were passed in the conventions in the eleven States named, in the fol- 
lowing order: South Carolina, Deeemlx'r ^0, lfS(iO; JlixKinsiji/ii, .];iuunyy '.), 1K(11: Fliniih:, 
January 10; Alabama, January 11 ; Georgia, January 1!): Lotii.siaiui, .lanuary 2U; Tc.rax, Feb- 
ruary 1; Virginia, April 17; Arkansax, Jlay (i: Norl/i Carolina, Jlay 20; 'Tennessee. June 8. 

The case of Arkansas is an example of the method of secession. The disunionists, by means 
of Knights of fhe Golden Circle [see page 520], procured the election of a ilisloyal Legislature 
and Governor, who called a convention to vote on secession. That conveni ion voted for Union 
by a majority of over two-thirds. Tlie foiled Secessionists, by false ]a'oniises, gained I he consent 
of the Unionists to an adjournment, subject to the call of the presideul, who pretended to be a 
loyal man, but was really one of the disunionists. It was agreed to refer t hi' (jucstion back to tlie 
leople, and that the convention should not reassemble before the vote should Ijc taken in August, 
'he president, in violation of that pledge, called the c-onvention in May. soon after Fort Sumter 
wastaken. Tliehallin which the members met was filled byanexeited crowd. When the roll 
liadbeen called, a Secessionist ojfered an Ordinanceof Seeessio«,and moved that the "yeas" and 
"nays" on the question should be taken vitlioiit debate. The president fraudulently declared 
the motion carried ; and when the vote on the Ordinance was taken, and it was I'uund I hat there 
was a majority against it. he arose, and in the midst of eheersand threats of the mob, he urged 
the Unionists to change their votes to "ay " immediately. It was evident tliat I he mob was 
prepared to execute their threats, and the terrified Unionists complied. There was one excep- 
tion. Iiisnamewas]\[urphy. He wascompelled tofly forhislife. lie was the Union Governor 
of the State in 1804. Thus, by fraud and violence, Arkansas was placed in 1 he piwit ion of a re- 
bellious State. The Secessionists at once commenced a system of terrorism. Unionists were 
murdered, imprisoned, and exiled. Confederate troops from TexasandLouisianawere brought 
into the State, a,nd Arkansas troops, raised chiefly by fraud and violence, were fient out of the 
State. The voice of opposition was silenced ; and the usur(iers, with their feet on the necks cjf 
the [leople, proclaimed the unanimity of the inhabitants of Arkansas in faror of dismiion! 

' This name does not express the truth. No States, as States, had withdrawn from tho 
Union, for the people, who compose a State in our Republic, had never been asked to sanc- 
tion such change. Only certain persons in certain Stales were in rebellion against tlie 
National authority. They usurped the power and suspended the constitutions of fiexeral of 
the States; but the confederation formed at Jlontgomery was only a league of confederated 
traders, not of States. With this qualification, the iiameof "Confederate " may be ])roperly 
applied to the insurgents, and in the sense of that qualification it is used in tho narrative of 
the ('ivil War that follows this introduction. 

■* Jefferson Davis was born in Kentucky, on the 3d of June, 1808. He was educated at the 
National M ilitary Academy at West Point, where he was graduated in 1834. Ho remained in 
the army seven years, and was in tho ' ' Black Hawk War " in 1832. He liecame a cotton-planter 
in Mis.sissippi in 1835. He was a Democratic Presidential Elector in 1844. and was elected to a 
seat in Congress in 1845. He was a colonel of a Mississippi regiment in the warwilh Mexico. He 
was sent to the National Senate, to fill a vacancy, in 1848, and was regularly elected to that post. 



?' 



548 



Til K NATION. 



[imi. 




JEFFERSON DAVIS. 



Stupliciis,' of Georgia, " Vice-President." And tliis organization of disuuion- 
i&is, wliolly the work of politicians (for no ordinance of secession was ever 

submitted to thepeoplc), made war upon 
tlie Jiepublic, by seizing forts, arsenals, 
ships, custom-iioiises, and other jjublic 
proiterty, and I'aising armies for the 
ovcrtluow of tlie government. 

In the mean time Congress had assem- 
bled [December 3, ISfJO] at tlie Xationul 
Capital, and the disunionists in both 
Houses were outspoken, truculent, and 
defiant. The President'.-; mes.sage pleased 
nobody. It was full of evidence of faint- 
heartedness and indecision, on points 
where courage and positive convictions 
should have been apparent in its treat- 
ment of the great t()])ic then filling all 
hearts and minds ; and it bore painful indications that its author was involved 
in some iierilous dilemma, from which he was anxiously seeking a way of 
escape. It contained many patriotic sentiments, which offended the Secession- 
ists, but it contained more that was calculated to alarm the loyal peojile of 
the laud. It declared substantially, under the advice of the Attorney-General, 
that the Executive possessed no constitutional ])ower to use the army and 
navy for the preservation of the life of the Republic ; and from the time of its 
promulgation until his term of office expired, three months later, the Pi'esidcnt 
sat with folded arms, as it were, while the Secessionists were 2)erfecting their 
horrid enginery for destroying the Nation." Encouraged by his declaration 
of the weakness of the government, and the assurances of leaders of his party 
in the Free-labor States that they need not fear interference," they worked in 

ill 18.51. Pi-c'siilcnt Picrco oalled liiin to liis c-ubinet, iis Secretary of War. in IS^S. Ho again 
entered the Senate, on liis I'etircment from (lie War Deiiai-tinent, in 18.57, anil was there eon- 
soicuoii.sas one iif tlie eiiiis])initors against, tlie life of the Kepublio. In Feliniarv, 1801. lie was 
clei-ted" Provisional Presiilentof thoConfedeniteStatesof .\ineric-a,''aiid in \HCii, "Pennanent 
President." , At the t-loso of the Civil War he was captured, and confined in Portress Monroe, 
charged with high ci'inies. He was released on liail, and has never been brought to trial. 

' ytephens. with an air of real sincerity, liad made a )ilea for the rnion, at the capital of 
Georgia, in Novi'nilier. 18(i0. By his own jirivafe confession it was only a political trick. He 
and Rolicrt Toombs, one of the leading disunionists in (Jcorgia, were aspirants for the supre- 
macy as political leaders in that State. Toombs was an open Secessionist. Stephens cxjiect- 
ed to debase him liv taking a stand for the Union, but was defeated; and within thes|iace of 
three months he was the second officer in the so-called "government'' of the Secessionists, 
and working with them in trying to destroy what he had declared to be the faii-est political 
fabric on the face of the earth. 

' After arguing that even Congress had no con.stitntional right to do more than defend the 
public proiierty, the Attorney-ticneral intimated that ifil should attempt to do more, the jico- 
iilc of the Slave-lalior States interested in I he matter would be jiistilied in rebelling — "would 
be compelled to act accordinglv." He wished to know whether, under such circumstances, 
all the States would "not be absolved from their Federal obligations." \lc virtually coun- 
seled the President to allow the Hepniilic to be destroyed by its internal foes, rather than to 
use force for its preservation; and tin- Chief i^Iagistrate followed his advice. 

' .\t a large political meeting in I'liiladeljihia, on the Kith of .buinary, 18(il, oneof the resolu- 
tions declared : " Weurentterlyopposed toany sucheonipulsionasisdeniandcd by a portion of 
the Republican party; and the'Democratic party of the North will by all constitutional means, 



1801.] BUCHANAX'S A D M I N I ST 11 AT ION. 549 

open sunshine with the avowed intention of overthrowing tlie government. 
They seized public property, and fired upon the National flag, even before they 
had formed tlieir league at Montgomery ; and when their plans were fairly 
matured, tiie Secessionists in Congress, after rejecting every peaceful proposi- 
tion that might be made, consistent with the dignity and safety of the govern 
mont,' both in that body and in a peace convention held at Washington City^ 
[Febrnary 4, 1860], formally withdrew from the National Legislature, witii 
the avowal that war upon their government was their object. And yet tiieie 
sat the Chief Magistrate of the Republic in passive obedience to some malig- 
nant will, liolding in his hands the lightning of power confided to him by the 
people, by which, in a moment, as it were, he might have consumed tlioso 
enemies of the Constitution and violators of the law. 

Charleston harbor had now become the seething caldron of rebellion. 
Major Robert Anderson, a loyal Kentuckian, was in command of the fortifi- 
cations there. He had warned his government of the evident intention of the 
South Carolina Secessionists to seize their strongholds, and had urged it to 
employ measures for their protection. Floyd, a Virginian disunionist, then 
Secretary of War, and who had stripped the arsenals of the North and filled 
those of the South, preparatory to rebellion, paid no attention to his entreaties. 
Finally, when it was evident to Anderson that the South Carolinians intended 
to seize tlie forts, and capture his little garrison of less than one hundred men, 
he took the latter from the weaker fort Moultrie, and placed them, with his 
supplies, in stronger fort Sumter, where he might defy all assailants. This 
act astounded and exasperated the Secessionists. The disloyal Secretary of 
War rebuked the loyal commander, but the patriotic people blessed him for 

ami with its moral .ami political influence, oppose any such extreme policy, or a fratricidal war 
thus to be inaugurated." On the 33d of February, a political State Convention was held at Har- 
risburg, the capital of ['ennsylvania, when the members said, in a resolution : " We will, by all 
proper and legitimate means, oppose, discountenance, and prevent any attempt on the part of 
the Republicans in power to make any armed aggressions upon t ho Southern States, especially 
so long as laws contravening their rights shal 1 remain unrepealed on the statute-books of North- 
ern States [Personal Lilicrty Laws, see page ."iSG], and so long as the just demands of the South 
shall continue to be unrecognized liy the Rcp\iblicau majorities in these States, and unsecured 
by proper amendatory explanations of the Constitution." Such utterances in the gi'eat State of 
Pennsylvania, and similar ones elsewhere, by the chosen representatives of a powerful party in 
conventions assembled, encouraged the disunionists in a belief that there would be no war made 
upon them, and for that reason they wero <lefiant everywhere and f>n all occasions. 

'In the Senate of the United States, John J. Crittenden, of Kentucky, offered amendments 
to the Constitution and a series of joint resolutions, known as the "Crittenden Compromise." 
which formed as perfect a guaranty for the protection and perpetuation of the slave system as 
the slaveholders had ever, hitherto.asked for. Had the Secessionists not been determined on 
the destruction of the Republic, this would have been satisfactory. But they rejected it; nor 
did it meet with any favor on the part of the Republicans. 

"For the purpose of gaining time to perfect their disloyal schemes, theSecessionists of Vir- 
ginia planned aconference of delegates from all the States, to consider measures for averting 
Civil War. The President favored the movement. Delegates from twenty-one States assembled 
in Washington City on the 4th of February, 1861. .John Tyler, of Virginia [see pagis 47*)], 
was chosen president. A plan was adopted, liaving all of the essential features of the " Critten- 
den Compromise." Tyler and his assc ii'iat cs from Virginia pretended to acquiesce in this result, 
and in his closing address, aftersoleinn asseverations of satisfaction, he said : "So far as in me 
lies, Ishall recommend its adoption." Thirty-six hours afterward, in a speech in Richmond, he 
cast off the mask of dissimulation, and denounced the Peace Convention and its doings. He 
thereafter labored with all his might to precipitate Virginia into the vortex of Revolution, 
and was successful. 



550 



TIIK N" A 11 OK. 



[1861. 



llic gloi-ious ilt'L'd. The intelligence (if it iiicroiised (lie excitement in the Na- 
tionul capital, caused by the discovery of a heavy robbery of Indian Trust 
Bonds, held in the Department of tlie Interior — a crime in wliich the Secretary 
of War was involved — and a session of the cabinet on the 27tli was a stormy 
one. The dismayed Secessionists in tliat council discovered that the President 

was not disposed to follow them into ]iaths of 
actual treason. Floyd, fearing theeonse((uenccs 
of his exposed villauy, resigned the seals of his 
oflice and Sed to Virginia, where his fellow- 
disunionists gave him a public dinner. lie was 
succeeded in office by Joseph Holt. A recon- 
struction of the cabinet, with sounder materials, 
immediately followed,' and the lo3'al people felt 
some assurance of safety. 

The first two months of the year 1801 was a 
period of great anxiety and gloom. Business 
was prostrated. Cobb, the disunionist, liad used 
his power as Secretary of the Treasury, in injur- 
ing, as far as possible, the public credit. Pre- 
parations for rebellion were seen on every side. The Secessionists in Con- 
gress were withdrawing from that body, and disloyal men in conventions 
were declaring the secession of States. The President remained a passive 
spectator of the maturing mischief. The General-in-Chief of the Army (Lieu- 
tenant-General Scott) was feeble in mind and body, and as the time approached 
for the inauguration of Mr. Lincoln, evidence appeared that Secessionists in 
Baltimore, in their desjieration, had determined to assassinate him. Warned 
of this, he succeeded in passing tlu'ough Baltimore, where the tragedy was to 
be performed, unnoticed, and, to tlie cliagrin and even consternation of the 
disunionist men, ho suddenly ;ipiiearcd in Washington City on the morning 
of the 23d of February, and remained there until his inauguration. 




nOUEUT ANDERSON. 



' General Tiiss, llio Scrretnryof State, wlin had discovpred the treasonable desifrns of some 
of his assoeiates, had rosiirned' some time liefure, and his place was filled liy <lie Attonu'V- 
Rencral. Kdwin M. Stanton was called to (lie Attoniey-GeniTalsliip. and .I.ilni A. Dix was 
made Secretary of the Treasiirv in place of Cobb, who bad pmo to tieorffia to assist jn plunp- 
in^ the iieople'of tbat State into the vortex of rebellion. Holt. Dix, and Stanton were loval 
men, and thwarted by their vi;;ilance and energy the schemesof the Secessionists to seize the 
goyernnient liel'ore the President-elect shonld be inant^nrated. " We intend, "said one of tho 
disnnionists, " to take jiossession of the Army and Xayy, and of the archiy,->s of the govern- 
ment : not allow the electoral votes to bii connted ; proclaim Ruehanan Provisional Presi- 
dent, if he ^vill do as \ve wisli, and it not, choose another ; seize the Harper's Ferry Arsenal 
anil the Norfolk Navy Yard simultaneonsly, and. sendini; armed men down from the for- 
mer, and armed vessels up from the latter, take possessiou of VVashiugton, and establish a 
new govomment." 



1861.] LINCOLN'S ADMINISTRATION. 551 

CHAPTER XVI. 

LINCOLN'S ADMINISTRATION. [1S61 — 18G5.] 

Abraham Lincoln,' tlio sixti'oiith President of the Kcpublic, was inaugu- 
rated on the 4th day of March, 1861, under circumstances of peculiar interest. 
In expectation of open violence on the part of the disunionists, and their 
adherents, General Scott had made ample provision for the preservation of 
order by the strong arm of military power, if it should be necessary. This 
fact was known, and no disorder occurred. The oath of office was adminis- 
tered by Chief Justice Taney as quietly as on former occasions ; and with a firm 
voice the new President read from the eastern portico of the Capitol to the 
assembled thousands his remarkable Inaugural Address. In it he expressed 
the most kindly feelings toward the people of every portion of the Republic, 
and his determination to administer the government impartially for the protec- 
tion of every citizen and every interest. At the same time he announced his 
resolution to enforce the laws, protect the public property, and repossess that 
which had already been seized by the insurgents. The vast multitude then 
dispersed, and in the evening the usual pageant of an Inauguration Ball was 
seen. On the following day the Senate, relieved of most of the disuuionists 
confirmed the President's cabinet nominations," and the new administration 
began its memorable career. 

The first business of the new cabinet was to ascertain the condition of the 
nation, especially its resources, and its ability to meet the crisis of rebellion, 
evidently at hand. Cobb had deeply injured the public credit, but the loyal 
men in Congress had adopted measures for restoring it. The army and navy 
promised very little aid. The former was composed of only 16,000 men, and 
these were principally on the frontiers of the Indian country,' while sixteen 
forts had already been seized by the insurgents, with all the arsenals in the 
cotton-growing States.* The little navy, like the army, had been placed far 

' See note 1, page 543. 

' Ho nominated William H. Seward, of New Tork, for Secretary of State ; Salmon P. Chase, 
of Ohio, for Secretary of the Treasury ; Simon Cameron, of Pennsylvania, for .'secretary of War; 
Ciideou Wells, of Connecticut, for Secretary of the Navy; Caleb Smith, of Indiana, for Secretary 
of the Interior ; Montgomery Blair, of Maryland, for Postmaster-General ; and Edward Bates, of 
Missouri, for Attorney-General. 

' Many of the officers of the army were natives of Slave-labor States, and a greater portion 
of these not only abandoned their flag and joined the insurgents, but attempted to corrupt tha 
patriotism of the common soldiers. Among the most flagrant acts of this Idnti was the conduct of 
Greneral Daviil E. Twiggs, whom Floyd liad placed in command of the troops in Te.xas, to assist 
in the work of rrljellion. Ho fir.-it tried to seduce tlie troops from their allegiance. Failing in this, 
he betrayed them into the hands of the enemies of their country in February, 1S61. His command 
included nearly one-half of the military force of the United States. They were surrendered to 
the rebellious "authorities of Texas," with public property valued at $ "^50,000. 

' The defensive works within the "seceding States," as they were called, were about thirty 
in number, and mounting over .3,000 guns. The cost of these works and their equipment was at 
least $'.'0,000,000. It is estimated that the value of National property which the insurgents 
.seized before the close of Buchanan's administration was at least $30,000,000. 



THE NATION. 



[1861. 



beyoml tlio inimoiliatu use of the government. Only forty-two vessels were in 
commission, and the entire force immediately available for the defense of the- 
whole Atlantic coast of the Republic was the Brooklyn, of twenty-five guns, 
and a store-shij). A large number of naval ofliccrs, born in Slave-labor States, 
had resigned ; and weakness and confusion in that arm of the public service 
were everywhere visible. The public offices were swarming with disloyal 
men. It was difficult to decide who were and who were not trustworthy, and 
as it was necessary for the I'resident to have proper implements to work with, 
he was engaged for nearly a month after his inauguration in exchanging false 
for true men in the employment of the government. He knew that rising 
rebellion could not be suppressed by proclamations, unless the insui-gcnts saw 
behind them the invincible power of the State, leady to be wielded by th& 
President, with trusty instt-umentalities. These he endeavored to find. 




FORT SUMTEK IN 1861. 

Meanwhile rebellion was oj)en and defiant, especially at Charleston. Sooo. 
after Major Anderson transferred his garrison to Fort Sumter,' the insurgents, 
who at once flocked to Charleston, began the erection of fortifications for the 
purpose of dislodging him. They seized the other forts that were for the 
defense of the harbor, and when, so early as the second week in January, a 
government vessel {Star of the West) attempted to enter with men and pro- 
visions for Fort Sumter, and with the National flag at her fore, she was fired 



Page 649. 



1861.J LINCOLN'S ADMINISTRATION. 553; 

upon by great guns and driven to sea.' When the Confederation was formed 
at Montgomery," they commissioned Major P. G. T. Beauregard, a Louisiana 
Creole, who had deserted his flag, a brigadier-general, and sent him to com- 
mand the insurgents at Cliarleston. Under his direction Fort Sumter was 
besieged ; and when, early in April [1 8G1 ], tlie government informed the authori- 
ties of South Carolina that supplies would be sent to Fort Sumter peaceably 
or forcibly, Beauregard was ordered by Davis and his fellow-disuuionists tO' 
demand its immediate surrender. This was done [April 11], when Anderson, 
whose supplies were nearly exhausted, agreed to evacuate the fort witliin five 
days, if he should receive no relief from his government. Hoping to "fire the 
Southern heart " by bloodshed, the Secessionists would not wait for so peace- 
able a way for gaining possession, and under their direction Beauregard, with 
thousands of armed men at his back, opened full thirty heavy guns and mor^ 
tars upon the fort [April 12], which was defended by only about seventy men.' 
The little garrison gallantly responded, and fought bravely, with a hope that 
a naval expedition, which they knew had been sent for their relief, might 
arrive in time to raise the siege. A heavy storm prevented the succor. Pro- 
visions were exhausted. The buildings in the fort were set on fire by th& 
shells of the insurgents, and a greater portion of the gunpowder had to be 
emptied into the sea, to prevent its ignition by the flames. Finally, hopeless 
of aid, and almost powerless, Anderson agreed to evacuate the fort. This he 
did on Sunday, the 14tli, and retired with the garrison to the government 
vessels hovering outside the harbor, bearing away the flag of Fort Sumter. 
Precisely four years afterward [April 14, 1865J he took it back, and raised it 
again over the fortress, then an almost shapeless mass of ruins. He evacuated, 
hut did not sicrrende?- Fort Sumter, and he and its flag, the emblem of the 
sovereignty of his government, were borne to New York.* Thus commenced 

CIVIL WAR, IX 1861. 

Twenty-four hours after the evacuation of Fort Sumter, the President issued 
a proclamation, in which he called out the militia of the country for three 

' This overt act of treason and of war was commended by the Legislature of South Carolina, 
which resolved, unanimously, "That this General Assembly learns with pride and pleasure of the 
successful resistance this day by the troops of this State, acting under the orders of the Governor, 
to an attempt to re-enl'orce Fort Sumter." The public press of Charleston said: " We are proud 
that our harbor has been so honored," and declared that " if the red seal of blood was yet lacking 
to the parchment of tlieir liberties," there sliould be " blood enough to stamp it all in red! For, 
by the God of our fathers," shouted the exultant journalist, "the soil of South Carolina shcM be 
free/" — Charleston Mercury, January 9, 1861. 

' Page 547. 

' A Virginia Congressman, named Roger A. Pryor, made a speech in the streets of Charleston 
on the night o£ tlie 10th. A convention was then in session in Virginia, in which the Union- 
ists were holding the Secessionists in check. Pryor, in defending the scorning hesitancy of his 
State, said: " Do not distrust Virginia. Strike a blow! The very moment that blood is shed, 
Old Virginia will make common cause with her sisters of the South." This cry tor blood was 
telegraphed to Montgomery the next morning. It was consonant with the malevolent spirit of 
the more zealous Seeessioni.sts everywhere. Gilchrist, a member of the Alabama Legislature, 
.said to Davis, Walker, Benjamin, and Memminger: "Gentlemen, unless you sprinkle blood in 
the face of the people of Alabama, they will be back in the old Union in less than ten day.s." And 
so Davis and his " Cabinet " ordered Beauregard to shed blood, and "fire the Southern heart." 

' F. W. Pickens, then Governor of South Carolina, made the evacuation of Sumter the occa- 



554 '^^^^ NATION. [1861. 

months' service, to the number of seventy-five thousand men, to suppress the 
rising rebellion.' The Secretary of War .simultaneously issued a requisition 
upon the several States for their ])rescribecl quota.'" These calls were received 
with unbounded favor and entlnisiasni throughout the Free-labor States. In 
the six Slave-labor States included in the call, they were treated with scorn 
and defiance, tlie Governors sending insulting responses to the President, while 
Davis and his fellow-disuuionisLs at Montgomery received the Proclamation 
with " derisive laughter." In the Free-labor States there was a wonderful 
uprising of the people. Nothing like it, in sublimity of aspect, had been 
seen on the earth since Peter the Hermit and Pope Urban the Second filled all 
Christian I-Curope with religious zeal, and sent aiTnod hosts, with the cry of 
" God wills it ! God wills it !" to rescue the Sepulchcr of Jesus from the hands 
of the infidel. The Republic was to be rescued from the hands of the assassin. 
Men, women, and children felt the enthusiasm alike ; and, as if by preconcert- 
ed arrangement, the National flag was everywhere displayed, even from the 
spires of churches and cathedrals. In cities, in villages, at way-side inns, all 
over the country, it was unfurled from lofty poles in the presence of large 
assemblies of people, who were addressed frequently by some of the most 
eminent orators in the land. It adorned the halls of justice and the sanctua- 
ries of religion; and the "lied, White, and F>lue," the colors of the flag in 
combination, became ornaments of women and tokens of the loyalty of men. 

The uprising in the Slave-labor States at the same time, though less general 
and enthusiastic, was nevertheless mar^-elous. The heresy of State supre- 
macy, which Calhoun' and his disciples adroitly called State ri(/lUs, because a 
rtijht is a sacred thing cherished by all, was a political tenet generally accepted 
as orlhodo.\.* It had been inculcated in every conceivable form, and on every 
■conceivable occasion ; and men who loved the Union and dei)recated secession 
were in agreement with the Secessionists on that point. Hence it was that, in 
the tornado of passion then sweeping over the South, where reason was dis- 

sion for an exultant speech in the streets of Charleston, on that Sunday. " Thank God." he 
-exclaimed, " the war is open, and we will conquer or perisli. TVo have humbled the flag of the 
United Slates." Alluding to his State as a sovereignty, he said, " That proud (lag was never 

lowered before to any nation on the earth It has been humbled to-day before the glorious 

little State of South Carolina." The churches of Charleston that day were resonant with disloyal 
harangues. In old St. Philip's the venerable and blind Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal 
•Church cried out : " Your boys were there, and mine were there, and it wofi rvjlit that they should 
be there." And in tlie Roman Catholic Cathedral Biph(jp Lynch had a Te Deum chanted in grati- 
tude to God for the beginning of the most liorrid civil war on record I 

' The President's authority for this act may be found in the second and third sections of an 
act of Congress approved February 28, 1795. That law would not allow the President to hold 
them to service for more than three months. 

' The quota of each State was as follows, the figures denoting the number of regiments : 
Maine, 1 ; New Hampshire, 1 ; Vermont, 1 ; Massachusetts, 2 ; Rhode Island. 1 ; Connecticut, 1 ; 
New York, 1"; New Jersey, G; Pennsylvania. IG; Delaware, 1; Tennessee. 2; Maryland, 4; 
Virginia, 3; North Carolina, 2; Kentucky, 4; Arkansas, 1 ; Missouri, 4; Ohio. 13; Indiana, 6; 
Illinois, G; Michig.an, 1 ; Iowa, 1; Minnesota, 1 ; Wisconsin, 1; 

' See note 3, page 459. 

' This was in the form of a political dogmsw which declares that each State is a sovereign; that 
the Union ia only a league of sovereign States, and not a nationality ; that the States are not sub- 
servient to the National government ; were not created by it, do not belong to it, and that they 
created that government, whose powers they delegale to it. and that to them it is responsible. 
Such was the essential substance of the old Confederation, before the National Constitution was 



ISei.] LINCOLN'S ADMINISTRATION. 555 

warded, thousands of intelligent men, deceived by the grossest misrepresenta- 
tions respecting the temper, character, and intentions of the people of the 
Free-labor States, flew to arms, well satisfied that they were in the right, 
because resisting what they believed to be usurpation, and an unconstitutional 
attempt at the subjugation of a free jieople on the part of the National gov- 
■ernment. 

Within a week after the attack on Fort Sumter the insurrection assumed 
the huge proportions of a great rebellion. Its forces were at work in all the 
Slave-labor States, and the most extraordinary exertions were immediately put 
forth by the disunionists to execute the first and most important part of their 
plan, namely, the seizure of the National Capital. Thousands of their follow- 
ers, armed with weapons taken from their government, were pressing into Vir- 
ginia for that purpose. At the time of his inauguration at Montgomery' Jef- 
ferson Davis had said : " We are now determined to maintain our position, 
a,nd make all who oppose us smell Southern jioioder and feel Southern steel f 
and he now began to carry out that threat with a high hand, while his lieiiten- 
ant, Alexander H. Stephens, who a few months before had declared and proven 
that rebellion against the government would be a monstrous crime," now hur- 
ried toward Richmond, making Georgia, the Carolinas, and Virginia ring with 
his cry of " On to Washington P'' Le Roy Pope Walker, Davis's "Secretary 
of War,'" had prophesied on the day when Fort Sum- 
ter was attacked [April 12, 1861], saying: "The flag 
that now flaunts the breeze here will float over the 
dome of the old capitol at Washington before the 
first of May. Let them try Southern chivalry, and 
test the extent of Southern resources, and it may 
float eventually over Faneuil Hall, in Boston." The 
most intense desire to seize Washington City pre- 

•Ij .,• ilj 1^1 1 THE CONFEDERATE PLAQ.* 

vailed, among the insurgent leaders, and the people 

of the cotton-planting States soon realized the promise uttered by Governor 
Pickens : " You may plant your seed in peace, for Old Virginia will have to 
bear the brunt of battle." 

Virginia did, indeed, bear much of the brunt of battle. It was now in an 
uproar, and its people was soon made to feel the terrible eflTects of the treason 
of some of their leading politicians. They had assembled a convention to 
oonsider the subject of secession from the Union. The Unionists were the 

framed. That Constitution refutes this heresy of State sovereignty and supremacy, in terms and 
spirit: "We, the People," says its preamble, "do ordain and establish," Ac. That Constitution 
was the work of the people, not of State organizations ; and it is the political creator of every State 
since admitted into the Union, first as a Territory, and then as a State, solely by the exercise of 
the potential will of the people, expressed through Congress. Without the consent of Congress, 
under the provisions of the Constitution, no State can enter the Union. The National govern- 
ment is the creator of the States. See Section 3, Article IV. of the National Constitution. 

' Page 547. 

- See Lossing's Pkiorial History of the Civil War, vol. I., pages 5-t to 57, inclusive. 

' Page 541. 

' This is a picture of the flag of the " Southern Confederacy " adopted by the Secessionists 
»nd first unfurled over the State-House at Montgomery on the 4th of March, 1861. 




556 THK NATION. [1861. 

majority in that body. Tlie crisis had now come. Tlie blow had been struck. 
Tlie bloodshed evoked by tlie impassioned Pryor had occiuTcd. Virginia, within 
whose ancient embrace was the capital of the nation to be destroyed, must be 
actively on the side of the conspirators, or all might be lost. Maryland, on 
the other side of the District of Columbia, was a doubtful auxiliary, for her 
loyal Governor and people were holding treason and rebellion in check in that 
State. The violent spirit of the disunionists everywhere manifested must not 
be backward in Virginia, the mother of Disunion ; so the politicians, perceiv- 
ing [April IG] that if the seats of ten Unionists in the convention could be 
made vacant an ordinance of secession might be passed, waited upon that 
number of such men and gave them the choice of voting for secession, kecpiiig 
away from the convention, or being hanged. They kept away. The secession 
ordinance was adopted [April 17, 1861], and in defiance of an order of the 
convention that it should be submitted to a vote of the people, a committee 
appointed by that body, with John Tyler at its head,' concluded a treaty with 
Alexander II. Stephens, acting in behalf of Jefferson Davis, by whicli their 
commonwealth was placed under the absolute military control of the Con- 
federacy. This was done witliin a week [April 25, 1861] after the Ordinance 
of Secession was passed, and a month before the time appointed for its submis- 
sion to the people. When that day arrived, fraud and violence deprived the 
latter of their right.' Virginia became a part of the Confederacy, and, by 
invitation of its politicians, who had dragged the people into the vortex of 
revolution, the so-called "government" of the conspirators was ti-ansferred 
from Montgomery to Richmond, and there it remained during the war that 
ensued. 

While troops were hurrying toward Washington from the Slave-l.ibor 
States, to seize it, others, in larger numbers, were flocking from the Free-labor 
States to defend it. The secessionists of Maryland were active, and tried to 
place a b.arrier in the way of the loyal men in Baltimore, through which city 
they were compelled to pass. They slightly assailed some Penusylvanians 
(five unarmed companies) who passed through on the 18th of April, and 
were the first of its defenders to reach the Xational capital f and on the 
following day a mob of ten thousand men assailed a single JIassachusetts regi- 
ment (the Sixth), as it marched from one railway station to the other. A fight 
ensued. Lives were lost.* The loyal people of the nation were terribly exas- 
perated, and it was with difliCulty that the city in which the tragedy occurred 

' The commissioners consisted of John Tyler, William Ballard Preston, S. M. McD. Moore, 
James P. Holcombe, James C. Bruce, and Lewis E. Il.arvie. 

' The bayonet was ready everywhere to control llie elections. That TTnion men miglit be 
kept from the polls. Mason, the author of the Fugitive Slave Law [page 522], addressed a public 
letter to the people, telling those who were disposeil to vote against the Ordinance that they must 
not vote at all, "and if they retain such opinions t/ifi/ niuM kave t/ie iSlate." He asserted iu 
•another form Jefferson Davis's threat, that all opposers should " smell Southern powder and feel 
Southern steel." 

' There were the Wasliington ArtiUery and Naiional Light Infantry companies of Potlsville; 
the liiiigriold Light Artillery, of Reading; the Logan Guards, of Lewistown; and the Allen Infantry, 
of AUentown. 

* Tlie mob, encouraged by the Chief of Police (G. P. Kane) and well-known cittzens, assailed 



1861.] 



LINCOLN'S ADMINISTRATION. 



557 



was preserved from destruction. " Turn upon it tlie guns of Fort McHenry," 
said one. " Lay it in ashes !" cried another. " Fifty thousand men may be 
raised in an hour to marcli tlirough Baltimore," exclaimed a tliird ; and one of 
our popular poets (Bayard Taylor) wrote : — 

" Bow down in ]iaste thy guilty head I 

God's wrath is swift and sure: 
The sl<y with gathering bolts is red — 
Cleanse from thy skirts the slaughter-shed, 
Or make thyself an ashen bed 

Baltimore!" 

The defenders of the capital were not there any too soon. Already the 
Virginians had begun to play their part in the plan for seizing Washington. 
On the jjassage of the ordinance of secession by the Virginian convention," 




harper's ferrt in the summer op 1861. 

Governor Letcher proclaimed the independence of the State and his recognition 
of the Confederacy ; and, less than twenty-four hours afterward, troops were in 
motion for seizing Harper's Ferry and the Navy Yard near ISTorfolk.' Warned 
of their approach, and his force too small to make successful resistance. Lieu- 
tenant Jones, who was in command at Harper's Ferry, set fire to the Armory 
and Arsenal buildings there [April 18], and withdrew into Pennsylvania. The 

the troops with eyery sort of missile. Two of the troops were killed. One was mortally and 
several were slightly wounded. Nine citizens of Baltimore were killed, and a considerable num- 
ber were wounded. 

' Page 556. ' See note 1, page 650. 



558 TIIK NATIOX. [1861. 

iii!<m-gonts took possession of llic post, aiul woro about to iii;m-li upon Waslv 
iiigton, M'licn they heard of its armed occupation by loyal men. At tlic same 
time, Virginians were before the Navy Yard at Gosport, opposite Norfolk, 
demanding its surrender. The eommander of the station (Commodore Mi-Au- 
ley) finding disloyalty to be rife among his officers, and apprehending immediate 
danger from foes without, jjrejjared to abandon the post without resistance, and 
to scuttle the vessels. Commodore Paulding arrived while the vessels were 
sinking, and finding it to be too late to save them, he ordered them and the 
buildings of the navy yard to be fired. An immense amount of property 
was destroyed, and the Virginians, on taking possession, acquired, as spoils,, 
about two thousand cannon. These armed many a battery throughout th& 
Confederacy soon afterward. 

The National capital was still in great danger. Thousands of insurgents 
from below the lloanoke were pouring into Virginia and pressing up toward 
Washington, while, for about a week, all communication between the capital 
and the loyal States was cut off. Under the sanction of the Mayor and 
Chief of Police of Raltitnore, the bridges of the railways extending northward 
from that city were burned on the night after the massacre in its streets, and 
the telegraph-wires were cut. The President and his cabinet and the General-in- 
chief of the Army were virtual prisoners in the capital for several days, and 
were relieved just in time to prevent their actual capture, by the energy of the 
veteran General John E. Wool, and ihe Union Defense Committee of New York 
City, in forwarding t roops and supplies in a manner to avoid the blockade of the 
direct liigiiway at Baltimore, and to secure the cai)ital. The well-known Seventh 
Kegiment of New York and some Massachusetts troops, under General Ben- 
jamin F. Butler, proceeded by water to Annapolis [April 21], seized the railway 
between that city and its junction with the one leading from Baltimore to 
Washington [April 25], and took possession a few days later at the Relay 
House, nine miles from the former city, where the Baltimore and Ohio Railway 
turns northward toward Ilarjier's Ferry. From that point, on the evening of 
the 13lli of May, Butler, with a little more than one thousand men, went into 
Baltimore, under cover of intense darkness and a thunder-storm, and quietly 
took post on Federal Hill, an eminence commanding the city." The first inti- 
mation the citizens received of his presence was a proclamation from him, 
puljlished in a newspaper the ne.xt morning, assuring all peaceable persons of 
full protection, and intimating that a greater force was at hand, if needed, for 
the purposes of the outraged government. Troops then ])assed quietly through 
Baltimore to Washington City,' and at the middle of May the capital was 
safe. Tims rebellion in Maryland was throttled at the beginning, and it was 
kept from very serious mischief during the war that ensued.' 

' Butler's troops consisted of tlio entire Sixth Massachusetts, which was attacked in Baltimore 
on the 19th of April [page 556]; a part of the New York Eighth; Boston artillerymen, and 
two field-pieces. They were placed in cars, headed, as a feint, toward Harper's Ferry. At 
evening they were backed into Baltimore, just as a heavy thunder-storm was about to break 
over the city, and the troops, well piloted, went quietly to Federal Hill. 

' Three days earlier [.May 10] Pcnusylvauian troops passed unmolested through Baltimore to 
Washington, under Colonel Patterson. 

* General Scott had planned an expedition for the seizure of Baltimore, to consist of four 



180t.] lixcoln's ADMINISTRATIOX. 5.5!J' 

At the l)ca'inniiiir of M;iv, bv 710161106 and other methods, the Secessionists 
and tlieir friends h:id seized the gnvenunent property to the anionnt of ^-tO,- 
000,000 ; put about forty tliousand armed men in the field, more than half of 
whom were then concentrating in Virginia ; sent emissaries abroad, with tiie- 
namc of "commissioners," to seek recognition and aid from foreign jjowers :' 
commissioned numerous "privateers " to prey uiioii the commerce of the United 
States ;' extinguished the luminaries of light-houses and beacons along the coasts 
of the Slave-labor States, from Hampton lloads to the Rio Grande,^ and enlisted 
actively in their revolutionary schemes the governors of thirteen States, and large 
numbers of leading politicians in other States/ Encouraged by their success; 
in Charleston harbor,' they were investing Fort Pickens, which had been saved 
from seizure by the vigilance and energy of Lieutenant Slemmer, its commander." 
Insurrection had become Rebellion ; and the loyal people of the country 
and the National government, beginning to comprehend the magnitude, po- 
tency, and meaning of the movement, accepted it as such, and addressed 
themselves earnestly to the task of its suppression. The President called [May 

columns of three thousand men each, to approach it simultaneously from different points. Butler, 
by bold and energetic action, accomplished the desired end in oue night, with a thousand men. 
Scott could not forgive him for this independent action. He demanded his removal from the 
command of that department. The President complied, promoted Butler to Major-General, and 
gave him a more important command, with his head-quarters at Fortress Monroe. 

' These were William L. Yancey [see page 544]. of Alabama ; P. A. Rost. of Louisiana ; A. 
Dudley Mann, of Virginia, and T. Butler King, of Georgia. Yancey was to operate in England, 
Rost in France, and Mann in Holland and Belgium. King seem.s to have had a kind of roving 
commission. These men so titly represented their bad cause in Europe, that confidence in its 
justice and ultimate success was so speedily impaired, that they went wandering about, seeking 
in vain for willing listeners among men of character in diplomatic circles, and they finally aban- 
doned their missions with disgust, to the relief of European statesmen, who were wearied with 
their importunities and offended by their duplicity. 

^ Davis summoned his so-called " Congress " to meet at Montgomery on the 29th of April. 
He had already announced, by proclamation [April 17, 1801], his determination to employ 
"privateers" against the commerce of the United States, ana the "Confederate Congress ' 
now authorized the measure, with the unrighteous oiier, by the terms of the Act, of a bounty 
of $20 for the destruction, by fire, water, or otherwise, on the high seas, of every man, woman, 
or child — "each person" — ^that might be found by these "privateers." That the men en- 
gaged in this business, under the sanction of the Secessionists, were pirates, is shown by the 
laws of nations. Piracy is defined as "robbery on the high seas without authority." Davis, 
Toombs, and their feUow-disunionists had no more authority to commission privateers, as 
legalized pirates are called, than had Jack Cade, Nat. Turner, or John Brown, for they repre- 
sented no acknowledged government on the face of the earth. 

* The light-houses and beacons darkened by them, between Cape Henry, in Virginia, and 
Point Is.ibel, in Texas, numbered 133. 

* These were Letolier, of Virginia; Magoffin, of Kentucky • Ellis, of North Carolina; Harris, of 
reanessee ; ,Tack.son, o{ Missouri; Pickens, of South Carolina; Brown, of Georgia, Moore, of Ala- 
bama; Pettns, oi ifiisissippi ; Rector, oi Arkansas; Moore, of Louisiana; Perry, of Florida; and 
Burton, of Deluvmre. Only Governor Hicks, of Maryland, and Houston, of Texas, of the fifteen 
Slave-labor States, were loyal to the National government. The former remained so until his 
death ; but Houston yielded in the course of a few months, and became a reviler of the President 
and the loyal people. 

' Page 553. 

' Early in January [1861], Lieutenant Slemmer received information that Fort Pickens and 
other fortifications on Pensacola Bay, under his charge, would be seized by the Governor of 
Florida. He took measures accordingly. Observing a gathering cloud of danger, lie placed all 
the public property he possibly could, and his garrison, in stronger Fort Pickens. The insurgents 
seized the Navy Yard on the Main (Fort Pickens is on Santa Rosa Island), and tried to secure 
the fort, but in vain. Slemmor held it until ho was re-enforced, at about the time when Fort 
Sumter was abandoned, when a large number of troops, under General Bragg (who had aban- 
doned his flag), were besieging it. 



560 



THE NATION. 



[1801. 



3, 1861] for sixty-four tliousand more troops (volunteers) to serve " during the 
Wiir," and eighteen tliousiind men for the navy. Forts Monroe and Pickens 
were re-enforced, and the blockade of the Southern ports, out of which the 
Secessionists were jireparing to send cruisers, was proclaimed. 

The first care of the government was to secure tlie safety of the capital, and 
for tliis purpose Washington City and its vicinity was made the general gath- 
(■ring-])lace of all the troops raised eastward of tiie Alleghany Mountains. 
When, on the 4th of July, Congress met in extraordinary session, pursuant to 
the call of the President, in his proclamation for troops on the 15th of April,' 
there were about 230,000 volunteers in the field, independent of the three 
months' men, a larger portion of whom were within ten miles of the ca])ital. 
Congress approved the act of the President in calling them out, and authorized 
[July 10, 18G1] the raising of 500,000 troops, and an appropriation of 
ii500,000,000 to defray the expenses of the kindling Civil War.'' Towns, vil- 
lages, cities, and States had made contributions for this service to an immense 
amount, and the people of the Free-labor States, of every political and religious 
creed, were united in efforts to save the life of the Republic. At the same 
time Confederate troops in Virginia, estimated at more than 100,000 in num- 
ber, occu])ied an irregular line, from Harper's Ferry, by way of Kichmond, to 
Norfolk. Their heaviest force was at Manassas Junction, within about thirty 
miles of Washington City, and there, very soon, the fii-st heavy shock of war 
was felt. 

Congress felt the necessity of bending all its energies to a speedy ending 
of the rebellion. From the beginning of the trouble it was evident that most 
of the foreign governments and the ruling classes of Europe would view with 
satisfaction a Civil War that might destroy the Republic, give a stunning blow 
to Democracy, and thus renew their lease of power over the people indefinitely. 
Most of the foreign ministers at Washington, regarding the secession move- 
ments in several States as the beginning of a permanent separation, had 
announced [February, 1861] to their respective governments the practical 

' Paf?o !J53. 

' Secretary Cliaso, whose management of the finan- 
cial affairs of tlie country during a greater portion of the 
period of the war was considered eminently wise and 
cfBcient, asked for $240,000,000 for war purposes, and 
$80,000,000 to meet tlie ordinary demands for the fiscal 
year ending on tlio ;!Oth of .Tunc, 18(J2. He proposed to 
raise tlie $80,000,000 in addition to $00,000,000 already 
appropriated, by levying increased dutiv.'S, and by excise, 
or liy tlio direct taxation of real and personal property. 
To raise the amount for war j)urposes, he proposed loans, 
to be issued in the form of Treasury notes and bonds, 
or cortiticjites of debt, to be made redeemable at a future 
(lay. not e.tceeding thirty years distant. 

Salmon P. Chase was a native of New Hampshire, 
where ho was born in 1808. In ISliO ho commenced 
the practice of the law in i^inciimati, and was one of the 
founders of the "Liberty Party " in Ohio, in 1841. In 
1849 lie was chosen a Senator of the United Stales, and 
in 1855 was elected Governor of Ohio. Mr. Lincoln 
appointed him Secretary of the Treasury in 1861, and 
afterward Chief Justice,' Ho died May 7, 1873. 




84LM0K P. CHASE. 



■1861.J LINCOLN'S ADMINISTRATION. ^Ql 

■dissolution of the American Union ; and statesmen and publicists abroad 
affected amazement because of the folly of Congress in legislating concerning 
tariff and other National measures, when the nation was hopelessly expiring ! 
And before the representative of the new administration (Charles Francis 
Adams) could reach England, the British ministry (already having an agree- 
ment with the Emperor of the French that the two governments should act in 
concert concerning American affairs) procured, in behalf of the disunionists, a 
Proclamation of Neutrality by the Queen [May 13], by which a Confederate 
government, as existing, was acknowledged, and belligerent rights were 
accorded to the insurgents.' Other European governments hastened to give 
the Confederates similar encouragement. Only the Emperor of Russia, of all 
4;he reigning mouarchs, showed sj-mpathy with our government in its great 
trouble. Considering this, and the possibility that they might, with equal 
unseemly haste, recognize the independence of the Confederates, and possibly 
lend them material aid. Congress worked diligently in preparations to confront 
the rebellion with ample force. While doing so, that rebellion assumed the 
proportions of Civil "War in a sanguinary battle fought so near the capital that 
-the sounds of great guns engaged in it were heard there. 

Blood had already been spilled in conflicts on battle-fields. The importance 
of holding possession of Western Virginia, and so the control of the Balti- 
more and Ohio Railway, which connected Maryland and the capital with tha 
great West, was apparent to the Confederates. Equally important was it for 
them to possess Fortress Monroe, and efforts to seize and hold both were early 
made. The strife for Western Virginia began first. The people of that region 
were mostly loyal, and had already taken steps toward a separation from tha 
Eastern or rebellious portion of their State. Troops were accordingly sent 
from Richmond to restrain their patriotism. The people rushed to arms, and 
under the leadership of Colonel B. F. Kelley, a considerable force was organ- 
ized in the vicinity of Wheeling, where, early in May, a mass convention of 
citizens had resolved to sever all connection with the disunionists at Rich- 
mond. A delegate convention was held there on the 13th of May, and made 
provision for a more formal and effective convention on the 11th of June. In 
that body about forty counties were represented, and an ordinance of seces- 
sion from the old Virginia government was adopted. They established a 
provisional government [June 20, 1861], and elected Francis H. Pierpont 
Chief Magistrate. The people ratified their acts in the autumn, and in con- 
vention formed a State Constitution. In June, 1863, West VisGiiaA was 
admitted into the Union as a new State. 

' British sympathy for a rebellion avowedly for tlie purpose of strengthening and perpetuating 
the institution of slavery, was a strange spectacle. Among the people of the earth, the English 
appeared pre-eminently the opposers of slavery. And so, in fact, the great body of the people 
of England were. It was the government and the dominant class in that country — the govern- 
ing fno as against the governed manij — who were thus untrue to principle. The Queen and the 
Prince Consort did not share in the unfriendly feeling toward us. As parents they could not 
forget the exceeding kindness bestowed by our people upon their son, the heir-apparent of the 
throne, who visited this country in 1860 ; and it is known that herMajesty restrained her ministers 
from recognizing the independence of the Confederates, as they were amicus to do. 

S6 




562 1''^''' ^ ATI ox. [1661 

Tlic government perceivctl the necessity of aftbrding a'ul to tlio AVesteni 
Virginia loyalists, and General George 15. McClellan, wlio had been ])laced in 
command of the Department of the Oliio, was ordered 
to assist Kelley in driving ont the Confederate troops. 
Thus encouraged, the Virginia commander moved on 
Grafton, when tlie Confederate leader, Portcrlield, flecl 
to l'hilip])i. Thither he was followed by Kelley, and 
also by Ohio and Indiana troops, under Colonel Du- 
mont. They drove Porterfield from Philippi [.Tune 
3] after a battle (the first after war was proclaimed), 
in which Kelley was womided, and for a while matters 

SEAT, OF WEST VIRGINIA. ■ .. • tl *. ■ n e. l ^l 

were quiet in that region, (uraiton was made the 
head-quarters of the National troops in Western Virginia. 

Meanwhile Confederate troops under Colonel Magruder, who had aban- 
doned his flag,' had been moving down the peninsula between the James and 
York llivcrs, for the purpose of atteinj)ting to seize Fortress Monroe. General 
Butler, in command at the latter post, informed that the insurgents were in a 
fortified camp at Big Bethel, a few miles up the peninsula, resolved to dislodge 
them, for the two-fold purpose of making Fortress jNIonroe more secure, and 
for carrying out a plan he had conceived of seizing the railway between Suflblk 
and Petersburg, and, menaemg the Weldon roail which connected Virginia 
with the Carolinas, draw Confederate troops back from the vicinity of Wash- 
ington. He sent a force under General E. W. Pearce for the j^urpose, one 
column moving from Fortress Monroe, and the other from Xewport-Newce, on 
the James River. Meeting in the gloom before dawn, they fired upon each 
other, alarmed the Confederate outposts, and caused a concentration of all 
the insurgent forces at Big Bethel. There a conflict occurred [June 10, 1801], 
in which Lieutenant J. T. Greble, a gallant young artillery officer, was killed. 
He was the first officer of the regular army who perished in the Civil War. 
The expedition was unsuccessful, and returned to Fortress Monroe. 

The misfortune at Bethel was atoned for the next day [June 11], when Col- 
onel (afterward Major-General) Lewis Wallace, with a ft:\v Indiana troops, dis- 
persed five hundred Confederates at Komncy, in Hampshire County, Virginia. 
It was a most gallant feat. Its boldness and success so alarmed the insurgents 
at Harper's Ferry, that they fled to Winchester [June 15], eighteen mik^s up 
the Slienandoah Valley, and there, under the direction of their accoini>lislied 
commander, Joseph E. Johnston,' they made preparations tor resisting the 
threatened invasion of that region. The evacuation of Harper's Ferry was 
followed by its speedy occupation by National troops. On the day af\er 



' "Mr. Lincoln," said Magruder to the President, at the middle of April, "every one else 
may desert you, but / never will." The President thanked him. Two days afterward, haviof^ 
done all in his power to corrupt the troops in Washington, he fled and joined the insurgents. — See 
Greeley's Ameriean Conflict, i. 506. 

■■■ Johnston was a veteran soldier, and had heen a meritorious officer in the National army. He 
had taksn command of the Confederates at or near the conllucnco of the Potomac and Shenan- 
doah Rivers, late in May, and had about 12,000 men luider his command. 



1861.] LINCOLN'S ADMINISTRATION. 5(33 

Johnston's flight, General Robert Patterson threw 9,000 men, from the Penn- 
sylvania militia, across the Potomac at Williarasport, but was compelled to 
recall them in consequence of a requisition from the General-in-Chief to send 
his most efficient troops to Washington, then in peril. On the 2d of July 
Patterson crossed with about 11,000 troops, and took ])ost at Martinsburg. 
His advance, under General Abercrombie, met, fought, and conquered at Falling 
Waters a considerable force under the afterward famous " Stonewall " Jackson. 

In the mean time stirring events were occurring in Western Yii-ginia. For 
a time it seemed as if Wallace, near Cumberland, must be cut off, and the Bal- 
timore and Ohio Railway pass into the possession of the insurgents. But that 
vigilant officer gallantly maintained his position against great odds, while 
General McClellan, advancing southward from Grafton, was striking the Con- 
federates in the Tygart River region severe blows. Porterfield had' been suc- 
ceeded by General Garnett, whose head-quarters were at Beverly, in Randolph 
County ; and the notorious Henry A. Wise,'^ bearing the commission of a 
Brigadier-Genei-al, was with a force in the Valley of the Great Kanawha 
River, where he was confronted by General J. D. Cox. 

McClellan's entire command was composed of about 20,000 troops. A 
portion of these, under General W. S. Rosecraus, foilght and conquered a force 
under Colonel Pegram on Rich Mountain, not far from Beverly, on the 11th 
of July. This alarmed Garnett, who, witli a portion of his force, fled into tlie 
wild mountain region of the Cheat River, pui-sued by General T. A. Morris, of 
McClellan's command. Morris overtook Garnett at Carricksford, on a triliu- 
tary of the Clieat River, where a sharp conflict ensued. Garnett was killed 
and his troops were dispersed. Another portion of his followers, who fled from 
Beverly toward Staunton, had been pursued to the summit of the Cheat Bloun- 
tain range, where an outpost was established under the care of an Indiana 
regiment. General Cox, in the mean time, had driven Wise out of the 
Kanawha Valley, and the war in Western Virginia seemed to be at an end. 
McClellan was called to the command of the Army of the Potomac [July 22], 
as the forces around Washington were designated, and his own troops were 
left in charge of General Rosecrans. 

While these events were occurring beyond the Blue Ridge and the Alle- 
ghany Mountains,' others of great moment were attracting public attention 
to the National capital and its vicinity. Toward the close of May, it was 
evident that the Confederates were preparing to plant batteries on Arlington 
Heights, which would command Washington City. Robert E. Lee, of Arling- 
ton House,* an accomplished engineer officer in the army, had lately resigned, 
and had joined the insurgents under circumstances peculiarly painful.' He 

' Page 562. ' Page 539. 

' These are nearly parallel ranges of mountains which divide Virginia between the Ohio and 
ilie Atlantic slopes. 

' This was for more than fifty years the residence of the late George Washington Parke 
tlustis [see note 1, page 532], who was the fatlier-in-law of Colonel Lee. It overloolced the 
Potomac, Washington City, and Georgetown, and batteries on tlie range of hills on which it stood, 
called Arhngton Heights, would command the National capital completely. 

' Lee was then a Ueutenant-colonel in the cavalry service, stationed in Texas, and, after the 



564 



THli; NATION. 



[1861. 



was now rliicf of tlie Virginia forces, knew the value of batteries on Arling- 
ton Heights, and had, it is believed, been there with engineers from llich- 

mond. To ])revent that perilou.s move- 
ment, troops were sent over from 
Washington City [May 24, 1861] to 
take possession of Arlington Heights 
and tlic city of Ale.vandria, on the river 
below. The troops for the occupation 
of the Heights crossed the bridges 
from Washington and Georgetown, 
while those sent from Alexandria went 
by water. The New York Fire Zouaves' 
were the first to enter Alexandria, 
where their gallant young commander, 
Colonel Ellsworth, was sjieedily killed." 
At the same time, fortifications were 
commenced on Arlington Heights, where 
Fort Corcoran was sjieedily built by 
an Irish regiment [Sixty-ninth], and named in honor of their commander, 
Colonel Corcoran. This and Fort Runyon, near the Long Bridge, built by 
New Jersey troops, wei-e the first regular works erected by the Nationals at 
the beginning of the Civil War, and the first over wliich the flag of the Re- 
])ublic was unfurled. A few days later a flotilla of armed vessels, under 
Captain Ward, after encountering a battery erected by the insurgents on 
Sewell's Point, not far from Norfolk, moved up the Potomac, and at Aquia 
Creek, sixty miles below Washington, had a sharp but unsuccessful engage- 
ment [May 31 and June 1] with Confederate batteries constructed there. 




ROIiER'r E. LEE. 



election of Mr. Lincoln, he was permitted to leave his regiment and return home, when ho was 
cordially greeted by Oeneral Scott, who loved him as a son. and gave him liis entire confidence. 
In tliis relation Lee remained, making himself conversant with all the plans and resources of tlie 
government for the suppression of the rebellion, and at the same time keeping up a continual 
communication with its enemies, until more than a week after the attack on Fort Sumter, and 
six days after the Secessionists at Richmond had promised him the position of commander-in-chief 
of ttie Virginia forces. Then [April 20] he resigned his command, hastened to Riclmiond with 
his important knowledge of atl'airs at the National capital, joined the Secessionists against his 
government, and speedily rose to the position of general-in-chief of the Confederate army. 

' Tliese composed a regiment under tlie conmiand of Colonel E. K. Ellsworth, who were imi- 
formed in the picturesq\ie costume of a French corps, first organized in Algiers, and bearing the 
name of Zouave. These were famous in the war on the Crimea [page 526], and their drill, 
adopted by Ellsworth, was e.\ceedingly active. The first Zouave organization in this coimtry was 
that of a company at Crawfordsville, Indiana, under Captain (afterwards Major-General) Lewis 
Wallace, in 1860. A few weeks later, Captain Ellsworth organized a company at Chicago. 
There were many Zouave regiments at the beginning of the war, but the gay colors of their cos- 
tume made them too conspicuous, and that uniform soon fell into disuse. See next page. 

' Ellsworth's death, and the circumstances attending it, ]>rodnced a profound impression. Over 
an inn in Akwandria, called the Marshall House, tlie Confederate H:ig [page 55,")) liad been fi.ving 
for several days, and, immediately alter landing at tlie city, Ellsworth proceeded to remove it. 
He went to the roof, took it down, and, while descending a (light of stairs, the proprietor of the 
inn, waiting for him in a dark passage, shot him dead. The murderer was instantly killed by one 
of Ellsworth's companions. On the day previous to the invasion of Virginia [May 23], 'William 
McSpeddon, of New York City, and Samuel Smith, of Qneen's County, New York, went over from 
'Washington and captured a Coufederato Hag. This was the first flaij takenfrom the insurgents. 



18G1.] 



LINCOLN'S ADMINISTRATION. 



565 



About a month later [June 27] Captain Wanl attacked the Confederates at 
Matthias Point, farther down the Potomac, where his force was repulsed and 
he was killed. At this place, and in its vicinity, the Confederates established 
batteries that defied the National vessels, and for many months that river, a 
great highway for supplies for the Army of the 
Potomac, was effectually blockaded by them. 

While these stirring events were occurring east- 
ward of the Alleghanies, others equally important 
were observed in the ^Mississippi valley. In May 
and June, 1861, Civil War was kindling furiously 
wherever the slave-system prevailed, for it was 
waged in the interest of that institution. In the 
border Slave-labor States of Kentucky and Mis- 
souri, the contest began early. The governor of 
each (Beriah MagofRn,of Kentucky, and Claiborne 
F. Jackson, of Missouri) was in complicity with 
the Secessionists; and in Kentucky, Simon B. Buck- 
ner, a captain of the National army, who had been 
placed at tlie head of a military organization 
known as the Kentucky State Guard, was em- 
ployed by them, through its potential means, 
for corrupting the patriotism of the young men 
of that commonwealth. Ilis work was facilitated 

by the leading politicians of that State, who claimed to be Union men, but 
wlio, at the outset, resolved to withhold all aid to their government in sup- 
pressing the rising rebellion.' They succeeded in placing their State in a 
position of neutrality in the conflict, and the consequence was that it suffered 
terribly from the ravages of war, which might have been averted liad the great 
majority of the citizens, who were loyal, been allowed to act in accordance with 
their feelings and judgments. 

In Missouri the loyalists were the majority, but the disloyal governor and 
leading politicians, in their endeavors to unite its destinies with the slave- 
holders' Confederation, caused that State, too, to be desolated by war. So 
early as at the close of February [ISGl], a State convention was held at the 
capital, in which not an openly avowed disunionist appeared. It reassembled 
at St. Louis [March 4], when Sterling Price, a secret enemy to the government, 
but pretending to be its friend, presided. The loyal men gave a \oya.\ tone to 
the proceedings, and the Governor, despairing of using that body for his trea- 




ELLSWORTH ZOUAVE. 



' The Louisville Journal, tlie organ of the so-called Unionists of Kentucky, said of the Presi- 
dent's proclamation calling for troops to put down rebellion: "We are struck with mingled 
amazement and indignation. The policy announced in the proclamaliou deserves the unqualified 
condemnation of ever)' American citizen. It is imworthy, not merely of a statesman, but of a 
man. It is a policy utterly harebramed and ruinous. If Mr. Lincoln contemplated this 
policy in his inaugural address, he is a guilty dissembler; if he conceived it under the excite- 
ment aroused by the seizure of Fort Sumter, he is a guilty Hotspur. In either case he is 
miser.ibly unfit for the exalted position in which tlie enemies of tlie country have placed him. 
Let the people instantly take him and his administration into their own hands if they would 
rescue the land from bloodshed, and the Union from sudden and irretrievable destruction." 



560 



TIIK NAT lux. 



[1861. 




ARSENAI, AT ST. LOUTS. 



Bouablf jnirposi's, tiinrod to tlic more disloyal Legislature for aid. The latter 
yielded to his wishes, and, under the inspiration of Daniel M. Frost, a native 
of New York, and a gi-.iduate of the ^Military Academy at West Point, they 
made arrangements for enrolling tlie militia of the State, and placing in the 
liands of the governor a strong military force, to be used against the power 
of the National government. Arrangements were also made for seizing the 

National Arsenal at St. 
Louis, and holding pos- 
session of that chief city 
of the Mississippi valley. 
For this ))urpose, and 
with the pretext of dis- 
ciplining the militia of 
that district, Frost, com- 
missioned a brigadier- 
general by the Gover- 
nor, formed a camp neai" 
the city. But the ])lan was frustrated T)y the vigilant loyalists of St. Louis 
and Captain Nathaniel Lyon, commanding the military post there. When it 
became evident that Frost was about to seize the arsenal, Lyon, with a large 
number of volunteers, surrounded the rebel's camp, and made him and his 
followers prisoners. 

The government anil the authorities of Missouri now took open issue. Sat- 
isfied that the Secessionists had ri'solved to secure to their interest that State 
and Kentuckv, the National authorities took ])ossession of ami fortified Cairo, 
at the junction of the Oh'o and Mississippi rivers, and of Bird's Point, a low 
blutf opjiositc, on the Missouri side of the " Father of Waters." It was a 
timely movement, for Governor Jackson 
speedily called [June 12, 1861] into the 
service of the State of Missouri fifty thou- 
sand of the militia, "for the purpose of 
repelling invasion," et cetera, and at Jetfer- 
son City, the capital of the common- 
wealth, he raised the standard of revolt, 
with Sterling Price' as military commander. 
At the same time the authorities of Tennes- 
see, who, led by the disloyal Governor, 
Ishani G. Harris, had jilaced that State in 
a militarv relation to the Confederacy simi- 
lar to that of Virginia,' were working in 
^liaiiiiony with .Tackson, their troops being 
under the eonunand of General (iideon J. 

Pillow. That officer was making earnest efforts for the seizure of Cairo, when, 
early in July, Leonidas Polk, Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church of 




STERLIKU PRICE. 



' Page 5G5. 



' Page 556 



ISGl.] LINCOLN'S ADMINISTRATION. QQ>J 

the Diocese of Louisiana, aud a graduate of West Point Academy, succeeded 
him in command. Meanwhile, Lyon, who had been pi'omoted to Major-General, 
and placed in command of the Department of Missouri, moved a strong force 
against the insurgents at the State capital. With 2,000 men he went up the 
Missouri River in two steamers. When he approached Jefferson City the 
insurgents fled. He hotly jiursued, and overtook, fought, and dispersed them 
near Booneville. The vanquished Missourians again fled, and halted not until 
they had reached the southwestern borders of the State. Lyon now held 
military control of the most important portions of it.' 

There was now great commotion all over tlie land. War had begun in 
earnest. Confederate pirate-ships were depredating upon the ocean. The 
fife and drum were heard in c\cry hamlet, village, and city, from the St. 
Croix to the Rio Grande. Compromises and concessions seemed no longer 
possible. The soothing lull.iby of the last "Peace Convention'" was lost in 
the din of warlike preparations, and it was evident that the great question 
before the people, whether the retrogressive influence of slave institutions or 
the pi-ogressive civilization of free institutions should prevail in the Republic, 
-could only be settled by the arbitrament of the sword, to which the friends of 
the former and the enemies of the Union had ajjpealed. A mighty army of 
defenders of the Republic was rapidly gathering and earnestly drilling at its 
capital, and was animated by an intense desire (shared by the loyal people) to 
go forward, disperse the army of the conspirators, and drive their chief and 
his counselors from Richmond, where, with great energy, they were devising 
and putting into execution plans for the overthrow of their government. The 
gratification of that desire was promised wlien, at the middle of July, the 
General-in-Chief gave orders for the movement of the army upon the foe at 
Manassas, then commanded by Beauregard.' 

Lieutenant-General Scott was too feeble to take command of the army in 
the fi^ld,'' and that duty was assigned to General Irwin McDowell, then at the 
head of the Department of Virginia. Already Ohio and South Carolina troops 



' He so held the whole region nortli of tlio Missouri River, and east of a line running south 
from Booneville on that stream to the Arkansas border, thus giving the government the control 
of the important points of St. Louis, Hannibal, St. Joseph, and Bird's Point, as bases of opera- 
tions, with railways and rivers for transportation. 

' The VirgiuiaSccessionistsrepeuted the triek of a "Peace Convention" [see page 549] on a 
more limited scale after they had dragged their State into the Confederation. They proposed a 
■convention of delegates from the border Slave-labor States, to be held in Frankfort, Kentucky. 
The 27 th of May was appointed as the day for their assembling. There were present no dele- 
gates from Virginia, and only five beside those appointed in Kentucky. Those present professed 
to be eminently "neutral," and talked of "wrongs endured by the South," and the "sectional- 
ism of the North," and regarded the preservation and National protection of the slave-system as 
"essential to the best hopes of our country." The trick was too apparent to deceive anybody, 
and had no effect. It was the last "peace conference " of its kind. 

' Page 553. On taking command of that army, at the beginning of June, Beauregard, who 
was noted throughout the war for his official misrepresentations, ludicrous boastings, aud signal 
failures as a military leader, issued a proclamation so infamous and shameless, considering the 
■conduct of himself and his superiors at Kiclunoud, that honorable Confederate leaders like John- 
.-ston, Ewell, and Longstreet blushed for shame. 

* He was afflicted with dropsy and vertigo, and for four months previously he had not been 
■hie to mount a horse. 



568 



THE NATION. 



[18C1. 




WINFIELD SCOT!' IN ] 805." 



Ji:i(l iiU'asuro<l slioiigtli at Vienna, a few miles from Wasliington, in an 
encounter [June 17tli] conccruiug the possession of the railway between 

Alexandria and Leesburg ;' and now the 
National army was eager to repeat tho 
contest on a larger scale. The opportunity 
speedily offered. A little more than 
30,000 troops moved from Arlington 
Heights and vicinity' toward jManassas 
at the middle of July, and on the 18th 
a ])ortion of these, under General Tyler, 
had a severe battle at Blaekburn's Ford, on 
Bull's Run, not far from Centreville, in 
Fairfa.v County. The Nationals were re- 
pulsed and saddened, and the Confederates 
were highly elated. The loss of men 
was about equally divided between the 
combatants, being about sixty on each side. 

McDowell's plan was to turn tho right flank of the Confederates, and com- 
pel both Beauregard and Johnston to fall back ; and Tyler's movement near 
Blackburn's Ford was intended as a feint, but ended in a battle. The result 
of that engagement, and his observations during a reconnoissance on the fol- 
lowing day [July 20], satisfied McDowell that his plan was not feasible. lie 
therefore resolved to make a direct attack on the foe. It was important that 
it should be done si)eedily, because the terms of enlistment of his " three 
iiumtlis mill'" were about to expire, and Patterson, yet at Martinsburg, was 
in a ])osition to give him instant assistance, if necessary. The latter liad been 
ordered to so menace Johnston as to keep him at Winchester and prevent his 
re-enforcnig Beauregard, or to go to the support of McDowell, if necessary. 
Such being the situation, the commander of the Nationals felt confident of 
success, and at two o'clock on Sunday morning, tlie 21st of July [It^dl], he set 
his army in motion in three columns — one under General Tyk'r, marching to 
menace the Confederate left at the Stone Bridge over Bull's IJnn, on the AVar- 
renton road, while two others, under Generals Hunter and Ileint/.elman, taking- 
a wide circuit more to the left, were to cross the stream at difleront jioints, and 



' Tho National troops wero commanded by Colonel A. McD. McCook, who had been sent o\it 
to picket and guard the road. Tliey wero accompanied on this occasion by General Robert C. 
Schenck. The Confcderatea were in charjre of Colonel Ma.\cy Oregg, who had been a leading 
moniber of the So\Uh Carolina Secession Convention. 

' .\t this time the main body of McDowell's troops, .ibont 45,000 strong, occupied a line, with 
tho Potomac at its back, extending from Alexandria, nine miles below Washington, almost to the 
Chain Kridge, si.t miles above the capital. The remainder of tho National army, al)out 18,000 
strong, was at or near Martinsburg, luider General Patterson. Both armies wero linlile to n sud- 
den decrea.se, for tho terms of enlistment of tho "three months men" wero about oxpimig. 
Tho main Confederate army, under Heaurcgard, was at and near Maiuissas Junction, in a very 
Strong defensive position, about half way between tho more eastern range of tho Bhio Riilge and 
tho Potomac at Ale.\andria. Johnston's force at Winchester was larger than Patlerson'.s, and 
was in a position to rc-enforco Heaurcgard without much difficulty. Uo made his position qtut» 
■trong, by casting uj) earthworks for defense. 

• See page 485. * Page D51. 



I8G1.] 



LINCOLN'S ALiMINISTRATIOK. 



5G9 



make the real attack on Beauregard's left wing, menaced by Tyler. At the same 
time troops under Colonels Richardson and Davies were to march from near 
Centreville, and threaten the Confederate right.' Tliese movements were duly 
executed, but with some mischievous delay, and it was well toward noon 
before the battle was 
fairly begun. 

Beauregard had 
planned an attack on 
McDowell at Centre- 
ville, the same morn- 
ing. The authori- 
ties at Richmond, 
informed of the lat- 
ter's movements, had 
ordered Johnstoii to 
hasten to the aid of 
Beauregard, who was 
now compelled to act 
on the defensive. Af- 
ter several hours' 
hard fighting, with 
varying fortunes on 
both sides, and the 
mutual losses dread- 
ful, the Nationals, 
with superior numbers, were on the point of gaining a complete victory, when 
from the Shenandoali Valley came six thousand of Jolmston's fresh troops, and 
turned the tide of battle. Jolinston had managed to elude Patterson, and had 
hastened to Manassas, followed by his troops, and there, as senior in rank, he 
took the chief command. Patterson, awaiting promised information and 
orders from the General-in-Chief (which he did not receive), failed to re-enforce 
McDowell, and when, at about three o'clock in the afternoon, Johnston's troops^ 
swelled tlie ranks of Beauregard to a volume greater than those of his foes, 
the Nationals were thrown back in confusion, and fled in disastrous rout 
toward Washington City." Jefferson Davis had just arrived on the battle- 
field when the flight began. He sent an exultant shout by telegraph to his 




EUINS OF THE STONE BRn)GE. 



' The Confederate army lay along a line nearly parallel to the general course of Bull's Run, 
from Union Mills, where the Orange and Alexandria railway crosses that stream, to the passage 
of the Warrenton turnpike, at the Stone Bridge several miles above. 

^ A large number of civilians saw the smoke of battle from Centreville and its vicinity. Sev- 
eral members of Congress, and many others, went out from Washington to see the light, as they 
would a holiday spectacle, not doubting the success of the National troops. These were seen flying 
back in the greatest terror, wdiile Congressman Alfred Ely, and one or two other civilians, were 
captured, and held as prisoners in Richmond for several months. Among the fugitives was W. 
H. Russell, correspondent of the London Times, who, notwithstanding he had not seen the battle, 
wrote an account of it the same night, while in an unfit condition, as he acknowledged, to write- 
any thing truthfully. It was very disparaging to the Nationals, and tilled the enemies of the 
RopubUo in Europe with joy, because of the assurance it gave of the success of the Jisunionists. 



570 THK NATION. [1861 

fellow-Secessionists at Richmoml,' ami the wliolo Conll'denicy speedily rang 
■with its echoes; while the remnant of (he vamiuislicd aiiiiy hastened back in 
fragments to the defenses of "WashinLrton, and the jiloom of deepest despond- 
ency ovevsliadowed the loyal heart of the nation lor a moment. "While one 
stotion of the liejuililic was resonant w illi sounds of exultation, the other was 
silent and east down for a moment. 

The extraordinary session of Congress' had not yet closed, \vhen the disas- 
ter at Bull's Run occurred. That event did not disturb the composure or the 
faith of that body. Friends of the Confederates who yet lingered in the 
National Legislature were using every means in their power to thwart h'gisla- 
tion that looked to the crushing of the rebellion f but the patriotic majority 
went steadily forward in their eflbi-ts to save the Republic. When tlic battle 
■occurred, they had under consideration a declaratory resolution concerning the 
object of the war on- the part of the government, and wliilo the capital was 
filled with fugitives from the shattered National army, and it was believed by 
many that the seat of government was at the mercy of its enemies, Congress 
deliberated as calmly as if assured of perfect safety, adopted the Declaratory 
Resolution,'' and nnide thorough provisions for prosecuting the war vigorously. 
The same faith and patriotic action were soon visible among the loyal people. 
Their despondency was monu'ntary. Almost immediately they recovered from 
the stuiniing blow to their hojics and desires. They awakened from the 
delusive and dangerous dream that their armies were absolutely invincible. 
There was at once another wonderful iiprising of the I'nionists, and while the 
Confederates were wasting golden moments of o]ij)ortunity in celebrating their 
victory, thousands of young men were seen flocking toward the National capi- 
tal to join the great Army of Defense. Witliin a fortnight af^er the battle 
just recorded, when the terms of service of the "three months men " had 



' From M.nnass.is .Tunction ho telegraphed, saying: — "Night has olo.ocd upon a hard-foiight 
field. Our forces were victorious. The enemy was routed, and ffed precipitately, abandoning a 
largo amount of arms, ammunition, knapsack.f, and baggage. Tlie ground was strewn for miles 
■with tlioso killed, and tlie farm-houses and the grounds around were filled witli the wounded." 
"Our force," ho said, " w-ns 15,000 ; that of the enemy estimated at Sli.OOii." This was not only 
an exaggeration, but a misrepresentation. From the most relialile aiuhorities on botli sines, it 
appears that, in the tinnl struggle, tlie Nationals had aliont Kt,000 men, and the Confederates 
«lx)nt 27,000. Tlie latter Iiad been receiving re-ciil'orccmeuts all din', wliile not a man crossed 
Bull's Kun after twelve o'clock at noon to re-enforce the Nationals. 

" Pago 5(i0. 

' Pago 5-19. Slidell, Yulec, and other Senators, remained for some time, for the avowed pur- 
pose of preventing legislation that might strengthen the liands of the government 

* J. J. Crittenden ofl'ered the following joint resolution : — " That the present deplorable Civil 
"War has been forced ujion the country by the disunionists of the Southern States now in revolt 
against the constitutional government, and in anus around the capital; that in this National 
emergency (^ongress, banishing all feeling of mere passion or resentment, will recollect only its 
<iuty to its country; that this war is not waged on our part in any spirit of oppression, not for 
any purpose of conquest or subjugatiim, nor purpose of overthrowing or interfering with the 
jrighl.s or established usages of those St.ites; but to defend and maintain the supremacy of the 
Constitution, and to preserve the Union, with all tho dignity, equality, and rights of the several 
States uiiinipaired; and as .soon as these objects are accomplished, tho war ought to cea.se." 

Tliis resolulion was adopted by an almost unanimous vote in both Houses of Congress. It 
ularmed the disunionists, for it positively denied these false allegations with which they had 
deceived the people. They were so fearful that their dupes might see it and abandon their bad 
cause, that no newspaper in tho ConfederucT, it is said, was allowed to publish tho fact. 



1861.] LINCOLN'S ADMINISTRATION. 57^ 

expired, more than an equal number of volunteers were in the camp or in the 
field, engaged for "three years or the war." Nine-tenths of the non-com- 
batants shared in the faith and fervor of those who took up arms, and the 
people of the Free-labor States presented a spectacle difficult to comprehend. 
That terrible crisis in the life of the nation was promptly met, and tlie salva- 
tion of the Republic was assured. At the same time that " United South " 
against the government, which the Secessionists had loudly proclaimed months 
before, now became a reality. The prestige of victory, the pressure of a ter- 
rible despotism, and the menaces of banishment and confiscation acts, passed 
by the Confederate " Congress," together with the prospect of the establish- 
ment of a new nation, suddenly carved by the sword out of the Kepublie, with 
whose fortunes it seemed their duty and interest to link themselves, so affected 
the great body of the Unionists at the South, tliat they yielded to necessity, 
and the voice of opposition was speedily hushed into silence.' 

On the day after the Battle of Bull's Run [July 22, 1861], General McClel- 
lan, whose troops had been successful in Western Virginia,'' was called to the 
command of the army at Wasliington. lie at once set about the reorganiza- 
tion of that broken force with skill and industry. It was perfected by the 
middle of October, when seventy-five thousand well-armed' and fairly disci- 
plined troops were in a condition to be placed in active service in the field. 
McClellan's moral power was then tremendous. He had the confidence of the 
army and the whole country, and he was called a " Young Napoleon." And 
wlien, on the 1st of November, General Scott resigned his position, and on his 
recommendation his place as General-iu-Chief was filled by the appointment 
•of McClellan,^ that act was hailed as a promise of a speedy termination of the 
rebellion, for he had said that the war should be " short, sharp, and decisive." 
He spent the remainder of the autumn, and the whole winter, in making 
preparations for a campaign for the capture of Richmond ; and when, at the 
beginning of March, his force, which was called the Grand Aemy of the 
Potomac, was put in motion, it numbered 220,000 men.' In the mean time, 

' Tlie pressure brought to bear on the Union men was terrible, and the youth of that class 
were driven into the army by thousands, because of the social proscription to which they were 
subjected. The zeal of the women in the cause of rebellion was unboiuided, and their influence 
was extremely potential. Young men who hesitated when asked to enlist, or even waited to be 
asked, were shunned and sneered at by the young women ; and many were the articles of women's 
apparel which were sent, as significant gifts, to these laggards at liome. Men who still dared to 
stand arm in their true allegiance were denounced as "traitors to their country," and treated as 
sucli. 

'■' Page 563. 

= We have observed [page 549] that Secretary Floyd, in preparation for the rebellion, had 
stripped the arsenals and armories of the Free-labor States, and filled those of the Slave-labor 
States. It was necessary for the government to send to Europe for arms. For that purpose 
Colonel George L. Schuyler, of General Wool's staff, was dispatched [July, 1861], and he pur- 
chased 116,000 rifles, 10,000 revolvers, 10,000 cavalry carbines, and 21,000 sabers, at an 
aggregate cost of Uttle over $2,0"0,000. Impediments were at first cast in the way of his 
purchase of arms in England and France, the sympathy of those governments being with the 
conspirators. He purchased the greater portion of them "in Vienna and Dresden. 

* See General Orders, Xo. 94. November 1, 1801. 

' Of this number, about thirty thousand were sick or absent. Among the latter class were 
several hundred prisoners captured at Bull's Run and Ball's Bluft; on the Upper Potomac. The 
prison-life of captives among the Confederates was often very terrible. 



572 



THE NATION. 



[1861, 



the Confederate army, under Johuston, lying lietween Washington City and 
Riehniond, not more than 4i),000 strong at anytime, had remained undisturbed, 
and Washington City liad been made impregnable by the ereetion around it 
of no less than tifty-two forts and redoubts. 

While the i)roeess of reorganizing the Army of the I'otomac was going on, 
the war was making rapid progress west of the Alleghanies, and especially in 
Missouri. We left General Lyon, victorious, at Booneville," and tlie fugitive 




insurgents, under 
Price and Jack- 
son, in the south- 
western part of the State. 
While Lyon was j)ursu- 
ing the main body of 
the insurgents, another 
Union force, under Colo- 
nel Franz Sigel, an ac- 
complislied German sol- 
dier, was pushing for- 
ward from St. Louis, 
by way of Holla. Wlun lie heard of tlie flight of tlu' insurgents toward 
the borders of Arkansas, he pressed on in th.at direction, j)assing tlirough 
Springlield and Sareoxie, ami near Carthage he fell in with the main 
body of the Confederates, nuuli snjterior to him in numbers, and espe- 
cially in liorsemen. Sigel had more cannon than his foe, but, in a sharp 
engagement that ensued [July .5, ISOl], the overwhelming force of the insur- 
gents pushed him back, and he retreated in good order to Springfield. To 



FORTinOATIOJfS IN AND AROUND WASUINQTON CITY. 



■ Page 667. 



13G1.] LINCOLN'S ADMINISTRATION. 5^3 

that point Lyon hastened when he heard of the apparent peril that threatened 
Siffel, and on the 13th he took command of the united forces. Meanwhile the 
insurgent Missourians liad been largely re-enforced by troops from Texas and 
Arkansas, and at the close of July the combined force, about 20,000 strong (a 
large proportion cavalry), under Generals Price, Ben McCuUoch, I'earce, Rains, 
and McBride, were marching on Springfield. Lyou'a force did not exceed 
6,000 men (400 cavalry) and eighteen cannon. 

Feeble as he was, Lyon went out to meet the advancing foe. Li a beauti- 
ful valley, at a place called Dug Springs, nineteen miles from Springfield, he 
met, fought, and vanquished his enemies, under INIcCuUoch and Rains. So 
desperate were the charges of a few of Lyon's cavalry, under Stanley, that 
Confederate prisoners inquired : " Are they men or devils ?" Lyon returned 
to Springfield [August 4], and a few days later [August 9] the Confederate 
army, under the general command of McCulloch, wearied and halfstarved, 
encamped at Wilson's Creek, about ten miles south of the town. Lyon again 
went out to meet them, marching his little force in two columns, before dawn 
the next morning [August 10]; one led by himself, to attack their front, and 
the other by Sigel, to fall upon their rear. A battle opened at an early hour. 
The brunt of it fell upon Lyon's column, for Sigel's, deceived by a trick,' was 
€arly dispersed or captured. Lyon's troops, inspired by their leader, fought 
great odds with vigor and gallantry. The commander was everywhere seen, 
encouraging his men, until at about nine o'clock in the morning he fell mor- 
tally wounded, and was suceeoded in command by Major Sturgis. The battle 
ceased at eleven o'clock, when the Nationals were victorious. It was not safe 
for them to remain on the field of victory, nor to risk another encounter, so, on 
the following morning [July 11], the whole Union force, led by Sigel, retreated 
in good order toward Rolla, safely conducting to that place a government 
train valued at a million and a half dollars. 

The loyal civil authorities of Missouri were now striving against powerful 
influences to keep the State from the vortex of secession. The popular conven- 
tion," which reassembled at Jefferson City on the 22d of July, declared the 
government of which the traitor Jackson was the head to be illegal, and 
organized a provisional government for service until a permanent one should 
be formed by the people. Meanwhile, Reynolds, Jackson's lieutenant-governor, 
issued a proclamation at jSTew j\[adrid, as acting chief magistr.ate, in which he 
declared the State to be separated from the Union, and that, by "invitation of 
Governor Jackson," General Pillow had entered Missouri at the head of Ten- 
nessee troops, to act in conjunction with M. Jeff. Thompson, a native leader, 
in upholding the secession movement. Jackson was then in Richmond, nego- 

' Sigel's force was composed of twelve luindred men and six guns. He marched so stealthily 
that the first intimation the Confederates had of his presence was the bursting of the shells 
from his guns over Rains's camp. The Confederates fled, and Sigel took possession of their 
position, when it was reported that some of Lyon's column were approaching. When these, 
dressed like Sigel's men (they were Confederates in disguise), were within less than musket-shot 
distance of the latter, they opened a destructive tire upon the Unionists with cannon and small 
arms, spreading consternation in his ranks. He lost all but about three hundred men and one 
tield-piece. ' Page 565. 



574 TIIK NATION, [1«0I- 

tialiiig with tlio "government " for the annexation of Missouri to the Con- 
federacy ; and tlio vain anil shallow Pillow' assumed the pompous title of 
"Lifieralor of Missouri," dni'iDg his orders and dispatches, " llead-Quartcrs 
Army of Liberation." Although the conditions of annexation were not com- 
plied with, men claiming to rejirescnt Missouri performed the farce of occu- 
pying seats in the so-called "Congress" of the Confederates at Eiclimond 
during a greater portion of the war. 

At this critical juncture, John C. Fremont,' wlio had lately returned from 
Europe with some arms for his government, and bearing the commission of 
Majdr-General, was a]>])ointed to the command of the Western Department, 
with his liead-tpuirters at St. Louis, lie found every thing in confusion, and 
nuuli (liat was needed for the public service. He went vigorously at work in 
the important duty assigned him. He fortified St. Louis, and took measures 
for making the inij)ortant j)osts of Cairo and Bird's Point' absolutely secure, 
for tliese were menaced by Pillow and Ins associates. These measures alarmed 
the disloyal inhabitants and the invading troops, but when the retreat of th& 
Nationals from SpringlicKl and the deatli of Lyon' became known, the seces- 
sionists assumed a bold and deliant attitude. They gathered in aimed bands 
throughout the State. The civil authority was hel])less; so Fremont, seeing 
no other way to secure the suprennicy of the National government than by 
taking the whole power in his department into his own hands, declared mar- 
tial law [August 31, 18G1], and warned the disaifccted tliat it Avould be 
rigorously executed. lie acted ])romptly in accordance with his declaration, 
and the insurgents began to (puiil, when his vigor was cheeked by his govern- 
ment.' 

Soon after the battle at Wilson's Creek, Price was abandoned by McCul- 
loch, witli whom he could not agree, when he called upon the ISIissouri seces- 
sionists to till his ranks, and early in September he was moving with a con- 
siderable force northward toward the Missouri River, in the direction of 
Lexington, where nearly three thousand Xatioiial troo])s were collected, under 
Colonel J. A. Mulligan. Colonel JetlersonC. Davis was then at Jefferson City 
with a larger force, and General John Pope was hastening in the direction of 
Lexington from the region northward of the IMissouri, with about five thousand 
men. Price, aware of danger near, j)ressed forward and laid siege to Lexington 
on t h(> nth of September. iMulligan had cast up some intrenchments there, but 
his men had only about forty rounds of ammunition each, and his heavy arma- 
ment consisted of six small cannon and two luiwitzers — the latter useless, 
because he had no shells. Price had an overwhelming force, and opened fire 
on the 12th. Re-enforcements came to him, and the insurgents finally numbered 

' Pnpo 5G6. * PnfTP.s 488 mid 630. ' Phro 5G6. • ' Papc 573. 

" In Ills proclamation of inuitinl law, Fremont declared tliat whoever should be found guilty 
of tlicrcaltor (akiufr an nclivo part with the enemies of the government in the field, should suffer 
the penally of conliscation of their (iroperty to the public use, and have their slaves, if they pos- 
tiesseil any, made forever IVeemen. This raised a storm of indignation among the so-called 
Unionists of tlie Porder Slave-labor States, whose good-will the government was then trying to 
secure, and that efficient measure against the rebellion, which, two years later, the government 
itself used, Fremont was then forbidden to employ. 



1861.] LINCOLN'S ADMINISTRATION. 575, 

about twenty-fivo thoiisaiul men. Mulligan anJ his little hand made a gallant 
dc't'cnso until the morning <if tlie i'Oth [Septcmhcr, I8GI], when ho was coniju'lkMl 
to surrender.' He had held out with hopes of success, but when re-enforce- 
ments approached it was too late for theni to penetrate to liis lines. This 
disaster ^va9 severely felt, and ou the 2 7tli of September Fremont put in motion 
an army of more than twenty thousand men for the purpose of retrie\ ing it, 
and driving Price and his insurgents out of the State. 

While these events were occurring in tlie heart of Missouri, important ones 
were taking place in Kentucky. Go\ornor Magoffin' encouraged the seces- 
sionists as much as lie dared. lie allowed them to establish recruiting camps 
for the Confederate array ; and wlien the loyal Legislature of the State assem- 
bled [September 2] he and his political associates, fearing the adverse action 
of that body, looked with complacency upon the invasion of the State, and the 
seizure of the strong position of Columbus [September 6], on tlie IMississippi, 
by Confederate troops under Gcner.al (IJishop) Polk. In defiance of their 
avowed respect for the neutrality of Kentucky, the " government " at Richmond 
sanctioned the movement,' and thus opened the way for the horrors of Avar, 
which filled Kentucky with distress. Columbus was held by the Confederates. 
Tlie Legislature requested tlu; Governor to call out the militia of the State "to 
expel and drive out the invaders," and asked the General Government to aid in 
the work. The Governor resisted, but was compelled to yield. General An- 
derson,* in command there, at once prepared to act vigorously, and General 
Ulysses S. Grant, then in command in the district around Cairo, took military 
possession of Paducah, at the mouth of the Tennessee River. Thus ended the 
" neutrality " of Kentucky, wdiich proved so disastrous to that State. Too late 
to avoid the consequences of that folly, the State now took a positive stand for 
the Union, and avoided many evils. 

Feli-x: K. Zollicofter, formerly a member of Congress, invaded Kentucky 
from East Tennessee (where the Unionists were terribly persecuted)' on the 

' The private soldiers were paroled and the officers were lield as prisoners of war. Miillifcan 
lost 40 killed and 120 wounded. Price's loss was 25 killed aud 75 wounded. The spoils were (> 
cannon, 2 howitzers, 3,000 stand of small arms, 750 horses, a large quantity of equipatie, and 
commissary stores valued at $100,000. , ' Pago 665. 

' Some of the partisans of Davis, South and North, denied tliat he ever sanctioned this viola^ 
tion of tlie pledged faith of the Confederates to respect the neutrality of Kentucky. Tlio proof 
that he d*d so is undeniable. His so-called Secretary of War, as a cover to the iniquity, tele- 
gviiphed publicly to Pollc, directing him to withdraw his troops from Kentucky soil. At the same 
time, Davis himself, with supremo power, telegraphed privately to Polk, saying: "The necessity 
must justify the act." For the proof, see Lossing's Pictorial History of the Civil War, II. 75 

* Tlie defender of Fort Sumter [page 550] liad been promoted to brigadier, and was tlieu in 
command in Kentucky. 

° .Jeft'erson D.avis was quick to act upon the authority given him by the confiscation and ban- 
ishment acts of his " Congress." In districts such as East Tennessee, and other mountain regions, 
wliero the blight of slavery was httlo known, the people were generally loj'al to their govermuent. 
AVlicn the Confederates held sway in siicli districts, tlie keenest cruelties were practiced upon the 
Uninu inhabitants. East Tennesseaus were peculiar sufferers on tliat account tlirough a greater 
portion of tlio war. Loyalists were hunted, not only liy armed men, but by bloodhounds, with 
whicli fugitive slaves were pursued.* Tliey were taken to military camps, abused by mobs, 

* In the 3femp?iia Appeal appenred nn iidvertiseniL'nt, in the aiitnmn of ISCl, for " fifty wpll-bred '' iind " one- 
pair of thorouKlibred blnodhoiinds, that will lake the track of a man, Tlie jiiirpose," paid tiio advprti.^cmrnt, " for 
wliieli tliese dogs are wanted, is to cluisp tlio infernal, eowiirdly Lincoln bushwhackers JTTnionistsl of Ea.**! Ten- 
nessee and Kentucky to their haunts, and capture them." ThiA was fiigned by F. N. McNairy ana II. II. Il&rrU. 
Confederate officers iu cam]). 



570 



THE NATION 11861. 



<lav after Polk seized Columbus,' and Buckner, already mentioned as the cor- 
rupter of tlie patriotism of the young men of that State,' wlio had established 
a camp in Tennessee just below the Kentucky border, acting in co-operation 
with the two invaders, attempted to seize Louisville, but was foiled by the 
Yirfilanee of Anderson and the troops under him. Buekncr advanced as far as 
Elizabethtown, but was compelled to fall back to Bowling Green, on the N.ash- 
ville and Louisville railway, where he established an intrenched camp, and 
made it the nucleus of a powerful force gathered there soon afterw.ard. 

Let us turn aijain for a moment to the consideration of affairs in ]\Iissouri. 

We have observed that Fremont set a heavy force in motion to drive the 
■Confederates out of Missouri. He had formed a general plan for driving them 
out of the Mississippi Valley, and re-oponing the navigation of the great 
stream which the insurgents had obstructed by batteries.' It Avas to capture 
or disperse the forces under Price, and seize Little Rock, the capital of Arkansas, 
and so completely turn the position of the forces under Pillow and others, as 
to cut ofl' their supplies from that region and compel them to retreat, when a 
flotilla of gun-boats, then in preparation near St. Louis, could easily descend 
the river and assist in military operations against Memphis. If the latter 
should be successful, the army and navy might push on and take possession of 
New Orleans. Fremont accompanied his army in the initial movement of his 
plan, namely, ag.ainst Price, and on the llth of October, when well on his way 
toward Arkansas, his forces marching in five columns,* he wrote : — " My plan 
is New Orleans straight. I would precipitate the war forward, and end it 
soon and victoriously." But he w.as not allowed to carry out his plan, and at 
Springfield, where his body-guard, under Zagonyi, had made one of the most 
memorable charges on record upon the strong foe,' he was superseded in com- 
mand by General David Hunter, and the army, instead of going forward, 
marched sadly back toward St. Louis at the middle of November. Meanwhile 
detachments of Fremont's army, under various leaders, had been doing gallant 
service against bands of insurgents in various parts of Missouri, the most nota- 
ble of which were contests with M. Jeff. Thompson and his guerrillas, in the 
eastern part of the State, who were defeated and dispersed in October, chiefly 
by Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana troops. 

thrust into prisons, and some were hanged for no other crime than active loyalty to tUeir Rovem- 
raent. Among the most notable of these sufferers in East Tennessee was Rev. Dr. Brownlow, a 
leading citizen, who had been a pohtical editor at Knoxville for many years, was very influential 
as a citizen, and was feared and hated by the Confederates. His siifterings, and those of his 
fellow-patriots, form the s\ibject of a volume from his pen, of great interest. At the close of the 
■war he was elected Governor of the State (having been appointed Provisional Governor), and in 
1867 ho was re-eleoted by an immense majority of the legal voters of Tennessee. 

' Page 575. ' Page 565. 

' So early as the 12th of January, 18GI, three days after .i convention of politicians in Missis- 
aippi had declared that State severed from the Union. Governor Pettus directed a battery to be 
planted at Yicksburg, with orders to hail and examine every vessel that should attempt to pass. 
Other batteries -were soon planted there and upon otlicr bluffs in the river, and for more than two 
years the commerce of the Mississippi was suspended. 

' Commanded respectively by Generals David Hunter, John Pope. Franz Sigel, J. McKinstry, 
and A. Ashboth. 

' Zagonyi charged upon nearly two thotisand infantry and cavalry with one hundred and fifty 
of his men,"routed the foe, and came out of the conflict with eighty-four of his little band dead 
or wounded. 



1361.J 



LINCOLN'S ADMINISTRATION. 



577 



Before being deprived of his command, Fremont, in pui'suance of his plan, 
•directed General Grant to make a co-operative movement on the line of the 
Mississippi River. Grant determined to threaten Columbus' by attacking 
Belmont, on the Missouri shore opposite, to prevent Polk assisting Thompson. 
With about 3,000 troops (mostly Illinois volunteers, nnder General John A. Mc- 
Clernand), in transports, accompanied by the wooden gun-boats TtjUr and Lex- 
ington, he went down the Mississippi from Cairo, while another force was march- 
iiifr from Paducah" toward the rear of Columbus, under General Charles F. Smith, 
to divert Polk's attention from the river expedition. That expedition suddenly 
and unexpectedly appeared just above Columbus on the morning of the Vth 
of November, when the gun-boats opened 
fire on Polk's batteries. The troops were 
landed on tlie Missouri shore, three miles 
above Belmont, and immediately marched 
upon that place. Polk sent over troops 
under General Pillow to re-enforce the 
garrison there. A sharp engagement en- 
sued, and the Nationals were victorious, 
but the ground being commanded by the 
batteries on the blutfs at Columbus, it 
was untenable, and Grant withdrew. 
Polk determined not to allow him to 
escape. He opened upon the retiring 
troops some of his heaviest guns, sent 
Cheatham to re-enforce Pillow, and then 
led over two regiments himself to swell the ranks of the pursuers. Grant 
fought his way back to his transports after suffering severely,' and re-embarked 
under cover of the gun-boats and escaped. The battle was gallantly fought 
•on both sides, and many deeds of daring are recorded. 

ZoUicoffer's invasion* aroused the Unionists of Eastern Kentucky, and they 
flew to arms under various leaders. In a jncturesque region of the Cumber- 
laud Mountains, known as the Rock Castle Hills, they fought and repulsed 
him. Still farther eastward in Kentucky, loyalists under General AVilliam 
Nelson fought and dispersed a Confederate force under Colonel J. S. Williams, 
near Piketon. The latter fled to the mountains at Pound Gap, carrying away 
a large number of cattle. These successes inspired the East Tennessee loyal- 
ists with hopes of a speedy deliverance, but they were compelled to wait long 
for that consummation. The Confederates, toward the close of 1861, had 
obtained a firm foothold in Tennessee, and occupied a considerable portion of 
Southern Kentucky, from the mountains to the Mississippi River, along a line 
about four hundred miles in length. At the same time the Nationals were 
preparing to drive them southward. Let us now consider events in the 
vicinity and eastward of the Alleghany Mountains, and along the sea-coast. 




LEONIDAS POLK. 



Page 575. » Page 575. 

GraQt lost in killed, wounded, and missing, 485 men, and Polk 632. * Page 575. 

37 



578 '''"'■' N' AT KIN. [1861. 

Til the auliiiiiii of IsCil tlie Confederates strugglcHl severely for tlie posses- 
sion of Western Virginia. General Robert E. Lee had been sent to take com- 
mand of the troojis left by Garnett and Pegram in Xorthern Virginia.' He 
made his liead-quarters at Iluntersville, in Pocahontas County, and early in 
August [1801] ho found himself at the head of about 10,000 trooj)s. Floyd, 
the late Secretary of War,' had been commissioned a brigadier-general, and 
sent to the region of the Gauley River, with troops to re-enforce the incompe- 
tent Wise, and to take chief command. Floyd was expected to sweep down 
the Kanawha Valley, and drive General Cox across the Ohio, while Lee should 
scatter or capture the National forces under General Rosecrans in Northern 
Virginia, and open a way into Ohio, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. Prepara- 
tory to these decisive movements, Floyd took position between Cox and Rose- 
crans at Carnifex Ferry, on the Gauley River, a few miles from Summersville, 
the ca])ital of Nicholas County, leaving Wise to watch the region nearer the- 
junction of the (Jauley and New River, which form the ICiinawha. 

Rosecrans had organized an army of nearly 10,000 men at Clarksburg, on 
the Baltimore and Ohio railway, and early in September he marched south- 
ward to attack Floyd, wherever he might be, leaving a force under General J. 
J. Reynolds to confront Lee in the Cheat Mountain region. With great labor 
Rosecrans's troops climbed over the Gauley Mountains, and on the lOtli 
[Sept.], passing through Summersville, they fell upon the Confederates at Car- 
nifex Ferry. A severe battle for three or four liours ensued. It ceased at 
dusk. Rosecrans intended to renew it in the morning, but his foes fled under 
cover of the darkness, and did not halt until they reached the summit of Big- 
Sewell Mountain, thirty miles distant. 

The battle at Carnifex Ferry was soon followed by stirring movements 
between Reynolds and Lee. The former was holding the roads and passes of 
the more westerly ranges of the great Alleghany chain, from Webster, on the- 
Baltimore and Ohio railway, to the head-waters of the (Pauley, crossing the 
spurs of the Greenbrier Mountains. When Rosecrans moved against Floyd^ 
Reynolds was at the western foot of the mountains, not far from Iluttonsville. 
Lee was farther south. His scouts were everywhere active, and it was evi- 
dent, early in September, that he contemplated an attack either upon Reynold* 
or Rosecrans. Ho was watched with sleepless vigilance, and on the day after 
the battle at Carnifex Ferry it was j)ereeived that he was about to strike the 
Nationals at Elkwater and on the Summit,' for the purpose of securing the 
great Cheat Mountain Pass, th.rough which lay the road to Staunton, and so- 
obtain free communication with the Shenandoah Valley. His troops attacked 
the two jwsts just named [Sept. 12, 1801], and were repulsed. Lee then with- 
drew from the Cheat Mountain region and joined Floyd, between the Gauley 
and New River, where the combined forces under his command amounted 



' Page 563. ' Page 549. 

' Here, aa we have seen [page 563], General McClellan established a post, and left there aa 
Indiana regiment, under Colonel Kimljall. It -was an important point on the great highway from 
Huttonsviile, over the lofty ranges of mountains to Staunton. 



18G1.] LINCOLX'S ADMIXISTRATIOX. 579 

to about 20,000 men. There he was confronted by Rosecrans with about 
10,000 men, composed of the brigades of Cox, Benham, and Schenck. 

Lee, whose campaign had been thus far a faihire, was soon recalled and 
sent to Georgia. The excitable Wise was ordered to Richmond, and Floyd 
and Rosecrans again became competitors for victory. Floyd took post on the 
left or western bank of the New River late in October, from which he was 
driven [Xov. 12] by the forces imder Rosecrans, and pursued about fifty miles 
southward. There Floyd took leave of his army, and a few months later he 
was seen in a disgraceful position at Fort Donelson, in Tennessee. Meanwhile 
General Kelley, who had recovei'cd from his ^\•ounds,' was performing gallant 
service in defense of the line of the Baltimore and Ohio railway ; and on the 
26th of October he struck the insurgents a blow at Romney that paralyzed 
the rebellion in that region. General Robert II. ^Nlilroy, who had succeeded 
Reynolds, was also active in the Cheat Mountain region, with his liead- 
quarters, at first, at the Summit. In that vicinity he fought the Confederates 
under Colonel E. Johnston, of Georgia, and was repulsed. He was more suc- 
cessful in an expedition against the Confederates at Huntersville, Lee's old 
head-quarters.' He dispersed the insurgents there late in December, destroyed 
their stores, and released some Union prisoners. This event closed the cam- 
paign in Western Virginia in 1861. 

While the events we have just considered were occurring in Western 
Virginia and in the Mississippi Valley, others even more important in their 
relations to the great contest were occurring on the sea-coast. We have 
already considered some hostile movements in the vicinity of Fortress Monroe.' 
In Ham])ton Roads (the harbor in front of that fortress) and the then smoking 
ruins of Hamjiton Village,* a large land and naval armament was seen in 
August, 1861. It was designed for an expedition down the Atlantic coast, the 
land forces under General B. F. Butler^ and the naval forces tinder Commodore 
Silas H. Stringham. Its destination was Hatteras Inlet, eighteen miles from 
Cape Hatteras, where the Confederates bad erected two forts (Hatteras and 
Clarke) on the western end of Hatteras Island. The fleet, composed of trans- 
ports for the troops and war vessels, gathered off the Inlet toward the even- 
ing of the 27th of August, and on the following morning the navy opened fire 
on the forts and some of the land troops were put ashore. The assault was con- 
tinued at intervals by both arms of the service until the 29th, when the forts 
were formally surrendered to Stringham and Butler by S. Barron, who com- 

' Page 562. ' Page 578. ' Page 562. 

* After the battle at Big Bethel [page 562], General Butler abandoned the village uf Hamp- 
ton, which he had previously occupied, and confined his troops to Fortress Monroe and Newport- 
Newce. The whole country between Old Point Comfort, on wliich Fortress Monroe lies, and 
Yorkton'U, was thus left open to Confederate rule. Magruder, with about 5,000 men, moved 
down the peninsula and took post near the village of Hampton, for the purpose of closely invest- 
ing the Fortress. Skirmishes ensued at Hampton bridge, and on the night of the 7th of August, 
Magruder, while drunken with liquor, ordered the village to be burnt. The act was performed by 
A'irginians. So wanton was it that the venerable parisji church, standing out of danger from the 
flames of the town, was fired and destroyed. 

' General Butler was succeeded in the command at Fortress Monroe by the veteran General 
John E. Wool. 



580 



TIIK X.VTIOX. 



[ISfil. 




FORT IIATTERAS. 



maiulcil a little sijuiiilroii in Pamlico Sound, ami Colonel Martin and Major 
Anilrc'ws, in command of tlio Conl'cdcratc troops.' Tlic ])ost M'as then gar- 
risoned by a j)orlion of Colonel Hawkins's Xew York Zouave regiment, and 
the expedition retnrni'd to Hampton Roads. General Butler was then com- 
missioned to go to New 
lingland to "raise, arm, 
uniform, and equip a vol- 
unteer force for the war." 
It was done. Their im- 
me<liate services will be 
observed hereafter. 

Hawkins was re-en- 
forced in September by 
some Indiana troops, and 
early in October the lat- 
ter, then a i'vw miles up 
the Island, were attacked 
and driven back to the forts by some Confederates, who came over in steamers 
from TJoanoke Island. ]\Ieanwhile Hawkins had issued a conciliatorv address to 
the neighboring inhabitants of Xorth Carolina. A convention of loyal citizens 
was held [Oct. 12], who calle(l another, when a statement of grievances and a 
declaration of their independence of the Confederate government of North 
Carolina was adopted [.Vov. 18, 18(jlJ. Tliere was so mui'h promise of good 
in this movement, that the President ordered an election there for a member 
of Congress. One was chosen [Nov. 27], but this germ of active loyalty 
was soon crushed by the heel of Confederate jjower.'' But the sub.stanlial 
victory gained by the National forces was a severe blow to the cause of the 
disunionists, for it opened the way to most important results in favor of the 
National authorities, as we shall observe liereafter. 

During the summer of 1801, Fort Pickens and its vicinity were witnesses 
of stirring scenes. We have observed tliat the fort was saved from capture 
early in the year through the vigilance and bravery of Lieutenant Slemmer 
an<l his liltle garrison, and that it was rc-enforced.' The troo])s that first went 
to the relief of Slemmer [April 12, IStil] were marines from the government ves- 



' Barron was a naval ollicor who had abamioneii his (Ing ami joined tlio insnrpents. Tlio cap- 
tives received the treaUnent of prisoners of war. Tliej" were taken to New York, and afterward 
pxclianRod. Not one ot" tlie soldiers of the attacking fleet or army was injnred in the fray. The 
loss of the Confederates was twelve or fifteen killed and thirty-live wounded. 

" Thi.s movement was l)roii(;lit prominently licforu tlie citizens of New York by Rev. M. N. 
Taylor, one of the .signers of tlu^ Declaration of Indcpcmlence, at a mcetiiiK over which Mr. Ban- 
croft, the historian, presided. Taylor said that "some 4,0011 of the inhahitjints living on the 
narrow strip of land on the coast had. on the first arrival of the troops, (locked to take the oalh 
of allegiance, and this liad cut them olf from their scanty resources of tratfic with the interior. 
They were a poor race," ho said, '■ living principally by fishing and gathering of yoaknm, an 
evergreen of spontaneous growth, which they dried and exchanged for corn." The yoakum is a 
plant which is extensively used in that region as a snb.stitnte for tea. 

The appeal of Mr. Taylor iu behalf of these people was nobly responded toby gcaerous gifts 
•f money, food, and clothing. 

' See note 6, page 559. 



18G1.] 



LINCOLN'S ADMINISTRATION. 



581 



sels Sabine ami St. Louis, lying off the fort, and artillerymen under Captain 
Vogdes, from tlie Brooklyn.' They were there just in time to co-operate with 
a loyal man at the Navy Yard in saving the fort from capture.' The garrison 
was again re-enforced, a few days later, by several hundred troops under Colo- 
nel Harvey Brown, who took the command, and Slemmer was furloughed for 
rest. Still later, while Bragg was gathering a large force in the vicinity, more 
troops were sent to defend the post. These were the New York Sixth regi- 
ment (Zouaves), Colonel William Wilson, who were encamped [June] on 
Santa Rosa Island, on which Fort Pickens stands. Early in October the Con- 
federates on the main attempted to surprise and capture them. It was done 
in the dark, with the cry of " Death to Wilson ! No quarter !'" The assailed 




FORT PICKENS. 

Zouaves fought desperately iu the gloom, and with the aid of help from tlie 
fort, under Majors Vogdes and Arnold, tlie invaders, after burning Wilson's 
camp, were driven to their boats with a loss of one hundred and fifty men, 
including some who were drowned. The Nationals lost in killed, wounded, 
and prisoners, sixty-four men. 

' Lieutenant Worden, of the Navy, was sent by the government overland with a message to 
the commander of the fieet off Pensacola, directing tlie re-enforcement of Pickens. On his 
return he was treacherously used by Bragg, and s\ift'ered a long captivity, as a prisoner of war. 
in the jail at Montgomery. 

^ Tills was Richard Wilcox. The Confederates were in possession of the Navy Yard at War- 
rington, opposite Fort Pickens, where Wilcox, unsuspected of loyalty, was employed as a watch- 
man. Ho discovered that one of Slemraer's sergeants was in complicity with the Confederate 
commander iu a plan for capturing tlie fort. Wilcox found means to apprise Slemmer of the 
fact. It was to have been executed on the night after Worden's arrival. 

' It was the general impression that Wilson's Zoviaves were composed of New York " roughs," 
«nd the Southern people were taught to believe that they were sent for the purposes of plunder 
and rapine. 



582 



TIIK X AT I OX. 



[18G1. 



Fort Pkkoiis li;i<l ln'i'ii siloiit since the spriiig-tiiuo. Late in November its 
utterances wore lioanl for miles along the Gulf coast, mingled with the thun- 
der of cannon on war-vessels, co-operating in an attack upon the forts and 
batteries of the Confederates on the Florida main, tlu n mainu'cl by about seven 
thousand troops under IJragg. The fort, and the steamers Xi<i<j<ira and Rich- 
tiwtid, opened on the Confederate works on the morning of the 'J2d of Novem- 
ber. In the course of forty-eight hours, the heavy guns of the foe were 
silenced, and most of the Navy Yard, and the villages of Wolcott and "War- 
rington, adjoining, wvre laid in ashes by shells from the fort. After that there 
was quiet in Pensacola Bay until the first of January [18C2], when another 
artillery duel occurred, lasting about twelve hours, but with little efl'ect. 

Farther westward along the Gulf coast little sparks of war were seen at 
this time. The most notable of these was occasioned by a collision at the 
mouth of the Mississippi liiver [October 12], between the National blockading 
squadron, at the Southwest Pass, and a flotilla under Captain Ilollins, of Grey- 
town notoriety. ' l?y a telegrajiliic dispatch to the "government " at Richmond, 
that startled the wliole countiy, Ilollins claimed a great victory, when the fact 
was that the only damage he had inflicted on his foe was slight bruises on a 
coal-barge, while he was driven up the river to Fort Jackson in great terror, 



in command of 



I ram' called Matiossos, which promised to be formidable in 
competent hands, and this fiict hastened 
preparations lor sending an expedition 
to the Lower ]\Iississipi)i. 

There was another land and naval 
armament in Hampton lloads in October, 
more formidable and inij)osing than the 
one seen there in August.'' There were 
fifty war-vessels and transports, and on 
the latter were ]. 5,000 troops, under 
General T. W. Sherman. The fleet was 
commanded by Commodore S. F. Du- 
])ont, and all went to sea on a beautiful 
autumnal day (October 20, 1861), the 
flag-ship Wahash leading. Their des- 
tination w;is miknown to all but the 
chief commander, but each ship carried 




S. F. Dt'PONT. 



' Sec note 3, jiafre .^i'22. 

' The Ibllowin;; is a copy of tho dispatcli, dated at Fort Jackson, below Xcw Orleans, Octo- 
ber 12, KSGl: — "i.asl iii^lit l attacked the blockadcrs with my little licet. I succeeded, after a 
very short stni^'iile, in driving them all aitmimd on the Southwest Pass bar, except tho Preble, 
jVli'irh I sunk. I captured a prize from thom. and after they were fast in sand, I peppered them 
well. There were no ca.siialtics on our side. It wa.s a complete success. — UOLI.IN.S." This dis- 
patch and tho facta caused the silly Ilollins to be "peppered " well with ridicule. 

' A "ram" was an iron-clail vessel with a lonir, stronp, sharp-pointed iron beak extending 
from its bow, by which, when the >essel, impelled by steam, was in full motion, another might be 
pushed, penetrated, and sunk. These were very formidable weapons of war on the rivers. 

' See page 570. 



i3Cl. 



LINCOLN'S ADMINISTRATION. 



583 



healed orders, to be opened in tlie event of a dispersion. That contingency 
occurred. The expedition liad just passed Cape Ilatteras, when a terrible storm 
arose, and on the morning of the 2d of November only one of the other ves- 
sels might be seen from the deck of the flag-ship.' The scaled orders were 
cpcned. These directed a general rendezvous oiT Port Royal entrance, on 
file coast of South Carolina, and there all of the vessels, e.Ycepting four trans- 
ports, were gathered around their leader by the evening of the 4th. The four 
transports had been lost, but no life was sacrificed, in the great storm. 

Port Royal entrance is between Hilton Head and Phillip's Island, and on 
«acli was a fort that commanded the chamiel. In Port Royal Sound was a 
small flotilla under Commodore Tattnall, and this, with the land troojis who 
garrisoned the forts, comprised the obstacles to the entrance of the expedition. 
These were soon removed. On the morning of the 7th [Nov. 1861] every thing 
■was in readiness. Dupont's war-vessels moved in, and, making an elliptical 
course, poured upon the forts' a storm of shell that soon silenced them. Tatt- 
nall's little fleet fled to tlie shelter of narrower waters ; the land troops under 
<jrenerals Wright and Stevens went on shore and took possession, and the Con- 
federates abandoned the region and hastened to the main. The National forces 
took possession of lieaufort and llio surrounding islands which the white jjeo- 
ple had abandoned,' au<l the last eftort of tlie Confederates to defend them was 
at Port Royal Feny, where, after a severe engagement [January 1, 1862], 
they were defeated and dispersed. Du- 
]>out, meanwhile, had taken possession of 
Tybee Island, at the mouth of the Savan- 
nah River, without opposition ; and at 
the close of 1861 the National authority 
was supreme over the coast islands, from 
Wassaw Sound f<.> the North Edisto 
River, well up toward Charleston. At 
about the same time an ineifectual 
attempt was made to temporarily close 
the harbor of Charleston, as a part of the 
method of blockade, by sinking vessels 
laden with stones in its channels of ap- 




PORT ROYAL FERRY. 



' Tins storm gave great hope of disaster to the National cause, among the Confederates, to 
-whom the departure of tlie e.\pedition was known. They declared that the elements were assist- 
ing tliem. "The stars in their conrses fonght against Sisera," said a jubilant Richmond journal, 
and added, " So the winds of heaven figlit for the good cause of Southern Independence. Let 
tlie Deborahs of the South sing a song of deliverance." 

" The work on Hilton Head was named Port Walker, in honor of the Confederate " Secretary 
of War;" and that on Bay Point of Phillip's Island, Fort Beauregard, in lienor of an insurgent 
leader. 

' Tlie negroes, generally, remained, excepting those whose masters had compelled them to 
accompany tiiem in tlieir (light. Tliose who remained were soon organized into industrial com- 
munities, and a large quantity of the valuable '■ Sea-Island Cotton," which the owners liad not 
burnt on leaving, was secured. Tlie faith of the slaves in the National government, and their 
belief that tlie invaders were (Iieir friends, and were to be tlieir deliverers from bondage, were 
liere flrst exhibited in a remarkable degree. They liad been assured tliat the "Yankees," as all 
llie inliabitanls of tlio Pree-lalior States were called, were coming to steal them and S6ll them into 



584 '^^''' NATION. [1861- 

j)roach.' While tlic "stone fleet," as these vessels were called, was approach- 
ing, a fearful coiitlagration laid a large portion of the city of Charleston ia 
ruins. 

Let us now turn from the sea-coast, and ohserve the current of events at 
and near the National capital. 

The new organization of the Ailny of the Potomac, as we have observed,' 
was perfected at the middle of October. The Confederates, under Johnston, 
were yet lying in comj)arative inactivity near the field of their victory at 
Bull's Run, in July,' with the head-quarters of their leader at Centreville. 
Because of a lack of cavalry and adequate subsistence, Johnston had been 
compelled to lie idle, and see the army of his opponent grow immensely in the 
space of a few weeks. lie knew it would be simj)le rashness to do as the shal- 
low Beauregard desired, and attack the intrenched Nationals at Washington ; 
and because of the interference of Davis, as Confederate e.\perts say, he had 
not the means for executing his favorite scheme of crossing the Potomac into 
Maryland, and taking the National capital in reverse. So for several months 
these principal armies of the combatants lay within thirty miles of each other, 
without coming into a general collision. The ])eople on both sides became 
impatient of delay. In the hearts of the loyalists still burned the desire which 
had given to their lips the cry of " On to Richmond !" but the memory of the 
disasters at liulTs Run'' made them circumsjtect and quiet. From time to time 
they were cliecrt'd by rumors and movements which promised an innnediate 
advance. Then^ were grand reviews, active drills, and sometimes skii-mishes 
with the Confederates, whose audacity became amazing as the autumn 
advanced and the Nationals reniaincd (juiet. Their j)ickets approached within 
cannon-shot of Washington City, and for weeks they held Munson's Hill, 
where their flag might be seen from the dome of the Capitol. 

We have observed' that the Confederate batteries blockaded the Potomac. 
So early as June [1801] the Navy Department had called the attention of the 
military authorities to the possibility and danger of such an event, but noth- 
ing was done to prevent it until the close of September, when Confederate bat- 
teries were ])lanted along the Virginia shore of the stream. Preparations 
were then made by ]\IcClellan to act in conjunction with the gun-boats on the 
Potomac in removing these perilous obstructions, but his delays, and his fiiilure 
to co-oj)erate with the naval force at the proper moment, ])aralyzed all eflTorts, 
and that blockade, so disgraceful to the government, and especially to the 
great army near the capital, was continued until the Confederates voluntarily 
evacuated their position in front of Washington, in March following. 

worse bondage in Cnba; and liorriblo tales were told to them of the "Northerners," who were 
described us nionslers intent ii|>on killing them and bnrying them in the .sand. But tliat simple 
people did not believe a word of these tales. They universally believed tluit the Lord had sent 
the " Yankees " to take them out of bondage; and when our ships appeared, they were seen 
with little bundles of elothing on tlio shores, desiring to go on board. 

' The ".'Jtone fleet" was (•onipo.«<'d of twenty-live old vessels, chielly whalers, which sailed 
from New I'jigland heavily laden witli granite. These were sunken m the four clmuuels, but 
were soon removed by the currents or lost in quicksands, for their presence was scarcely percep- 
tible after a few days. 

" Pago 57 1. • Page 669. • Page 510. * Page 565. 



iSin.] LINCOLN'S ADMIXISTR.VTIOX 585 

The Army of the Potomac was judiciously posted foroifcnsive or defensive- 
measures from Budd's Ferry, on tlie Lower Potomac, to Poolesville, near tlifr 
Upper Potomac. As it increased in numbers, it needed more space on the Vir- 
ginia side of the river than the narrow strip between the Potomac and tlie 
Confederate outposts. Measures were accordingly taken for pushing back the 
foe, and these resulted in skirmishes. One occurred near Lewinsville [Sept. 12, 
1861] between the National troops, under General W. F. Smith, and Confede- 
rates, under Colonel J. E. B. Stuart, afterward the famous cavalry leader, in 
which the Nationals were victors. A little later [September 15] some Confed- 
erates crossed the Potomac and attacked troops under Colonel J. W. Geary, 
not far from Darnestown, in Maryland, and were repulsed. Emboldened by 
successes, the Nationals advanced, and at the middle of October they per- 
manently occupied a line from Fairfax Court House well up toward Lees- 
burg. The Confederates retired from ^Munson's Hill [Sept. 28] and other 
advanced posts,' and fell back to Centreville without firing a shot. 

Early in October some National troops crossed the Potomac at Harper's 
Ferry,^ to seize some wheat at mills near there belonging to the Confederates. 
Menaced by approaching foes, they called for help. Colonel Geary led six hun- 
dred men to their aid, and on the hills back of the village of Harper's Ferry,, 
he had a severe contest [Oct. 1(5, 1861] with a superior force on his front and 
the heights near. He finally repulsed his foe, and the whole invading force 
recrossed the river into Maryland. This movement was speedily followed by 
a more important one. For some time the left wing of the Confederate army 
under General Evans had been lying at Leesburg, confronted by a consideni- 
ble National force under General Charles P. Stone, encamj^ed between Conrad's 
and Edward's ferries, on the Upper I'otomac. On being informed (errone- 
ously) that the Confederates had left the vicinity of Leesburg, McClellan 
ordered General McCall to make a reconnoissance from Drainsville in that 
direction, and telegraphed to Stone to aid the movement by a feint indicative 
of an intention to cross with his whole force. This was done at both ferries, 
and a part of a Massachusetts regiment, under Colonel Devens, was ordered to 
Harrison's Island, in the Potomac, abreast of Ball's Bluff. A reserve of three 
thousand men, under Colonel E. D. Baker, a member of the National Senate, 
acting as brigadier, was held in readiness to cross promptly, if necessary. 

Misinformed concerning the position of the Confederates, and supposing 
McCall to be near to assist, if necessary. Stone ordered some Massachusetts 
troops, under Colonels Devens and Lee, to cross to the Virginia main from Har- 
rison's Island. They found no foe between Ball's Bluff and Leesburg. But 
Evans was near in strong force, watching them, and at little past noon [Oct. 

' For several weeks the Confeiloratc works on Munson's Hill liad been looked upon witli much 
respect, because of their apparently formidalile character. They were really sliglit earth- 
structures, inclosing, by an irregular line around the brow of the hill, about four acres of gro\Mul, 
and the principal armament, wliich had inspired tlio greatest awe, consisted of one stovc-pipcand 
two logs, the latter with a black disc painted on the middle of the sawed end of each, giving them 
the appearance, at a short distance, of the muzzles of 100-pounder Parrottguns! Tliese "Quaker 
guns," like similar ones at Manassas, had for si.x weeks defied the Army of the Potomac. 

' Page 557. 



580 



T n K N A T 1 X . 



[1861. 



21, 18G1] lio nssailed tlic invadint; troops, avIio liad fallen back to the vicinity 
of Ball's JJluil". Jjaker liad alrcaily boon sent with reserves to Harrison's 
Island, clothed with discretionary power to withdraw tlio other troops, or 
re-enforce them. Snpposing the foree mider IMcCall and others to be near, he 
<'oncluded to <x,o forward. On reaching the field, he took tlie cliief command 
by vii'tue of iiis rank, and was soon afterward instantly killed.' His troops, 
unsnpported,' were overwlielmed by a snperior force, and jtnshed back in great 
disorder toward the Iduff. They were driven down the declivity at twilight, 
where, unable to cross the swollen flood for want of transportation, they fought 
desperately a short time, when they were ovcrjjowered, and a large number 
were made prisoners. Many ]>erished in trying to escape.' The entire 
National loss was full a thousand men, and two pieces of cannon. It was a 
disaster inexplicable to the public mind. An explanation was loudly called 
for, but the General-in-Chief declared that an inquiry "at that time would be 
injurious to the public service." It was stifled, and General Stone, whom 
McClellan at the time acquitted of all blame,'' was afterward made a victim to 
appease the popular indignation.^ 



' Eye-witness said that a tall, rod-liaired man s\iddi'nly emerged from the smoke, and wlien 
within live feet of Baker discharged into his liody the contents of a self-cocking revolving pistol, 
and at the same moment a bullet pierced his skull just boliind his ear. ilis deatli produced a 
profound sensation, and public honors were paid to his memory afterward. He was one of the 
most eloquent men in the National Senate. 

" McClellan had ordered McCall, the previous evening, to fall back to Drainsville. Ho neg- 
lected to inform Stone of this order. Had he done so. Baker would have recalled tlie troops on 
the Virginia side, and the disaster at Ball's Blulf would have been prevented. 

' Only one large Hat-boat was there, and that, with an overload of wounded and others, at 
the beginning of its tirst 'voyage, was riddled by bullets and simk. The smaller vessels had dis- 
.•jppeared in the gloom, and there was no means of escape for the Unionists but by swimming. 
Some, attempting this, were shot in the water, others were drowned, and a few escaped. 

* On the evening of October 22, ISUl, McClellan, who had gone to the head-quarters of 
Stone, telegraplieii to the President, saying, " I have investigated this matter, and General Stone 
is without blame." 

' A hundred days after the battle, when General Stone, in command of about 12.000 men, 
was preparing to strike the Confederates under D. H. Hill, lying opposite his camp, he was 

arrested at midnight in Wash- 
ington City, by order of General 
McClellan, who directed him to 
be conveyed immediately to 
Fort Lafayette, near New York. 
then used as a prison for persons 
cliarged with treasonable acta. 
There he was kept m close 
confinement fifty-four days, 
when he wa.s transferred to 
Fort naniilton, near. He was 
released on the 1 6th of August, 
18(52, but for nearly a year 
afterward lie was denied em- 
jiloyment in the field. General 
Stone was never informed why 
he was arrested, and no charge 
of misconduct of any kind was 
ever officially made against him. 
He appears to have been made a scape-goat for the sins of his superiors. Without any apparent 
cause, that faitliful officer and zealous friend of the country was made to .suffer, unjustly, the cruel 
suspicion of being a traitor For a full vindication of his loyalty, made upon evidence, see Iios- 
aing's Pietarial History of the Civil Wur, ii. IIG. 




FORT LAFAYETTK. 



1361.] LINCOLN'S ADMINISTRATION 587 

For the space of nearly two months after the disaster at Ball's Bluff, the 
public ear was daily teased with the unsatisfactory report : " All is quiet on 
the Potomac !" The roads leading toward tlie Confederate camps near Bull's 
Run were never in better condition. The entire autumn had been a magnifi- 
cent one in Virginia. Regiment after regiment was rapidly swelling the 
ranks of the Army of the Potomac to the number of two hundred thousand 
men, thoroughly equipped and fairly disciplined, while at no time did any 
reliable report make the number of the Confederate army over sixty thousand. 
Plain people wondered why so few, whom politicians called "ragamuffins" and 
a " mob," could so tightly hold the National capital in a state of siege, while 
so large a number of " the bravest and best men of the Xorth " were in and 
around it. But what did plain people know about war? Therefore it was 
that when, late in December, the " quiet on the Potomac " was slightly dis- 
turbed by General E. O. C. Ord, who, with his brigade, fought a smaller 
number of Confederate foragers [Dec. 20, 1861], under J. E. B. Stewart, near 
Drainsville, and whip])ed them soundly, after a severe contest, the loyal people 
were delighted, for it gave them assurance that the Army of the Potomac was 
ready to figlit bravely, whenever permitted to encounter the foe. 

While the friends of the government were anxiously waiting for the almost 
daily promised movement of tlie Grand Army toward Riclimond as the year 
[1861] was drawing to a close, and hearts were growing sick with hope 
deferred, two events, each having an important bearing on the war, were in 
pi'ogress r one directly aifecting the issue, and the other affecting it incidentally, 
but powerfully. One was an expedition that made a permanent lodgment of 
the National power on the coast of North Carolina, and the other was inti- 
mately connected with tlie foreign relations of the government. Let us first 
consider the last-mentioned event. 

We have already observed that the disunionists, at an early period of their 
operations, sent commissioners to Europe to seek recognition and aid from 
foreign governments.' Tlieir employers soon perceived the incompetency of 
these men to serve their bad cause aecejitably, and they commissioned James 
M. Mason'' and John Slidell,^ two of their ablest and most unscrupulous com- 
peers, full " embassadors," the former accredited to the British government 
and the latter to the French government. These " embassadors," each accom- 
panied by a secretary, left Charleston in a blockade-runner on a stormy night 
[October 12, 1861] and ijroceeded to Cuba, whei-e they took passage in the 
English steamer Trent for St. Thomas, intending to go from there in the 
regular packet to England. Off the northern coast of Cuba the Trent was 
intercepted [November 8] by the National war-steamer San Jacinto, Captain 
Charles Wilkes,'' who took from the British vessel the two " embassadors " 
and their secretaries, and conveyed them in the Sa7i Jacinto to Boston harbor, 
where they were placed in Fort Warren, then used, like Fort Lafayette,* as 
a prison for political offenders. 

' Page 559. ' Page 522. ' Page 335. 

' The commander of the South Sea Exploring Expedition, mentioned on page 476. 
» Page 586. 



588 



rnK NATION. 



[1801. 



The act of Captain Wilkes was applauded by all loyal men, and was 
justified and commended by the Secretary of the Navy, who assured him 

that it had the " emphatic approval of 
the Department," It was in strict con- 
formity to tlie British interpretation, 
theoretically and practically, of inter- 
national law, but it was in violation of 
often uttered American principles in rela- 
tion to the rights of neutrals — princi- 
jiles for the maintenance of which tlie 
United States declared war against 
Great Britain in 1812." With great 
inconsistency, the British government 
regarded it as a national insult, and, 
before any communication could be 
had with our government, made exten- 
sive jjreparations for war, witli the 
same unseemly haste which characterized it in procuring the Queen's 
proclamation of neutrality.' A peremptory demand was made for the 
delivery of Mason and Slldell, and, when the matter became a suliject for 
calm discussion, that demand was complied with, not because it was made 
in a truculent spirit, but because fidelity to American principles required 
it.' The " embassadors " were delivered [January 1, 1862] on board the 
British gun-boat liinaldo, in which they were conveyed to St. Thomas, where 




CHARLES WILKES. 



' Papo -ton. 

" Page 561. The British press and British speakers iu 
the interest of the govemmeut, led by tlio London Times, 
indulged in the coarsest abuse of the government aud 
loyal people of the United States. So urgent seemed the 
necessity for preparations for war, that on Sunday, tlie 
day after the arrival of tlie news of the "Trent outragCj" 
as it was called, reached England, men were engaged in 
the Tower of London in packing 2,500 muskets to bo sent 
to Canada. Orders were issued for a largo increase iu the 
naval squadrons on the North American and West India 
stations, and tho great steam-packet Persia was taken from 
the mail service to be employed in carrying troops to 
Canada. American securities were depressed, and fortunes 
were thereby iiiado by wise persons, under tlio shadow of 
high places, who purchased and held them for a rise. Tho 
whole warlike movement was made to appear still more 
ridiculous, when our Secretary of State (William H. Seward), 
with inimitable irony, offered [January 12, 18C2] the use 
of the railway that extends tlirough tho United States ter- 
ritory from Portland, Maine, into Canada, for the trans- 
portation of British troops to bo sent to light us, the St. 
Lawrence at that winter season being frozen, and therefore 
useless as a channel for British transports. 

' The calm thouglitfulncss of President Lincoln, in the midst of the storm of passion that pre- 
vailed on the reception of the news of the capture of Slason and Slidell, was a salutary 
power. To the writer, Avho had an interview with him a few hours after the news reached 
Washington, he said: "I fear tho traitors will prove to be wliite elephants. Wc must stick to 
American principles concerning the riglits of neutrals. We fought Great Britain for insisting, by 
theory and practice, on the riglit to do precisely what Captain Wilkes has done. If Great 
Britain shall now protest against tlie act, and demands their release, we must give them up, 




WILLLAM H. SEWARD. 



1861.] 



LINCOLN'S ADMINISTRATION. 



589 



they embarked for England. They were treated with marked contempt in 
Great Britain, and soon passed into obscurity.' This act of our government 
disappointed the hopes of the Secessionists, for they expected great advantages 
to accrue to their cause by a war between Great Britain and our Republic. 
It silenced the arrogant pretensions of Great Britain concerning its right of 
search and of impressment, and made its hasty and belligerent actions in the 
premises appear like an extremely ridiculous farce. 



CHAPTER XVII 



THE CIVIL WAR. [1861—1865.] 

The public mind was just becoming tranquil after the excitement caused 
by the " Th-ent affair," when its attention was keenly fixed on another expedi- 
tion to the coast of North Carolina, already alluded to. The land and naval 
annaments of which it was composed were assembled in Hampton Roads early 
in January, 1862. It comprised over one hundred steam and sailing vessels 
(warriors and transports), and about sixteen thousand troops, mostly recruited 
in New England. Of this expedition General Ambrose E. Burnside was com. 
mander-in-chief, and the naval opera- 
tions were intrusted to flag-officer Louis 
M. Goldsborough, then the commander 
of the North Atlantic Naval Squadron. 
Burnside's lieutenants were Generals 
Foster, Reno, and Parke, each in com- 
mand of a brigade. The fleet was in 
two sections, in charge respectively of 
Commanders Rowan and Hazard. The 
expedition went to sea on the 11th of 
January [1862]. Its destination had 
been kept a profound secret. 

This, like the other expeditions, 
encountered gales in the vicinity of 
stoi'my Cape Ilatteras. Pamlico Sound 
and Roanoke Island was its destination, and it was several days, before the 

apologize for the act as a violation of our doctrines, and thus forever bind her over to keep thi; 
peace in relation to neutrals, and so acknowledge that she has been wrong for at least sixty years." 
This was the key to the admirable action of our government by the able Secretary of State. 

' " Already," said a leading Liverpool journal, on their arrival, "the seven weeks' hfroes have 
shrunk to their natural dimensions;" and tlie London Times, speaking of the demand made by the 
government, and of their release, spoke of them as "worthless booty," and said, " England would 
have done just as much for two negroes." 




A. E. BtTRNSIDB. 



590 '''HK NATION. [18621 

vessels, dispersed by the wind, liad ciUi'ii'd Ilatteras Inlet. It was February 
before tlic expedition moved to an attack upon Roanoke Island, Mliich the 
Confederates bad fortified. They had also obstructed the cliannels near it, 
and within these was a little flotilla of armed vessels, under the command of 
Lieutenant W. F. Lynch, who had abandoned his flag. The batteries j)lanted 
at diflcrent points numbered about forty heavy guns, which had been taken 
from the Navy Yard at Gosport,' and were manned by North Carolina troops, 
under the chief command of Colonel II. M. Shaw.'-' Upon the ])rineipal one of 
these (Fort Bartow), (loldsborough ()])ened tire toward noon of the 0th of 
February, and that night, in the midst of a cold storm of rain, about eleven 
thousand troops were landed. These moved early tlie next morning to attack 
iutrenchments that stretclied across the narrower part of the island. General 
Foster leading. The Confederates made a gallant defense, but were driven 
before the Nationals, who outnumbered them.' One after another of the other 
works yielded, the Confederate flotilla fled up Albemarle Sound, and Roanoke 
Island passed into the possession of the National forces.'' This was the severest 
blow the Confederates had yet experienced. It exposed the entire main of 
North Carolina bordering on Pamlico and Albemarle Sounds to the National 
power, and opened a door of entrance to Norfolk in the rear.' 

The Confederate flotilla was followed [February 9] by Rowan, and in the 
Pasquotank River, near Elizabeth City, not far from the Dismal Swamp, it 
and land batteries were attacked by the National gun-boats. The vessels 
were abandoned, the batteries were silenced, and Lynch, with his men and the 
land troops, retired into the interior. The National flag was then planted on 
one of the shore batteries, and this was the portion of tlio main of North 
Carolina first " re-j)ossessed " by the government. The concpiest was followed 
by others for securing the control of the Sounds and the adjacent country ; and 
Burnsidc and Goldsborough jointly issued a ])roelamation [February IB, 1861} 
to the peaceable inhabitants, assuring them that the government forces were 
there as their friends and not as enemies, and inviting them to separate them- 
selves from the rule of the Seccssionisls and return to their allegiance. This 
was met by a savage counter-proclamation Ijy the Governor of North Carolina, 
and the poor, oppressed people, who longed for deliverance, were held firmly 
under the yoke of the Confederate despotism. Here we will leave the National 
forces in the waters of North Carolina, prejiaring for other -N-ictories soon, and 

' Page 558. 

' General Henry A. Wise liad been tlio chief comm.mdcr, but at thisi time he was on Nag's 
Ilead, a sand-spit outside of Roanoke Island, and reiiorted ill. 

' In this attack a part of the Ninth New York (Hawkins's Zouaves), led by Major E. A. Kim- 
ball, made a gallant eliarge across a narrow causeway and drove the garrison from tho redoubt. 
These, and portions of the Fifty-first New I'ork and Twenty-tirst Massacluisetts, entered tho 
works at about the same time, and tho colors of tho Fifty-tirst were lirst i)lanted on tlie battery. 

* Tiio National loss incurred in the capttire of Uoanoke Island was about 50 killed and 222 
wounded. That of the Confederates was 14.3 killed, wotuided, and missing. The spoils of vic- 
tory were forty-two heavy guns, three being 100-poiuiders. 

' Tho disaster spread constcniation throughout tlic Confederacy. Davis, in a communicatioD 
to his "congress," casts reflections tipon the Confederate troops engaged in the flght, but a com- 
mitteo of that body charged the loss of the island to the remissness of Benjamin, the " Secretaiy 
of 'War." 



1802.] 



LINCOLN'S ADMINISTllATION. 



591 



observe the course of military events in the Valley of tlie Mississippi. There 
we left Fremont's dispirited army marohing toward St. Louis,' Southern and 
Western Kentucky in the hands of tlie Confederates,' and all Tennessee under 
the heel of their military power. 

Late in 1861, the Department of Missouri was enlarged,^ and General H. 
W. Halleck, who had been called from California, was placed in command of 
it, and General Hunter was assigned to the command of the Department of 
Kansas.^ General Don Carlos Buell was placed in charge of the Department of 
the Ohio,' and the Department of New Mexico was intrusted to Colonel E. R. S.. 
Canby. Such were the military divisions of the territory west of the Alleghany 
Mountains at the close of 18G1, when Halleck, with his head-quarters at St. 
Louis, was holding the secessionists and insurgents in check with a vigorous 
hand. General Pope was assigned to all the National troops l)etwcen the 
Missouri and Osage Rivers, in which region Price had been gathering recruits,, 
after Hunter's retrograde movement.' Detachments from Pope's army smote 
these banded recruits here and there ; and finally, at a bridge on the Black- 
water Creek, near Milford, Colonel Jefierson C. Davis fought and captured 
about a thousand insurgents,' and secured as spoils nearly as many horses and 
mules, and a large quantity of munitions of war. By vigorous movements, 
Pope swept over the State west of Sedalia, toward Kansas, far enough to foil 
the attempt of organized recruits to join Price, and to compel tliat leader to 
withdraw, in search of subsistence and safety, to the borders of Arkansas. 

Late in December, Price, encouraged by promises of re-enforcements from 
Arkansas, concentrated about twelve 
thousand men at Springtield. Against 
these a strong force under General S. R. 
Curtis, assisted by Generals Asboth, 
Sigel, Davis, and Prentiss, moved in 
three columns early in February. Price 
fled with his army on the night of the 
12th and 13th of that month, and did 
not halt imtil he reached a good position 
at Cross Hollows, in Northern Arkansas. 
He was driven a little farther south by 
the advance of the pursuing Curtis, and 
from near Pea Ridge, in Arkansas, he 
reported to Governor Jackson that he 
was " confident of the future." "With s. r. cnBTis. 




• Page 576. ' Pages 515 and 577. 

' It now included Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota, "Wieconsin, Illinois, Ai-kansas, and tiiat portion 
of Kent\icky lying west of the Cumberland River. 

• This included the State of Kansas, the Indian Territory west of Arkansas, and the Terri- 
tories of Nebraska, Colorado, and Dakota. 

' This included the State of Ohio and the portion of Kentucky lying eastward of the Cumber- 
land River. 

• Page 576. 

' Among the captives was Colonel Magoffin, brother of the Governor of Kentucky. 



592 '1''^*' NATION. [1862. 

equal confidence of the future, Ilalleck reported that lie had purged Mis- 
souri of armed insurgents, and that the flag of the Republic was waving in 
triumph over the soil of Arkansas. Curtis had crossed the line on the 18th of 
February, his soldiers cheering with delight as they saw the old banner waving 
in another of the so-called Confederate States. 

Curtis pushed on after Price, capturing squads of ^Missouri recruits, skir. 
niishing with the rear-guard of the fugitives at several places, and finally driv- 
ing the whole Confederate force over the range of hills known as the Boston 
Mountains. Then he fell back to Sugar Creek, not far from Bentonville, and 
•encamped in a strong position. Price, meanwhile, had been joined by McCul- 
loch ; and early in March Earl Van Doni, the Confederate commander of the 
Trans-Mississippi Department, and one of the most dashing and energetic offi- 
«ev8 in that region, arrived at his camp and took chief command. There, too, 
he was joined by the notorious Albert Pike with a band of Indians, trained by 
Lim for savage warfare,' and these forces combined, almost twenty-five thousand 
strong, prepared to fall upon Curtis and drive him out of Arkansas. The force 
of the latter did not exceed eleven thousand men, with forty-nine pieces of 
artillery. 

Van Dorn advanced so cautiously that Curtis was not aware of his approach 
until he was very near [March 5], when the latter concentrated his forces near 
!Mottsville, a short distance from Pea Ridge, a spur of the Ozark Mountains. 
There, on the morning of the Tth of March, Van Dorn, who was assisted by 
Generals Price, McCulloch, ^Mcintosh, and Pike, having accomplished a flank 
movement, in which a part of his force had a sharp contest with some troops 
under Sigel, proceeded to attack Curtis's main body in the rear. The latter 
promptly changed front to meet him, and took the initiative of battle. The 
struggle that ensued was very severe, and resulted in the loss to the Confede- 
rates of Generals McCulloch and Mcintosh, who were mortally wounded, and 
many brave soldiers on both sides. The battle was renewed the next morning, 
when the Confederates were soon routed, and Van Dorn's army was so suddenly 
broken into fragments, and so scattered in its flight, that Curtis was jmzzled to 
know which way to pursue. The victory for the Nationals was complete, but 
the spoils were few." Curtis held the battle-field. Van Dorn retired behind 
the mountains, and disappeared on the borders of the Indian country. At 
length the victor, perceiving no formidable foe in that region, moved leisurely 
toward the Mississippi River, in the direction of Helena. 

' Pike wa.s a native of Boston, but long a resident in the Slave-labor States. lie was com- 
missioned by Governor Rector to organize the most .savage of the Indian tribes (Choctaws and 
Cliickasaws) on tho borders of Arkansas. Ho raised two regiments, was commissioned a briga- 
dier, and with them he joined the army of the Confederates. He dressed himself in gaudy cos- 
tume, and wore a largo plumo on his licad to please the Indians ; and before tho battle at Pea 
Ridge, it is said, he maddened thera with liqvior, that they might allow tho savage nature of theip 
race to have unchecked develo])inent. In their fury they respected none of tho usages of civi- 
lized warfare, but scalped the helpless wounded, and committed atrocities too horrible to men- 
tion. After tho war this tnaii was among the earliest of tho most conspicuous rebels, who wa3 
"pardoned " (as relief from anienaliility to law was called) without trial by President Jolmston. 

' Curtis lost !..■!.') 1 killed, wounded, and missing. Van Born never reported his loss officiaUy, 
but estimated it at about GOO. The brunt of the strife foil upon tho division of Colonel Can; 
composed chiefly of Iowa and Missouri troops. He lost 701 men. 



1862] 



LINCOLN'S ADJIINISTRATION. 



593 



While these e\ents were occurring iu Missouri and Arkansas, Hunter was 
busily engaged in suppressing rebellion on the borders of Kansas, and war was 
kindling in Canby's Department of Texas.' We have seen how Twiggs 
betrayed his army in the latter State f now the instruments of the disunion- 
ists attempted similar measures for attaehing New Mexico to the Confederacy. 
Colonel Loring, a North Carolinian, had been sent there for the purpose, in 
1 860, by Floyd, the disloyal Secretary of War.' He was made commander 
of the Department of New Mexico, and he employed Colonel George B. Crit- 
tenden, an unworthy son of Senator Crittenden, of Kentucky,'' to corrupt the 
troops in that region. He failed, and Loring and Crittenden were compelled 
to flee from the country to avoid the wrath of the loyal soldiery. The fugi- 
ti\e officers found those of a garrison on the frontiers of Texas ready to aid 
them iu their treasonable designs. By these the troops were led out from the 
fort and betrayed into the hands of Texas insurgents, when it was believed 
Js' ew Mexico would fall an easy prey to the Confederate power. Otero, the 
delegate of that Territory iu Congress, was in practical complicity with the 
Secessionists, and all seemed working well for their cause, when Canby' arrived 
and changed the aspect of affairs. The loyal people gathered around him. 
His resTular troops, New Mexican levies, and volunteers, soon made a respecta- 
ble force, and these were speedily called to action, for M.ajor H. II. Sibley, a 
Louisianian, who had abandoned his flag, invaded the Territory at the middle 
of February with 2,300 Texans, most of them rough " Rangers," when Canby 
was at Fort Craig, on the Rio Grande. Near 
that post (at Valverde), on the 21st of Febru- 
ary [1862], Canby and Sibley had a battle. 
The former, defeated, fled to Fort Craig, but 
the latter, alarmed at Canby's developed 
strength, instead of following, hurried toward 
Santa Fe, the capital of the Territory. Can- 
by followed. Sibley captured but could not 
hold Santa Fe, and he was soon driven over 
the mountains into Texas. The area of the 
-active rebellion now extended from Maryland 
to New Mexico, and was everywhere marked 
by vigor and terrible malevolence. 

Let us now see what was further done to- 
ward the execution of Fremont's jilan for 
crushing the rebellion in the Mississippi Valley.' 

We have observed how the Confederates obtained a foothold in Southern 
and Western Kentuck3\' Under the shadow of military power there, a con- 
vention of secessionists was held [November 18, 1861], at which, with ludicrous 
gravity, a declaration of independence and an ordinance of secession were 
adopted, a provisional government was organized, and delegates were chosen 




TEXAS EANQEK. 



1 Page 591. 


' Note 3, page 551. ' 


' P^e 591. 


• Page 516, 




38 



Page 549. • Note 1, page 549. 

' Pages 575 and 576. 



594 T'"*: NATION. [1862. 

to the " Coufederatc Congress"' :U Kiclniinii.l [Nov. 20,1801]. Bowling^ 
Green, where Buckncr liad made his head-quarters," and wliere Albert Sidney 
Joliiiston, an able officer, who had abandoned his flag, was now in chief cf>m- 
niand, was made the capital of the new State. Meanwhile Jolinston was con- 
centrating troops there, and General Hardee was called from Southwestern 
Missonri to snpersede ]>nckner. The position of Polk, at Columbus,' was 
strengthened. Zullicoft'cr'' was firjiily i)lanted at the important Pass of Cum- 
berland Gap — a passage-way between Kentucky and East Tennessee — and foi- 
tified posts were established between the extremes of the army, the most 
important of which were Fort Donelson, on the Cumberland River, and Fort 
Henry, on the Tennessee IJiver. 

In the mean time General Buell had organized a large force at Louisville.' 
These were thrown forward along the line of railway toward Bowling Green, 
40,000 strong, under General A. ]\IcD. McCook, and ])ushed the Confederate 
outposts beyond the Green River. In the mean time stirriiig events had 
occurred in Eastern Kentucky, where, near Prestonburg, on the Big Sandy, 
General (iarlield fought [January V, 1802] insurgents under Humphrey Mar- 
shall, and scattering them j)ul an end to the military career of the latter leader. 
Farther westward a severe battle Avas fought [January 1 9], near Jlill Spring, 
on the Cumberland 1-viver, between the Nationals, under General George H. 
Thomas, and Confederates led by Generals ZoUicotter and Crittenden.' In this 
engagement Tliomas was victorious. Zollicotfer was killed,' and the Confede- 
rates fled into Northeastern Tennessee through a country almost barren of sub- 
sistence. The battle was fought desperately by both parties, for victory was 
specially desirable to both. It proved to be a great advantage to the winner, 
and disastrous to the cause of the loser, for it broke the Confederate line in 
Kentucky,' opened a door of deliverance for the East Tennesseeans, and pre- 
pared the way for a scries of successful operations by which, very soon after- 
ward, the invaders were driven from both States. By order of the President,, 
the Secretary of War said, in a ])ublic thanksgiving to the oflicers, "In the 
prompt and spirited movements and daring at Mill Spring, the nation will 
realize its hopes." 

' George W. .lolinsou was chosen provisional governor, witli a legislative council of ton, a 
treasurer, and an amiitor. The farce of' representing Kentucky iu the Confederate Congress, now 
commenced, was kept up during the entire war. The people had no voice in their appointment,, 
and of such membersa greater portion of the so-called "Confederate Congress" was continually 
composed. 

» Pago ."iTG. ' P.ago 515. *Pago5"7. 

' General BucU had under his command, early in J.inuary, 1862, about 114,000 men, chiefly 
citizens of Ohio. Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Tennsylvania, and loyali.''t8 of 
Kentucky and Tennessee, with about I'JG pieces of artillery. This force was arranged in four 
grand divisions, commanded respectively by Brigadier-lleuerals Alexander McDowell MuCook, 
Ormsby M. Mitchcl, George It. Thomas, and Tluanas L. Crittenden, acting as m;ijor-gen<:rals, 
aided by twenty brigade commanders. These divisions occupied an irregular lino across the Slate, 
nearly parallel to that held by the Confederates. 

' This was tlio Crittenden employed to corrupt the army in New Mexico. See page 590. 

' Thomas lost 247 men killed and wounded. The Confederate loss was 349, of whom 8* 
were prisoners. The spoils of victory for Thomas were considerable, including twelve pieces of 
artillery, manv small arms, and more than a thousand horses and mules. 

• Page 677, 



]S02,] 



T, I N' C () L \ ' S A D M I N I S T R A T I O X. 



B95 



>'i5''-^\ <^ 




II. W. IIALLECK. 



It was HOW detunuiiuMl to oonct'utratt' the foreos of Ilalluck and Buel in a 
srand forward movement asjainst the main bodies and fortifications of the Con- 
federates. Thomas's victory at Mill 
Spring had so paralyzed tliat line east- 
ward of Bowling Green, that it was 
practically shortened at least one-half, 
and the bulk of the Confederates and 
tlieir chief fortifications were between 
Nashville and Bowling Green, and the 
Mississippi River. During the autmnu 
and early winter a naval armament, pio- 
jeeted by Fremont for service on that 
river, liad been in preparation at St. 
Louis and Cairo, for co-operation with 
the western armies, and at the close 
of January [180'2] it consisted of twelve 
gun-boats, carrying one hundred and 
twenty-six heavy cannon, and some lighter guns, the whole commanded by 
flag-officer A. H. Foote, of the National navy. Seven of these were covered 
with plates of iron, and were built wide, so that, on the still waters of the 
rivers, when attacking fortifications, their guns might liavc almost the steadi- 
ness of those in land batteries. 

Some movements preliminary to the grand advance puzzled the Confetle- 
rates and perplexed loyal spectators. There were reconnoissances down both 
sides of the Mississippi River from Cairo, and Thomas feigned a march in force 
into East Tennessee. Meanwhile an expedition against Forts Henry and Don- 
elson' had been arranged. Ilalleck's troops, destined for the enterprise, were 
placed under the chief command of General U. S. Grant. Foote was sum- 
moned to the Tennessee River with his flotilla of gun-boats, and at dawn on 
the 3d of February, 1862, he was up that stream a few miles below Fort 
Henry, and Grant's army was landing from transports near. At noon on the 
0th the flotilla opened its guns on the fort. The army was then in motion to 
co-operate, but before it could reach the scene of action the post was in pos- 
session of Foote, by surrender. The Confederate troops outside of the fort, 
panic-stricken, fled without firing a gun. The Commander (General Tilghman), 
and less than one hundred artillerists, had made a gallant defense, but were 
compelled to yield. This, and Fort Ilicman, on the opposite side of the river, 
with all their armament, became spoils of victory- — a victory most important 
in its immediate and more remote cflc'cts. It not only gave a formidable jiost 
into the possession of the Nationals, but it proved the efficiency of gun-boats 
on the narrow rivers of the West. The National troops were now firmly 
j)lanted in the rear of Columbus, and there was nothing left to obstruct the 



' Page 594. 

' The National loss was 2 killed and 3S wounded. Of the latter. 29 of them were wounded 
and scalded on board the gun-boat Essex, Captain W. D. Porter, whose boiler was exploded by a 
shot that entered it. The Confederate loss was five killed and ten wounded. 



506 



Til K X AT IDX. 



[1862. 



]>assago of i^un-hoMts u]> lla' Tciiiiossoo Id llic fortilo rcLrioiis of Northern Ala- 
l)aiiia, and oarrviiig the llag of the lte]>ul)ru' far toward tlie licart of the Con- 
fi'deracy. 

Tlie fall of Fort Ileiiry was followed liy immediate jjivparations for an 
attack on Fort Douelson, a formidable M-ork among tlie liills near the village 
of IJovcr, the capital of Stewart Cotuity, on the Cumberland Kiver. The object 
Avas to reduce that stronghold, and then sweep over Tennessee M'ith a largo 
force into Northern Alabama. Foote had hurried back to Cairo to bring n]> 
his mortar-boats for the new enterprise, and Grant was equally active in pre- 




'••'"mm... 



VIEW AT FOKT UONELSON.' 

paring soldiers for the work, lie reorganized his army into three divisions, 
commanded respectively by Generals John A. IVIcClernand, C. F. Smith, and 
Lewis Wallace, and on the evening of the 112th [February, 1SG2] the divisions 
of the first two, which had moved from Fort Henry that morning, invested 
Fort Donelson, which was then in coinmaiid of ex-Secretary Floyd,' assisted 
by Generals Pillow' and Buckner.^ Early the next morning picket-skirmishing 
speedily developed into a general battle Viet ween the investing troops and the 



' This is a view sketclicii by tlio author in May, 18GG, from tho rivor-bank within the fort, 
overlooking the mounds of the water-batteries Ijelow, and down tlie river to the place whors 
Foot«'s gun-boats lay, hero indicated by the little steamboat in the distance. 

' Pagea 6-19 and"a74. • Page 666. ' Page 665. 



1862. 



LINCOLN'S A 1) M I X 1 S T K A TI N. 



397 



garrison,' in wliicli tin' fornuT wiic Ijcattn and I'cll back,' drtL'nninL-J lo wait 
for the arrival of Footc's Hot ilia, with which was coniinL!; a jiortiou of Wallace's 
division. Wallace (who had been left at Fort Henry) was summoned to Fort 
Donelson by Grant, and at noon the next day he reported his whole division as 
rill the field and ready for action. Meanwhile Foote's flotilla had arrived, but 
witliout the mortar-boats, and during the afternoon of the 14th it fought the 
water-batteries and guns from others bearing on the river with great gallantry, 
until the vessels were so much injured that they were withdrawn.^ 

The night of the 14th was one of anxiety in both camps. Footfc hsviStened 
back to Cairo to have damages repaired and to bring up his mortTir-boats, and 
Grant determined to wait for his return. The Confederates in the fort held a 
council of war, and resolved to make a sortie the next morning to rout or 
destroy the investing army, or to cut through it and escape to the open coun- 
try in the direction of Xashville. The troops selected for this desperate 
measure, about ten thousand in miniber, were placed under Pillow and Biickner. 
Those led by the former wcn^ to strike McClernand on the right of the Na- 
tional line, while Buckner should fall upon Wallace's division in the center. 
The movement was attempted. McCleniand, sore 
pressed, called upon Wallace for aid. It was 
promptly given, and, after a desperate and gallant 
fight by all, the Confederates were driven back to 
their trenches. " I speak advisedly," wrote Ilill- 
yer, Grant's aid-de-camp, to Wallace, the next 
day, with a pencil on a slip of paper, "God bless 
you ! You did save the day on the right." 
Meanwhile, Smith had been vigorously and suc- 
cessfully striking the right of the Confederates, 
and when darkness fell at evening the National 
troops were victorious, the vanquished garrison 
were imprisoned within the linos, and their leaders 
were busied with endeavors to solve the important 
question, How shall we escape ? In a midnight conference, when it was found 
that they must surrender, Floyd and Pillow exhibited the greatest cowardice. 
Only Buckner acted like a man. The other two fled from the fort,'' and left 
the latter to surrender it the next morning [February 16, 1862]. 




LEWIS WALLACE. 



' The Carondekt, Captain "Walke, of Foote's flotilla, liatl gallantly contended with the walcr- 
biitteries of the Fort. 

■' There had been a great change in the weather, and the troops, not prepared for it, suffered 
terribly from intense cold, and a lack of clothing and tents. A little snosv liad fallen, and insuf- 
ficient food and shelter made their siifi'erings most severe. 

' Never was a little squadron exposed to a more severe fire. Twenty heavy guns were 
trained upon it, those from tlie hillsides, on which the mam works of the fort lay, hurling plung- 
ing shot with awful precision and effect, when only twelve guns could reply. The four armored 
vessels iu the fight {St. Louis, the flag-ship, Carondelet, Pittsburg, ami Louisville) received in the 
aggregate no less than 141 wounds from the Confederate shot and shell, and lost 54 men killed 
nnd maimed. 

' The council of war was lield at TiUow's head-tpuirters, in Dover. Between Floyd and Pillow 
there were criminations and recriminations, and each, fearing to fall into the hands of the Na- 
tionals, seemed to think of little else than his personal safety. 'When it was decided that they 



598 ' '^''"^ N ATI ox. 1 1862. 

Tluit was a liappy Sahliatli iur tlie Union tronps. Tlioy luid won a most 
important victory for the National cansc' Intelligence of it tilled the con- 
spirators with despair, and from that time no European court entertained 
serious thoughts of acknowledging the independence of tlie Confederate States, 
or recognizing them as a nation.' The victory produced great joy among the 
loyal people of the Republic. They and the government were satisfied that a 
withering blow had been given to the rebellion, and that henceforth its propor- 
tions would be less, and its malignity not so dangerous to the life of the 
Republic' When Fort Donelson fell, Kentucky and Missouri, and all ol' 
Northern and Middle Tennessee, were lost to the Confederates, and the more 
soiithern States, whose inhabitants expected to have the battles for their 
defense fought in the border Slave-labor States, were e.vposed to the inroads 
gf the National armies. 

Johnston now clearly perceived that Rowling Green'' and Columbus" were 
both untenable, and that the salvation of the Confederate troops at those 
places required their immediate evacuation. He issued orders accordingly. 
The troops at Bowling Green marched in haste to Nashville, followed by 
Buell, and at the same time National gun-boats moved up the Cumberland to 
Clarksville, to co-operate with the land troops from Fort Donelson, under 



would be compcllctl to surrender, Floyd quickly said; "Gentlemen, I cannot surrender; you 
know ni^ po.sitiou with tlie Federals piis treasonable acts while in Buclianan's cabinet] : it 
wouldn't do, it wouldn't do." Pillow, whose vanity made him over-estimate his imponance, took 
a similar stand, and wlien Floyd offered to rcsipn the command to him. he quickly replied: "I 
will not accept it — I will never surrender myself or my conunand." While spoakiiiK, he turned 
toward Buckner, who said: "I will accept, and share the fate of my connnand." Floyd and 
I'iUow both stole away from the fort duriu"; the night, and saved themselves; and an epigram- 
matist of tlie day wrote concerning the former's infamous desertion of his troops, saying : — 

"TIr" thief ift ft coward by Natare's law ; 

Who bt'lruys the State, to no one is true; 
And the brave foe at Fort T)onelsnn saw 
Their liglit-fliicerod Floyd was light-footed too.^ 

' Buckner sent a flag of truce to ask upon what terms Grant would accept the surrender of 
the troops and post. Regarding them simply as rebels, (Jraiit replied: " No terms other than an 
unconditional surrender can be accepted. I propose to move iuimediateh- upon your work.s." 
Buckner made a foolish reply, saying that he should feel impelled, notwithstanding "the brilliant 
success of tlio Confederate arms" the day before, "to accept the ungenerous and unohivalrous 
terms" proposed. This was followed by the speedy surrender of the fort, with 13,500 men 
(including the sick and wounded) as prisoners of war, with 3,000 horses, 48 field pieces, 17 heavy 
gnus, 20,000 muskets, and a great quanlity of military stores. The National loss was estimated 
at IIG killed, l,74o wounded, and 150 prisoners. 

' The diief Coiiiederates at Riclunond received the intelligence with emotions of mingled 
dismay and anger. Following so close \qinn tlie fall of Roanoke Island (page 590), it greatly 
l)erplexed them. Notwitlistandiug Johnston tried to excuse tlie cowardice and perfidy of 
Pillow and Floyd, Davis ordered them to be suspended from command. 

' At Fort Donelson was successfully begun that system of army mail service devised by Colonel 
(afterward General) A. II. Markland, wliich was one of the wonders and among the most salutary 
measures of the war. " Within one hour after the troops began to march into Fort Donelson," 
General Grant wrote to the author, in July, 1866, "the mail was being distributed to tlicm from 
tlio mail-wagon.s." Under the direction of Colonel Markland. this service was continued tlirough- 
out the war, linking the army with home, and keeping off that terrible home-sickness wliich so 
often prostrates the volunteer soldier, physically and morally. For months an awragc of two 
hundred and fifty thousand military letters were received at and sent from the post-otlico at Uie 
National capital, daily. 

' Page 576. * Page 576. 



1862.] 



LINCOLN'S ADMINISTRATION. 



599 



Ocncral Smith, in inovemeuts against Nashville. Meanwhile, the panic in the 
latter place became fearful. The terrified Governor (Harris) fled, Jolniston's 
army passed farther southward, and on tlie 26th of P'ebruary Nashville was 
formally surrendered by the civil authorities and the National troops took 
possession.' Provision was at once made at Washington City for civil gov- 
ernment in Tennessee, and Andrew Johnson was appointed Provisional 
Governor, with the military rank of Brigadier-General. lie entered upon the 
duties of his office on the 4th of March, 1862, with the avowal that he should 
see to it that "intelligent and conscious treason in high places" should be 
punished. 

Another bloodless victory soon followed the evacuation of Nashville. It 
was the taking possession by National troops, without opposition, of Colum- 
bus. Beauregard was then in command of the De|iartment of Mississippi, and 
out-ranked I'olk. The former, obedient to instructions from Richmond, 
•ordered the latter to transfer his command, and as much of the munitions of 
■war as possible, from Columbus to a safer jjlace, when Polk went to New 
Madrid, Madrid Bend, and Island Number Ten, there to prepare for defense. 




ISLAND NUMBER TEN. 



Meanwhile Foote had moved down the Mississippi with a flotilla of gtin-boats 
and transports, the latter bearing about two thousand men under General 
W. T. Sherman, and when they approached Columbus [March 4, 1862] they 
saw the National flag waving over its fortifications, having been planted there 
the evening before by a scouting party of Illinois troops, from Paducah. A 
garrison was lefl to hold the post, and Foote returned to Cairo to prepare for 
a siege of the new position of the Confederates, which the latter hoped t<r 
make impregnable. 

New Madrid, at a great bend in the river, with Island Number Ten, a few 



' Floyd and Pillow, who fled from Fort Donelson, were in command at Nashville, the order 
for their suspeusiou not having yet reached head-quarters. As the Nationals approached they 
were again overcome with terror, when they fired the bridges over the Cumberland at Nashville, 
in defiance of the protests of the citizens, and scampered away southward by the light of the 
conflagration, leaving the more courageous Forrest with his cavalry to cover their inglorious 
flight. Floyd died miserably not long afterward, and Pillow sunk into merited obscurity. 



600 '^^I^ NATION. [1862: 

miles above, was a tliousaml miles, by the ciiiTeiit, from New Orleans, yet it 
was now regarded as the key to the Lower Mississippi. Its importance was per- 
ceived by both parties. General McCown was placed in command there, and 
General Beauregard commanded in person at first on Island Number Ten.' 
They were there just in time to prevent the occupation of these places by the 
Nationals, for while Johnston was flying southward from Bowling Green, Gene- 
ral Pope, dispatched from St. Louis [February 22] by General I lallcck, was press- 
ing toward New Madrid with Ohio and Illinois troops. He apjjcared before that 
post on the 3d of March, and Ibund it occupied by McCown, supported by a 
Confederate flotilla of gun-boats under Captain Hollins.* He sent to Bird's 
Point^ for siege-guns, and on the irstli [March, 1862] he opened a heavy fire on the 
Confederate works and Ilollins's gun-boats. That night, during a violent 
thunder-storm, the Confederates evacuated New Madrid and retired to Island 
Number Ten, with a loss unknown. Pope lost fifty-one killed and wounded. 

Island Number Ten now became the chief objective of attack and defense, 
Beauregard had thoroughly fortified it. Pope desired to cross the Mississippi 
at New Madrid with his troops, and to march over Madrid Bend and attack 
the post, while Foote should assail it from the river. He begged tlie latter to 
allow gun-boats to run by and come to his aid, but Foote thought it too peri- 
lous to do so, and while the navy was poimding away at the defenses of the 
Island,'' Pope was chafing with impatience to do something to help the 
besiegers. At length he caused the execution of a plan suggested by General 
Schuyler Hamilton for flanking the Island. This was the cutting of a canal 
through a swamp, from the river above the Island to a bayou that flows into 
the Mississippi at New Madrid, below the Island.' Through this transports 
and gun-boats might 2>ass. Perceiving this, and the peril threatened by it, 
the Confederates sunk steamers in the river to prevent the passage of vessels,, 
and endeavored to flee from the Island. They were intercepted and ca|)tured 
by Pope's troops under Stanly, Hamilton, and Paine; and Island Number Ten, 
with its batteries and supports, and over 7,000 prisoners, became the spoils of 
victory for Pope and Foote.' This was another severe blow to the Confede- 

' At about tliis time Beauregard sent out a proclamation to the planters of the Mississippi 
Talley, calling upon them to consecrate to the use of the Confederacy their church, plantiition, 
and other bells, tube converted into cannon. Tliere was a liberal response to the appeal, and the 
contributions were all sent to New Orleans. There they were foiuid by General Butler, who- 
sent them to Boston, where ther were sold by auction and devoted to peaceful nses. 

" Page 082. " ' ' Page 566. 

* Foote began the siege on Sunday morning, the IGth of March, and opened upon the Confede- 
rate works heavy shells from rifled guns and lliirteen-inch mortar.s. " Island N\UMbcr Ten," 
wrote Kooto to llio Secretary of the Navy on tlio 1 'Jth of March, " is harder to cuuciuer than Colum- 
bus, as the island shores are lined with forts, each fort commanding the one about iu" 

' This canal was twelve miles in length, and was cut in the space of nineteen days, half the 
distance through a growth of heavy timber. The width of the canal through this timber was 
fifty feet, and in some places the trees were sawed off four feet under water. It was a wonderful 
monument to tlio engineering skill and indomitable perseverance of the Americans. On the night 
before its completicm [.Vpril :i]. Pope's wishes concerning the aid of gun-boats were partially 
pralifled. The gallant Commander Walke performed the perilous feat of running by the batteries 
with the CarondeM, at midnight, during a heavy thunder-storm. This, with steamers that eanie 
through the canal, enabled Pope to operate on the river below New Madrid, in connection with 
Foote. 

' The number of prisoners taken by Foote and Pope together was 1,273, including tliree 



1862.] 



LINCOLN'S ADMINISTRATION 



60t 



rates, from which tbey never recovered. They ahnost despaircJ. It seemed 
probable th.at Memphis, one of their strongholds on the INIississippi, where- 
they had nimense workshops and armories, would soon share the fate of Co- 
lumbus, and that the great river would be patroled by National gun-boats- 
from Cairo to New Orleans, and the rich trans-Mississippi country be separated 
from the rest of the Confederacy. Panic prevailed all the way down to the 
Gulf, for already, as we have seen, Curtis had broken the power of the Con- 
federates in Arkansas,' and a heavy force was making its way up the Tennes-^ 
see River, in the direction of Alabama. 

Grant newly organized his forces after the capture of Fort Donelson, and 
made vigorous preparations for ascending the Tennessee from Fort Henry, 
where General Wallace was in command, and where head-quarters were tem- 
porarily established. Immediately 
after the fall of Fort Henry' Grant 
had sent three gun-boats up the Ten- 
nessee, under Lieutenant-Commander 
Phelps, who penetrated the country 
as far as Florence, in Alabama. 
Phelps reported the existence of much 
loyal feeling in that region, and this 
made the Unionists anxious to push 
on and occupy the country. That 
movement was now attempted. 
Corinth, on the Memphis and Charles- 
ton railway, was the grand objective, 
the possession of which, with the rail- 
ways running east and west, and 
north and south, and intersecting 
there, would give immense power to the army. Troops in large number were- 
sent up the Tennessee in transports to Savannah and its vicinity, and some,. 
under General Sherman, went much farther up the river. Finally, at the 
beginning of April [1862], the main body of Grant's army was encamped 
tetween Pittsburg Landing and Shiloh Meeting-House, eighteen or twenty 
miles from Corinth. At the latter place Beauregard had been for some time 
gathering an opposing force, and at the period in question General A. S. John- 
ston was there, and in chief command. 

Wliile this movement up the Tennessee was occurring. General BuelPs army 
was slowly making preparations tt) march southward, overland, and join Grant's 
at Savannah. He left Nashville late in March, leaving General Negley in com- 
mand there. A part of his force, under the energetic General Mitchel, pushed 
rapidly southward, captured Huntsvillo [April 11], on the Memphis and 
Charleston railway, and secured control of that road for a hundred miles, 

generals and 273 field and company officers. The spoils of victory were nearly 20 batteries, witli 
123 cannon and mortars, the former ranging from 32 to 100-poiinders; 7,000 small arms; many- 
hundred horses and mules; an immense amount of ammunition, and four steamers afloat. 
' Page 592. ^ Page 595. 




TT. S. GRANT. 



(i02 ^"''' NATION [18G2. 

between Tuscuinbi.i mi the west and Stevenson on the east. Mitchel li;i(I thus 
placed liis little army midway between Corinth and Nasliville, opened conimu- 
nicatiou wUii Buell, and controlled the navigation of the Tennessee for more 
than one Imndred miles, llis swift marches and his conquests had been accom- 
)>lished without the loss of a single life.' 

]\b'ainvhile very important events had occurred on the Teiniessee River. The 
liulk of the National army, under Grant, was encamped, as we have observed, 
between Pittsburg Landing and Shiloli Meeting-TIouse.' The division of Gen- 
eral Lewis Wallace was stationed at Crump's Landing, below, to watch the 
movements of the Confederates west of the Tennessee in that region. On 
the memorable Sunday morning, the Gth of April [18G2], the main army, lying 
near the river, stretched across the roads leading from Corinth to Pittsburg 
and Hamburg Landings, fi'om the Snake Creek to the Lick Creek. It was com- 
manded by Generals Sherman, jNIcClernand, Prentiss, W. IL L. Wallace, and 
Ilurlbut. At that time the Confederate forces under General A. S. Johnston, 
led by Generals Beauregard, Polk, Bragg, Hardee, and Breckenridge, as prin- 
cipal commanders, had advanced from Corinth to a point within four miles of 
the National camp, without being discovered. Almost the first intimation 
given of their near approach was their vigorous attack, early on that lx>autiful 
spring morning, first upon Sherman, and then upon Prentiss, on his left. The 
columns of the latter were bi'oken up, and tlio general and a larger portion of 
his men were ea]>tured. All day long the l)attle raged. Grant had come 
upon the field early from his head-quarters below, and directed the storm of 
conflict on the part of the Nationals as well as he could, but night found his 
army terribly smitten and j)ushed back to the verge of the Tennessee River, 
tlu'n full to the brim with a spring Hood, and Beauregard, who had succeeded 
Johnston, slain on the field that day, telegraphing a shout of victory to 
his em])loyers at Richmond.' One more blow, vigorously given, might have 
driven the Nationals into the turbulent Avaters, or caused their captivity. A 
blow was given, but so feebly, on account of prompt and effective responses by 
two gun-boats (Tijler and Lexington), and some heavy guns h.astily placed in 
battery, that the Nationals stood firm.* 

' In a stirring address to liis troops, Mitcliel s-iid : " You Iiave struck blow af(x?r blow with 
a rapidity unparalleled. Stevenson fell, sixty miles to the east of Tluntsville. Decatur and Tus- 
cumbia have been in like manner seized, and are now occupied. In three days you have extended 
your front of operations more than one hundred miles, and your morning guns at Tuscunibia may 
now be heard by yo\ir comrades on the battle-lield made glorious by their victory before Corinth." 
This address was on the 16th of April, when the battle of Shiloh, recorded in tlic te.\t on the 
next page, had been fought and won by the Nationals. 

' Page 601. 

' The following is a copy of the di.ipatch, dated " Battle-lield of Shiloh, April 6, 1862: We 
have this morning attacked the enemy in a strong position in front of Pittsburg, and after a severe 
battle of ten hours, thanks to Almighty God, gained a complete victory, driving the enemy from 
every position. The loss on both sides is heavy, including our commander-in-chief, (Jeneral 
Albert .Sidney Johnston, who fell gallantly leading his troops into the thickest of tlie light." 

* During a lull in the battle, toward evening, three light earthworl^s were thrown up, in 
semicircular form, half a mile b.ick from the river-lilulV, and twenty-two heavy guns were mounted 
on them. The g\ui-boats ha<l been brought up to the mouth of a little creek that traverses a 
ravine at Pittsburg liandiiig, and up that hollow they hurled 7-inch shells and G4-pound shot in 
curves that caused them to drop into the nu"dst of the Confederates. At nine o'clock in the 
evening the battle ceased. 



1862.] 



LINCOLN'S ADMINISTRATION. 



603 



Buell had been slowly advancing to join Grant. His vanguard appeared 
on the opposite side of tlie Tennessee toward the evening of the day of battle. 
These crossed ; and all night long other battalions of BnelFs army were com. 
ing up the river. At midnight General Lewis Wallace, who had been ordered 
up from Crump's Landing, arrived with his division. Grant's army was now 
safe. The fruits of victory were snatched from Beauregard. Before sunrise next 
morning Wallace opened the contest anew on the Confederate left, where Beau- 
regard commanded in person. Others speedily co-operated, and again the bat- 
tle became general along the whole line. The Confederates were steadily 
jjvessed back by a superior force, all the while fighting most gallantly. They 
were pushed through and beyond the National camps seized by them on Sun- 
day morning. Perceiving that all was lost, they fled, in the midst of a cold 
storm of rain and sleet, to the heights of Jlontevey, in the direction of Corinth, 
covered by a strong rear-gnard under Breckenridge,' and there encamped. 
They had lost over 10,000 
men in battle, and full 
300 of the wounded died 
during that terrible re- 
treat of nine miles.' Fif- 
teen thousand of the 
Nationals were killed, 
wounded, and prisoners, 
and the hospital steamers 
that went down the Ten- 
nessee were crowded with 
the sick and maimed 
The slain troops were 
speedily buried, the dead 
liorses were burned, and 
every sanitary jirecaution vas observed. Tlie Confederates were not pursued 
far in their flight ; and both parties, one on the battle-field and the other at 
Corinth, prepared for a renewal of the struggle. 

Beauregard's army was so shattered, that he sent an imploring cry from 
Corinth to Richmond for help.^ The way seemed opened for his immediate 
destruction, and Grant was anxious to walk vigorously in it. But his superior, 
General Halleck, who now came from St. Louis [April 12] and took command 




BUKNINa HORSES ON SHILOU BATTLE-GROUND. 



' Hia force was about 12,000 men. Beauregard said to him, " This retreat must not be a 
rout. You must liold tlio enemy back, if it requires tlie loss of vour last man." 

' An eye-witness wrote: — "I passed long wagon-trains tilled with wounded and dying sol- 
diers, without even a blanket to shield tliem from the drivmg sleet and hail." Beauregard 
reported his loss at 1.728 killed, 8,012 wounded, and 957 missing — total, 10.697 Grant reported 
his lo.ss 1,7:!5 killed, 7,SS2 wouuded, and 3,956 prisoners — total, 13,573. Subsequent statements 
show that the loss on each side was about 15,000. 

' Ho said he coidd not then muster more than 35,000 effective men, but tluit Earl Van Dorn 
[see page 592] might join liim in a few days with 15,000. He asked for ro-euforcements, and 
said. — "If defeated here we lose the Mississippi Valley, and probahly om- cause." This dis- 
patoli, written in cipher, Gener.al Mitehel intercepted at Huntsville, when he seized the telegraph 
office there. 



604 



T II K NATION. 



[iec2. 



of the victorious army, thought otlitTwisc, and the iini)aticnt troops loitered 
near Corinth until their foe had fully prepared for another contest. Twenty 
days after the l)attle, the Grand Arm ij of Tennessee, nf. it was now called, 
moved [April 27] nine miles, and a week later [May ;!d] it moved near to 
Corinth, making vigorous use all the while of pick-a.x and spade. On that 
day troops under Generals Paine and Palmer pushed on to Farmington, east 
of Corinth, and fought and conquered Confederates at an out-post there, but 
they in turn were driven back to their lines. For twenty-seven days longer 
the Nationals kept digging and piling the earth, in a siege of the Confederates, 
who were every day growing stronger, and continually annoying the besiegers 
by sorties. Finally, on the 20th of May, the Confederates were expelled from 
their advanced batteries, and Ilalleck prejjared for a sanguinary battle the 
next morning. All that night the vigilant ears of his sentinels heard the con- 
tinuous roar of moving cars at Corinth, and their lips rejiorted to their chief. 

At dawn [May 'M\ skirmishers were sent 
out, but no foe. confronted them. Then 
the earth was shaken by a series of ex- 
plosions, and dense smoke arose from the 
bosom of Corinth. " I cannot explain 
it," said Ilalleck to an inquiry made by 
Sherman, when told to "advance and 
feel the enemy." There was no enemy 
there to feel. Beauregard had evacuated 
Corinth during the night, burned and 
blow up what he could not carry away, 
and after an exciting flight before pur- 
suers for a short distance, tlie ridiculous 
boaster' gathered his scattered troops at 
Tupelo, many miles southward of 
Corinth, and there left them (as he suji- 
posed temporarily) in charge of Bragg, while he retired to Bladen Springs, in 
Alabama, to find re))ose and health.' Ilalleck took possession of Corinth, anil 
shortly afterward he was called to Washington City, to perform the duties of 
General-in-Chief of all the armies of the I\epid)lic. 

Meanwhile there had been stirring events on the shores of the Mississippi. 
Soon after tire capture of New Madrid and Island Number Ten,' Commodore 
Foote went down the river with his flotilla, and General Pope's army on 




p. O. T. BEACREfiARn. 



' On the Sill of May Beiuiregard is.siieil a pompous atldie.ss to liis army, then composed of his 
own and llie forces of Van Dorn. ''Shall we not drive back to Tennessee," ho said, "the pre- 
sumptuous mercenaries collected for our s\ibjugation ? One more manly efl'ort. and. trustinjf in 
God and the justness of our cause, wo sliall recover more than we lately lost. Let the sound of 
our victorious jjuns bo re-echoed by those of Virginia on the liistoric battle-field at Yorktown." 
On that day the Confederates tied from Yorktown before itcClellan's troops. 

' Jefferson Pavis. whose will w.ns now law, took this occasion to pet rid of Benurepard, and 
put Bragg in permanent command of the army. He '-passionately declared." said the Confede- 
rate General Jordan, that Beauregard should not be reinstated, "though all the world sliould »rge 
him to the measure." 

' Page 699. 



I8G2.] 



LINCOLN'S ADMINISTRATION. 



005 




A MORTAR-BOAT. 



transports, to attempt tlie capture of Memphis. At Fort Pillow, on the first 
Chickasaw bluffs, eighty miles above Memphis by the river, the expedition 
was confronted by a Confederate flotilla under Ilollins,' and three tliou- 
saud troops under M. JeflT. Thompson.' The post was besieged by Foote 
on the 1 4th of April, with gun-boats and mortar-boats, while Pope's troops 
obeyed Ilalleclc's call to Shiloh. The 
navy was left to do the work ; but there 
was no serious fighting until the 10th of 
May, when Ilollins attacked the flotilla. A 
sharp fight ensued between the armored 
vessels, while the heavy guns of the fort 
assisted HoUins, but he was repulsed; 
nd for more than a fortnight afterward 
the two flotillas lay watching each other. 
Then a " ram" squadron under Colonel 
Charles EUet, Jr.' joined the National 
flotilla, and preparations were made for 
another battle, when, on the night of the 
4th of June, the Confederates, having 
heard of the retreat of Beauregard from Corinth, fled from Fort Pillow, fleet 
and army, as fast as steam could carry them, and took position for tlie defense 
of Memphis. Commodore Davis (Foote's successor') followed, and in a very 
severe engagement with the Confederate flotilla in front of Memphis [June 6, 
1 862] was victorious. Tliompsou and his troops fled, and the National stand- 
ard was soon seen floating in the air over the aftrighted town. This event 
was soon followed by the entrance and occupation of the city by troops under 
General Wallace, fresh from the successful siege of Corinth. 

All Kentucky, Western Tennessee, and Northern Mississippi and Alabama, 
were now in the possession of the National authorities, and it was confidently 
expected that East Tennessee would almost immediately be in the same posi- 
tion. Wlien Buell joined Mitchel, after the close of the siege of Corinth, the 
latter urged his superior to march directly into and occupy that region. But 
Buell would not consent, and various efibrts which Mitchel had made, pre- 
paratory to such an expedition, were rendered almost fruitless. His com- 
manders had been keeping danger from his rear and making the foe on his 
front exceedingly circumspect. Negley, Turchin, Lytic, and others had been 
operating in the region of the railwaj' between Decatur and Columbia ; and the 
first-named had climbed over the mountains northeast of Stevensen, drove the 



' Page 600. ' Page 57.^. 

' Tills squadron had been suggested by Colonel EUet, who was the eminent civil engineer 
who constructed the Niagara Suspension Bridge, and under his superintendence the rams 
had been built. They were river boats, some with stern wheels and some with side 
wheels, whose bows were strengthened by additions of heavy timber, and covered with plates 
of iron. 

* At the siege of Fort Donelson Commodore Foote's ankle had received a severe contusion 
from a piece of falling timber. It became so painful, that on the 9th of May he was compelled to 
withdraw from active service. On retiring, he left the command of the flotilla with Captain C. H. 
Davis. 



606 



TIIK X AT lux. 



[18C2. 



Coiifl'iloratos lifiVirc liiin mar .Tas|icr, ami oii I lie Till <it" .Iuir' [1862] appeared 
on the 'ri'iniessi'i' Itivor, opposilt' C'liattanoogji. With a little help, that key 
to East Tennessee and Northern Georgia might have been captured and held, 
but it was refused ; and ten days afterward, when the Confederates, without a 
struggle, evacuated Cuniherlnnd Ga]), the "Gibraltar of the ISFountains," and 
allowed (ieneral George W. IMorgan, with a few Ohio and Kentucky troops, 
to occupy it, Buell refused to march in at the open door, to the relief of East 
Tennessee, and llie ]u'rse<'uted inhalntaiits of that loyal region were comjx'lled 
to wait much longer ibr deliverance. The cautious Buell and the fiery Mitchel' 

did not work well together, and the 
latter was transferred to another field 
of duty. For a short time now there 
was a lull in the storm of war westward 
of the .Vlleghanies, but it was only the 
calm before a more furioiis tempest. 

Let us now turn to .a consideration 
of events on the coast of Xorth Caro- 
lina, where we left IJurnsido and the 
accompanying naval ibrce,' preparing 
for more contpiests. That expedition 
ai)i)eared in the Xeuse River, below 
New Berne, on the evening of the 12th 
of March [18G2], and early the next 
morning about fifteen thousand land 
1 roops went ashore, and marched toward 
the defenses of that city, which were in charge of a force under General 
Branch. At daylight on the 14th the Nationals moved to the attack in three 
columns, commanded respectively by Generals Foster, Reno, and Parke, the 
gim-boats in tlio liver, mider Commodore Rowan, co-operating. .V \ery severe 
battle ensued, in which the Nationals were conquerors. Pressed on all sides 
by a sui)erior force, the Confederates fled from the fiehl across the Trent, 
burning the l)ridges behind them, and escaped, witli the e.\ce])tion of the killed 
and wounded and two huiKlicd made prisoners.' The Nationals took j)osse«- 




ORMSBY M. MITCHBI,. 



' With tho sanction of Gcnernl Buell, Mitchel sent out an import.nnt expeilition toward the 
middle of April. It was composed of twenty-two piclved men, led by J. J. Andrews, and their 
duty was to destroy tho railway between Clnittanooga and Atlanta. They went in detach- 
ments to Marietta, in Georgia, wlierc tliey joined, and at a station a few miles northward of that 
town they seized tlio train in whieh they wcri^ travelincr. while the conduetor and passencers 
were at breal<fast, and started for Chattanooga, doing what damage tliey eonlil to tlie road. They 
were pnrsiied, and were fnially so closely jiressed that they abandoned tho train and fled to the 
woods. Some escaped, some were captured, and nine of them, including Andrews, the leader, 
were hung. 

" Page 590. 

' The National loss was about one hundred killed and four hundred wounded. The loss of 
tho Confederates, in killed and wounded, was Ics.s. Tlie spoils of victory were important, con- 
si.sting of the town and harbor of New Berne; eight batteries, mounting forty-six heavy giins; 
three batteries of light artillery, of si.x guns each; a nundier of sailing vessels; wagons. Iiorses, 
and mules ; a large iiuantity of ammunition and army supplies ; the entire camp equipage of tho 
Confederates, and much turpentine, roain, and cotton. Most of the while inhabitants fled to 
Goldsboro', on tho Weldon Itailway. 



1862."] 



LINCOLN'S A 1 1 M I X t S T RATI X . 



6or 



sion of the city of Xow Ik'nio, and tlicu jirocecded to altumpt the ca]>ture of 
Fori ^lacoii, at tlie cntraiu-o to tlic harbor of Beaufort. The expedition was. 
intrusted to tlie eor.uuand of General Foster, who efteoted a lodgment on 
Bogue Island, a long sand-spit on which Fort Macon stands, and from bat- 
teries whieh ho planted there he liegan a bombardment of the fort on the 
morning of the 25th of April. Some gun-boats, under Commander Lockwood, 
participated in the attack. At four o'clock in the afternoon the garrison gave 
tokens of submission, and early the next day the fort and its occupants were 
surrendered to the Nationals." At the same time troops under General Reno 
were quietly taking possession of important places along the waters of .Mbe- 
marle Sound and threatening Norfolk in the rear. At a place called South 
]Mills, near Camden Court House, Reno's troops encountered the Confederates 
in a sharp engagement, and defeated tliem. Winton, at the head of the 
Chowan ; Plymouth, at the mouth of the Roanoke, and Washington, at the 
Iiead of the Pamlico River, were all seized and occupied by the National 
troops. Burnside now heltl almost undisputed sway over the coast region, from 
the Dismal Swamp nearly to the Cape Fear River, uutil called to the Virginia 
Peninsula, in July, to assist McCIellan. 

While Burnside and Rowan were operating on the coast of North Carolina, 
Sherman and Dupont' were engaged in inii)ortant movements on the coasts of 
South Carolina and Georgia, liaving for their first object the capture of Fort 
Pulaski, on Cockspur Island, near the mouth of the Savannah River. Bat- 
teries were planted on Big Tybec Island, under the skillful direction of General 
Q. A. Gillmore, so as to command the fort;' an<l on the 10th of April [18C2| 



' Burnside made his head-qiiartei<s at tlie fine old Stanley mansion in tho suburbs of New 
Berne. Almost before the smoke of battle was dissipated, tlie Cliristian spirit of tho friends of 
the government was made conwpieuous in acts of 
benevolence. Vincent Oolyer, a citizen of New 
York, and originator of tho Christian Commission 
of tho army, was with the exi.iedition on an errand 
of mercy. Under the .sanetiun.of liumside, he dis- 
tributed to tho sick and wounded tho generous 
contributions of the loyal citizens of tho North, and 
assumed a Ibsteriusj care of the poor and ignorant 
colored people, from whose limbs the hand of the 
victor had just unloosed the shackles of hopeless 
slavery. lie opened evening schools, and had over 
eight liundred eager pupils, when Edward Stanley, a 
North Carolinian, who had boon aiipointed Military 
tJovernor of the State, making use of one of tho 
barliarous slave-laws of that commonwealth, which 
made it "a criminal oft'euse to teach the blacks to 
read," closed them. Stanley also made zealous ef- 
forts to return fugitive slaves to their masters; and 
the hopes of that down-trodden race in that region, 
which were so delightfully given in promises, were 
suddenly extinguished. Stiwiley's administration was happily a short one. 

' Tho fruits of the victory were the fort and live hundred prisoners, the command of tho 
important harbor of Beaufort, twenty thousand pounds of gunpowder, and a large amount of other 
ordnance stores. 

= Pago 582. 

* Tho planting of these batteries, all things considered, was a wonderful feat of engineering 
skill. The island is a marsh, and the armament had to be carried over it on causeways built with 
great labor. "No one," said Gillmore, in his report, "can form any but a faint conception of the 




colyer's IIEAD-QU-VKTERS. 



t;08 



THK XATION. 



[1843 



•Geiici:il Iluiilti-, llnu in coiiiiiiaiul of the Department, summonetl the garri- 
son ti) surrcndei-. It was refused, and thirty-six heavy rifled cannon and 

mortars, constituting 
eleven batteries, opened 
fire upon it. Tlie bom- 
Lardnient continued un- 
til late the next day, 
M'hen tlic fort was so 
shattered and its maga- 
zines so exposed to fiery 
missiles, that it was un- 
tenable.' On the morn- 
ing of tlie 12th, the 
fort, with its garrison 
of tln-eo liundred men 
and c()nsi<lerable spoil, 
was surrendered to the 
Nationals. The battle 
had been a liard-fought 
FORT .1. .-.M ..„, i. ,ii„. ^*"'' almost bloodless 

one." The victory was 
import ant, for it enabled tlie Xationals to close the port of Savannah against 
blockade-runners.' 

While Gillmore and Vielc were besieging Fort Pulaski, Commodore Dupont 
and General Wright were making easy conquests on the coast of Florida. 
They captured Fort Clinch, on the northern end of Amelia Island, early in 
February [1862], and this was the first of the old National fortifications 
" repossessed" by the government. The Confederates fled from the fort, and 
from the town of Fernandina near. They abandoned other forts along the 
coast in the same way, and the Nationals took possession of tlicni. A flotilla 
of gim-boats and transports, with troops, under Lieutenant Thomas Holdup 
Stevens, was sent up the St. John's Kiver to capture Jacksonsville (March 11), 
and was successful. At about the same time Commander C. R. P. Rogers 




herculean labor by wliicli mortars of eight nud a half tons weight, and columbiads but a trifle 
lighter, were moved in the dead of night over n narrow causeway bordered by swamps on each 
side, and liable at any moment to be overturned and buried in the m>id beyond reach."' The 
caiisewaj'S were built of poles and planks, and the giuis were placed in battery on heavy plank 
platforms. 

' Ten of the g\ins of the fort were dismo\intod; and so destructive of masonry liad been tho 
Parrott projectiles, that there was imminent danger of their penetrating the magazine. Some of 
these projectiles went through six or seven feel of solid brick wall I 

'■■ The assailing troops were under the immediate command of General Viele. He had but one 
man killed Tlio spoils were, the fort, forty-seven heavy gims, forty thousand pounds of gun- 
powder, and a largo supply of lixed ammunition and conuiii.ssary stores. 

' Wo have seen [page 5G1] how the British government proclaimed its neutrality at tho 
beginning. British .subjects at once entered into the dishonorable business of violating tho 
blockade, not only declared [page 5G0]. but well sustained by force, and supjilyiiig the insurgents 
with arms, ammunition, and necessaries of every kind. Fast-sailing steamers were built for the dur- 
pose, and pamted a pray color, so as not to be distinguished in even a light fog. They frequently 
■eluded tho blockaders, and rfidercd great service to the enemies of our government. 



18G2.] 



LINCOLN'S ADMINISTRATION. 



609 



took possession of St. Augustine ; and the Confederates abandoned Pensacola 
and tlie fortifications on the main opposite Fort Pickens. Dupont returned to 
Port Royal at tlie close of March, and found Sherman in possession of Edisto 
Island, well up toward Charleston. And so it was, that before the first anni- 
versary of the fall of Fort Sumter, the whole Atlantic coast, from Cape Ilat- 
teras to Perdido Bay, excepting the harbor of Charleston and its immediate 
surroundings, had been abandoned by the insurgents. 

Turning again to Hampton lloads, we see General Butler there at the head 
of another expedition.' He had completed his recruiting in New England," 
and on the 23d of February [1862] he received orders, as commander of the 
Department of the Gulf, to co-operate with the navy, first in the capture of 
New Orleans and its approaches, and then in the reduction of Mobile, Galves- 
ton, and Baton Rouge, with the ultimate design of occupying Texas. On the 
2.5th of February he sailed from Hampton Roads with nearly 14,000 men; 
and thirty days later lie re-embarked on Ship Island, off the coast of Missis- 
sippi, in the Gulf of Mexico. It was already in possession of National troops, 
under General Phelps, and a naval force was there under Commodores Farragut 
and Bailey. With these officers Butler arranged a plan of operations against 
New Orleans. A fleet of bomb-vessels 
under Commander David D. Porter had 
been prepared to co-operate with the 
forces which rendezvoused at Ship 
Island, and early in April an extensive 
armament was in the Mississippi River,' 
|)r(>]>arcd to attack Forts Jackson and 
St. Philip, on the banks of that stream, 
at a sharp bend, seventy-five miles above 
the passes of the river into the Gulf 

General jMansfield Lovell, formerly a 
New York politician, was in command 
at New Orleans and of its defenses, 
among which were the forts just named.'' 
He and the people of that region sup- 
posed these defenses to be impregnable,' 
and they rested in fancied security until late In April, when startling events 
undeceived them. 

All things were in readiness for an assault on the forts on the 1 Tth [April, 
1862], and a battle with these fortifications began on the morning of the 18th, 




D. D. PORTER. 



' Page 579. ' Page 580. 

' The fleets of Farragut and Porter comprised forty-seven armed vessels, eight of which were 
large and powerful steam sloops of war. Butler's troops, composed of Massachusetts, Connecti- 
cut, Indiana, Wisconsin, and Michigan men. were borne on five transports. 

' Fort Jackson was built by the government. Fort St. Philip was an old Spanish work, 
which figured somewhat in the war of 1812. They were near each other, on opposite sides of 
the river. The general command of these, and other river defenses below New Orleans, was 
intrusted to General J. R. Duncan, formerly an ofBce-holder in the city of New York. 

* A leading newspaper said: — "Our only fear is that the Northern invaders may not appear. 
Wa have made such extensive preparations to receive them, that it were vexatious if their invin- 

89 



610 



THE NATION. 



[1862. 



Farragut commanding the squadron of guu-l)o:its, and Porter the mortar fleet, 
the former being tlie eliief offieer. Soon jjerceiving but little chance for redu- 
cing the forts, Farragut made arrangements to run by them with his gun-boats. 
This was attempted on the night of the 23d, the mortar-boats keeping their 
position and covering the advance witli their lire. It Avas a most jierilous 
undertaking. Obstructions l)elow the fort were first removed, and then, under 
the heavy fire of tlie Confederates, the squadron moved up the swift current 
(the Mississippi was full to the brim), and soon encountered a ibrmidable fleet 
of rams and gun-boats lying just above the forts. One of the most terrific 
na\al fights on record ensued,' in which Farragut and commanders Bailey and 
Boggs were most conspicuous. It resulted in victory for the Nationals. 
Within the space of an hour and a half after the National vessels left their 
anchorage, the forts were passed, the struggle had occurred, and eleven of the 
Confederate vessels, or nearly the whole of their fleet, were destroyed.' The 
National loss was thirty men killed, and not more than one hundred and 
twenty-five wounded. All of Farragut's vessels wliicli liad passed the forts, 
thirteen in number, rendezvoused at the Quarantine, Avhich was the first gov- 
ernment property in Louisiana " repossessed " by the National forces. 

While this desperate battle was raging, the land troops under Butler 
were preparing to perform their part in the drama. They were landed in 
the rear of Fort St. Philip, and in small boats they made their way to the 
Quarantine on the Mississippi [Ajiril 27] through narrow and shallow bayous. 
Their appearance alarmed the Confederates, and a mutiny in the garrison of 
Fort Jackson, caused by their menace, compelled the surri'nder of the forts.' 
Meanwhile Farragut had gone up to New Orleans with his fleet. lie had been 
preceded l)y intelligence of disasters below, and there was a fearfid panic in 
the city. Four millions of specie was sent away by the banks, and a vast 
amount of private proi)erty, with many citizens, was soon on the wing. 

cible armada escapes the fate we have in store for it." In and around New Orleans was a force 
of about 1.0.000 armed men. In order to deceive tlie people, it was given out by the authorities 
that there were more than 30.000 troops ready for tlie defense of the city; and the redoubtable 
Hollins was spoken of as ''a Nelson in his way 1'' 

' "Combine," said Major Bell, of Butler's staff, who was present, "all that you have ever 

lieard of thunder, and add to it all you 
have ever seen of lightuinp, and you 
have, perhaps, a conception of tho 
scene." And all this noise and destruc- 
tive energy — blazing lire-rafts sent 
down upon the current to destroy the 
National vessels ; the floating volcanoes 
sending forth fire, and smoke, and bolts 
of death, and tho thundering forts and 
ponderous rams — were all crowded, in 
the gloom of night, within the space of 
a narrow river. 

■■' Among the vessels destroyed waa 
tho ram Manassa.':, whicli was set on 
fire, and went roaring down tho stream. 
Finally, like a liugo amphibious mon- 
ster. It gave a plunge, and disappeared in the turbulent waters. 

• The number of prisoners, including some taken at tho Quarantine, was about 1.000. The 
entire loss of the Nationals, from the beginning of tliis contest until the capture of New Orleans 
was 40 killed and IT" wounded. 




BAM "MANASSAS" ON PmE. 



1862 ] 



LINCOLN'S ADMIXISTRATION. 



611 




THE LEVEE AT NEW ORLEANS. 



Women were seen in the streets crying, " Burn tlie city ! burn tlie city !" 

Vehicles wei-r evei-ywhere observed carrying cotton to the levee to be 

destroyed; and when, on the 2.5th, Farragut, with nine vessels, approached 

the town, a sheet 

of flame and pall 

of smoke, caused 

by the burning of 

cotton, sugar, and 

other property, 

was seen along the 

levee a distance of 

five miles.' The 

city was utterly 

defenseless. The 

troops had mostly 

tied, and Farragut 

lield the rebellious 

citizens in check by the fear of his shells," until the arrival of General Butler ■ 

with his troops on the first of May. These were landed. The General made 

his head-quarters at the St. Charles Hotel, and there, in conference with the 

city authorities and some leading citizens, he foreshadowed a policy that proved 

etfeetual in maintaining order. By the most vigorous action the rebellious 

spirit of leading politicians was subdued, the refractory were punished, the 

poor were relieved, and the peaceful were protected.' The capture of New 

' More than a dozen large ships, some of them laden with cotton, and as many magnificent 
steam-boats, with unfinished gun-boats and other vessels, were seen in flames. In this confla- 
gration no less than 15,000 bales of cotton, valued at $1,500,000, were consumed. 

' Captain Bailey was sent ashore with a flag to demand the surrender of the city,- and the 
taking down of the Confederate flag from the government custom-house and mint. This was 
refused, when a force landed, and unfurled the National flag over the mint. As soon as the force 
retired, some young men, led by a notorious gamljler named Miunford. pulled it down and dragged 
it in derision through the streets. 'When Butler, who arrived soon afterward and took command, 
heard of this, he wrote to the Secretary of War, saying- — ''This outrage will' be; punished' in 
such manner as in my judgment will caution both tlie perpetrators and abettors of:th£ set, so 
that tliey shall fear the stripes if they do not reverence the stars of our banner." Mumford was 
afterward active in inciting a mob to violence, when he was arrested, tried for and convictedof ■ 
treason by a court-martial, and hung. 

' The Mayor of the city, John T. Monroe, one of the most A-ioIent of the Secessionists, was 
very refractory for a while, but. with all others like him, he was soon compelled to be quietLJ 
Butler discovered a list of subscribers, composed of bankers, merchants, and other wealthy citi-- 
zens, to a fund for carrying on the rebellion. These he assessed for the benefit of the poor, to 
the amount of twentVjfive per cent, on their subscription. Foolish women, of the wealthy and 
rebellious class, defied the military authority ; and one of these, with the low manners of the 
degraded of her sex. deliberately spat in the faces of two oiBcers in the street Forbearance was 
no longer a virtue, and Butler issued an order which eflectually cured the growing evil. It pub- 
licly directed the treatment of women, so acting, to be such as would be given to theabandcnecl 
of their sex.* This order, which was perverted and misrepresented, produced the most, intense 

• The foltoM ins is a copy of the document called the " Woman Order," dated New Orleans, May 15, 1862 : — 
" Generid Order Xo. 2S: 

■' As the officers and soldiers of the United States have been subject to repeated insults from the women (call- 
ins tliemselves ladies) of New Orleans, in return for the most scrupulous non-interference itnd courtesy on our 
part, it is ordered that hereafter, when any female shall, by word, gesture, or movement, insult or show contempt 
for any officer or soldier of the United States, she shall "be regarded and held liable to be treated as a -wom in of 
the town plying her avocation. 

" By command of 

Major-General Butlkb. 

"Gkoegb C. Stbo.ig. AasUtant Adjutant-General, Chief of Stajf."' 



612 



TllK NATION. 



riS62. 



Orleans was tlio luavicst hlow tlio Confederacy lnul yot received, and for 
a while it staggered under its infliction.' 

Let us now return to a consideration of the Army of the Potomac, which 
we left in a quiet condition after the little flurry at Drainsvillc. 

At the beginning of 1 862, when the Grand Army numbered full 200,000 
men, the prospect of its advance seemed more remote than ever, for the fine 

autumn weather liad been succeeded by 
storms and frost, and the roads were 
becoming wretched in Virginia. The 
people were impatient and the Presi- 
dent was dissatisfied, lie could get no 
satisfaction from the General-in-Chief 
(McClellan) when he inquired why that 
army did not move. He therefore 
summoned [January 10, 1802] Generals 
McDowell and Franklin to a conference 
with himself aud cabinet, for he had 
resolved that something must be done 
by the Army of the Potomac, either 
with or without the General-in-Chief. 
Other conferences were held, in which 
JMcClollan participated; and in a gene- 
ral order on the 27th of January, the President directed a simultaneous for- 
ward movement of all the " land and naval forces of the United States against 
the insurgent forces." This order sent a thrill of joy through every loyal 
heart. It was heightened by another order, directing McClellan to form all 
of tlie disposable forces of the army, after providing for the safety of Wash- 
ington, into an e.\'])oilitioii for o])erating against the Confederates at ^lanassas. 
But the General-in-Chief had other plans, and, instead of obeying, he remon- 
strated. He proposed to take his army to Richmond, by way of the Chesa- 
j)eake Bay and the peninsula between the York and James Rivers, instead of 
falling upon the Confederates at IManassas. Discussion followed. A council 
of oflicers decided in fivor of McClellan's plan. The President dissented from 
their views, but acquiesced in their decision. Orders were issued for the move- 
ment. Still there was delay, aii<l finally, on the 8th of ^larch, the Executive 
issued an order for the army to advance by the Chesapeake as early as the 18th 
of that month. , 

At that moment events were occurring which caused a material modifica- • 
tion of the i)lans of the General-in-Chief. The Confederates suddenly evacuated 
Manassas [March 8 and 9] and hastened toward Richmond. The Army of the 




GEO. B. M'CLELLAN. 



excitement throughout the Confederacy, and Davis issued a proclamation of outlawry against 
Butler. 

' " It annihilated us in Louisiana," said a Confederate historian of the war, "diminished our 
resources and supplies by the loss of one of the greatest grain and cattle countries within the 
limits of the Confederacy, gave to the enemy the Mississippi River, with all its means of naviga- 
tion, for a base of operations, and finally led. by plain and irresistible conolusioD, to our virtual 
ibaadonment of the great aud fruitful Valley of tho Mississippi." 



1862.] LINCOLN'S ADMINISTRATION. gl3 

Potomac followed as far as the deserted post, and some cavalry a little beyond ; 
and the loyal people rejoiced because the march on Richmond had begun. 
They were instantly disappointed. The whole Grand Army of the Potomac 
was ordered back, and the few Confederates who had been keeping it in check 
for months' were allowed to make their way peacefully to Richmond, and theie 
prepare to hold that grand army in check for many months at another point. 
Tiie government was now satisfied that the burden of care which had been 
laid upon the General-in-Chief was greater than he was able to bear, and the 
President kindly relieved him [March 11, 1862] of much of it, by dividing the 
great labor of command, and leaving in McClellan's charge only the Army of 
the Potomac." 

The evacuation of Manassas was simultaneous with the sudden appearance 
of a new na^■al power in Hampton Roads, the operations of which formed 
one of the causes for a modification of McClellan's plans for moving against 
Richmond. It was the notable iron gun-boat called the Monitor, constructed 
on a novel plan for oifensive and defensive war.^ It was then known that 
the Mcrrinutck, sunk at jSTorfolk,'' liad been raised and converted into a 
formidable iron-clad warrior. Its speedy appearance in Hampton Roads 
was expected, and dreaded, because it would greatly imperil the woodiii 
vessels of the government there. On the 8th of March it suddenly made its 
appearance. It moved directly upon the sailing frigates Congress and Ctan- 
berland, at the mouth of the James River, and destroyed them. It also 
attacked other armed vessels, and then seemed to take a little rest for the task 
of utterly destroying the warriors and transports in Hampton Roads on the 
following morning. The intervening night was consequently passed in great 
anxiety by the National commanders on land and water in that region. There 
seemed to be no competent human agency to avert the threatened disasters, 

' Johnston, informed cf the strengtli of tlie Army of the Potomac, was satisfied that he could 
not -n-itlistaud its advance, and liad been preparing for the evacuation for several weeks, but with 
such skill that Mc(!;ieUan was not aware of it. This was necessary, for his troops were so few 
that he could not form a resjjectable rear-guard to cover his retreat, with his supplies. Wooden 
guns took- till? place of some of .!iis licavy ones at Manassas, when his ordnance was sent away. 
So well had Jolmston managed to deceive McClellan as to his force, that on the day when he 
evacuated Manassas, the chief of McClellan's secret service corps reported 08,000 Confede- 
rate soldiers "within twenty mdes of Manassas," and a total of 115,000 in Virginia, with 300 
field-pieces, and twenty-six to thirty siege-guns '-before Washington." At the same time Gen- 
eral Wool, at Fortress Monroe, and General Wadsworth. back of Arlington Heights, gave the 
government (what were subsequently proven to be truthful) statements, from reliable information, 
that not over 50,000 troops -n-ere then in front of tlie Army of the Potomac. The actual number 
seems to have been but -10,000. 

' By tlie President's order, dated March 11, 1862, General McClellan was relieved of the com- 
mand of other military departments. To General Halleck was given the command of the troops 
in the "S'alley of the Mississippi and westward of the longitude of Kno.-sville. m Tenuessce ; and a 
Mountain Department, consisting of the region between Halleck and McClellan, was created and 
placed in charge of General Fremont. The commanders of departments were ordered to report 
directly to the Secretary of War. 

' This vessel presented the appearance on the water of a simple platform, sharp at each end. 
lying just above the surface, on whicli was a round revolving iron Martello tower, twenty feet in 
diameter and ten feet in height above the deck, and pierced for two guns. This turret, or tower, 
was made to revolve, so that the guns could be brought to bear independent of the position of 
the hull of the vessel. The hull and turret w-ere of heavy iron, and impervious to shot and 
shell. This vessel was the invention of Captain John Ericsson, a scientific Swede, who had then 
been a President of this country full twenty years. Theodore R. Timby invented the revolving 
turret. * Page 558. 



614 1'"1'' NATION. _ [18G2. 

>v1r'1), !it a little past iniilnight [Manli 0, IsO'.'], a mysterious tiling canie in 
from the sea between the eajies of Vii-ginia. lighted en its way by the blazing 
Co«//re.f.«.' It was the J/oni/cr on its trial trip, eoniniaii<leil by Lieutenant 
John L. Worden.' That gallant oflicer was soon niaile ac(|iiainteil with tlie 
situation, and juvpared to meet the iKvouring monster in the morning. Before 
sunrise, on that beautif'id Sabbath day, it came sweeping down the Elizabi'th 
River. The JA<«/Vw, like a little David, hastened to meet the Confederate 
Goliath. As it drew near, its invulnoralile citadel began to move, and from 
it were liurled i)onderous shot in (piiok succession. These were ansAvered by 
broadsides from the Merrimack. The combat was terrible. From the turret 




CO.MIiAT UETWEES THE MOXITOR AND MERIilMACK, 

and deck of the JfonitDr heavy round shot and conical bolts glanced oft' as 
jiebblcs would lly from contact with solid granite. The J/< /v/w((/cA' was finally 
disabled by its mysterious antagonist, and fled U]i to Norfolk.' The safe navi- 
gation of TIani])ton IJoads, and, to some e.vtent, that of the James River, was 
secured to the National vessels. The event ])ro<biced joy in every loyal heart, 
and Ericsson, the inventor, and Wordcn, the commander, shari'd in the jniblic 
gratitudi.' 

Impressed with the belief that the navigation of the James River was now 

' The Cumberland wns smik niul the Congreff was set on fire liy the MeiTimack. The ni.npn- 
ziue of the latter cxplodeil, i\ii<l destroyed wliat was lelt of her bv the Haines. Kearly oue-hnlf 
of the otTicei's and erews of liolli vessels were killed or wounded. Of the 4:i4 men of the CoiKjre.'S, 
only one-half responded to then' names the next niornini;: at Kewporl-Xewee. The dead wore 
buried at that jilaee, ami their remains are amonir those of scores of I'nion soldiers. On a board, 
in the fnrrii of n eross, at the head of one of tlie latter, wlioso name and history are nnknown, 
niipht have been read in ISGO one of the most touching and luietical epitaphs ever inscribed. It 
read: " .\ Soldier op tue Union mustered out." 

' Note 1, pnpe fiSl. 

' Franklin Bnehanan, a veteran ofileer of the National navy, who had abandoned his flap, was 
the cominaialer of the Menimack (which the Confederates mmied Virtjiiiio), and was so badly 
wounded in the enffntrement that he was iiulitted for service for some time. 

' W(ir(!en was severely nijnred dm'injr the eniras'emcnt. In the turret of the Monitor was » 
email jvep-hole. out of which the commander mijrht .sec how to direct the Itirninpof it, so as to bring 
the puns properly to bear. While Worden was looking throuph this, a heavy shot struck scpiarely 
in front of the peep-hole, shivering some cement there and casting it violently iuto the face nud 



1862.] LINCOLN'S ADMINISTRATION. gl5 

five for tlie National gun-boats, McClellan, in arcorilance with the decision of 
a eoimcil of officers [^March ];>], proceeded to transfer tlie Army of the I'otomac 
to Fortress Monroe, from which, as a base, it might march on Richmond. It 
was important for the security of Washington City, at tlio same time, to hold 
the Confederates in cheek in the Shenandoah Valley. Already the dashing 
General Lander, by a successful attack on "Stonewall Jackson'" at Blooming 
Gap [February It, ISii'Jj, hail niadi- that leader circumspect. Now General 
N. P. Banks was in command in the Valley. When Johnston evacuated 
Manassas, Jackson, who liad taken post at Winchester, moved fartlier up the 
Valley, followed by some of Banks's troops. The latter fell back, and a con- 
siderable force under General Shields took post at Winchester. Jackson 
returned, and at Kernstown, near Winchester, he and Shields had a severe 
engagement on the 22d of March,' at the close of which the defeated Confe<le- 
rates went in swift retreat u\t the Valley, followed far by Banks, who remained 
in that region to watch the foe, while McClellan should move on Richmond 
by way of the Virginia Peninsula. 

At the beginning of April McCIellan was at Fortress Monroe, and began 
his march [April 5] up the Peninsula, with fifty thousand men, in two columns, 
led respectively by Generals ITeintzelmau' and Keyes, one in the direction of 
Yorktown and the other toward Warwick Court House, nearer tlie James 
River. The Confederates, undia- Magruder,'' about eleven thousand strong, 
were stretched across SrcClellan's pa.th, from the York to the James, and by a 
skillful and deceptive display of strength in ininibers, kept the Army of the 
Potomac before them (which speedily numbered one hundred thousand men) 
at bay for a month,' its leader calling earnestly for re-enforcements to enable 
liim to move forward. He closely besieged his foes at Yorktown, and when 
the latter jierceived that it was no longer prudent to remain, they fled up the 
Peninsula [May 3, 18C2] and made a stand behind a strong line of works in 
front of Williamsbui-g. Tlu' bulk of the National army pursued, under the 
directions of General Sunnier, while ^[cClellaii i-emained at Yorktown, to 
Bupcrintend the forwarding of an expedition up the York River, under General 
Franklin, to flalik the Confederates. 

eyes of tlie commander. Tlie shock was so great that the persons in the turret were prostrated. 
Only Worden was seriously hurt. For several days afterward his life was ia great peril. He 
recovered, and did gallant service afterward on the Southern coast. 

' Thomas J. Jackson, who became ono of the most renowned of the Confederate leaders, was 
in command of a brigade at the battle of Bull's Run, where his men jjallantly withstood all 
assaults. "See!" exclaimed another leader (General Bee), when trying to rally panic-stricken 
troops, "there stands .Tackson like a stone wall!" The latter was ever afterward called "Stone- 
wall .laokson," and his troops the "Stonewall Brigade." 

' Sliields reported his loss at iiearlv GOO men, of whom 103 were killed, Jackson's loss was 
over 1.000. It was estimated at L.'JOO by Shields. 

' In Ueintzelman's column were the divisions of Fitz-John Porter, Hamilton, and Sedgwick; 
and with Kovcs were tlie divisions of Generals Couch and W. F. Smith. 
) ' I'age uG2. 

' The tedious operations of a regular siege, by casting up intrenchments, were under the 
direction of tieneral Porter. Frequent skirmishes occurred during the siege, but only ono that 
h.id the semblance of a battle. That was on the IGth of .\pril, when General Smith atUicked the 
•Confoderatos on the Warwick River, between the mills of Lee and 'Winn, lie was repulsed, with 
the loss of ono hundred men on his jiart and of seventy-five on the part of his foe. McCld' 
Urn's anny suffered much from sickness during the mouth's detention in that swampy region. 



616 



THE NATION. 



[ISCZ 




The works in front of Williamsburg were strong, extending across that 
narrowest part of the Peninsula from estuaries of the York and James Rivers. 
There the Confederate leader left a strong rear-guard to check the pursuers, 
while the main body (a greater portion of which had not been below Williams- 
burg), then under the command of General Joseph E. Johnston, who had come 

down from Richmonil, should retreat up 
the Peninsula. Johnston's intention was 
to concentrate all his troops near Rich- 
mond, and then give battle. The pur- 
suing force, after their advance under 
General Stoneman had been checked in 
front of the Confederate works, pushed 
boldly up to attack them under such 
leaders as Hooker, Kearney, and Han- 
cock, who were conspicuous on that occa- 
sion. Hooker began the assault early on 
the morning of the 0th [May, 1862], and 
bore the brunt of battle almost nine 
consecutive hours, wlicn Kearney came 
to his assistance, and Hancock turned the 
left of the Confederates. The latter, overpowered, retreated, and such was 
their haste, that they loft nearly eight hundred of their wounded behind.' 
McClellan came upon the battle-field toward the close of the engagement, and 
the next morning he sent tidings of the victory to the government from tlie 
ancient capital of Virginia. Johnston was then pressing on toward the Chick- 
ahominy, with fearful anticipation of disaster if again struck in his retreat by 
the Nationals ; but the pursuit there ended, and JlcClellan's army, during the 
succeeding ten or fifteen days, made its way leisurely to the Chickahominy, 
behind which Johnston was then safely encamped.' In the mean time Frank- 
lin's expedition, too long held at Yorktown by the Commander-in-Chief to win 
the advantages of a flank movement, had secured a strong footing near the 
head of the York River, and there, on the bank of the Pamunkey River, Gene- 
ral McClellan established his base of su])])lics for the Army of the Potomac. 

On the 20th of May [1802], McClellairs army was on the borders of the 
Chickahominy River, and a portion of it, under General Casey, occupied the 
heights on the Richmond side of the stream, on the New Kent road. In the 
mean time important events had occurred in the rear of the Army of tlie Poto- 



J08EPH E. JOHNSTON. 



' So vifforoiia was tho assault of Hooker, that Johnston sent back a greater part of liis force 
to the assistance of liis rear-guard. The final retreat was made under the lead of General Long- 
street, one of the best of the Confederate generals. 

" On the evening after the battle, MoClellau telegraphed to the Secretary of War that the Con- 
federates were before him in force probably greater than his own, and strongly intrenched, and 
assured tho Secretary that he Rho\ild " run the risk of holding them in cheek there." At 
that time .Tohnston's 30,000 men wore fleeing as rapidly as possible toward the Chickahominy 
before McClellan's victorious KiO.OnO men. K.xperts on both sides declared that had the pursuit 
been continued, in the morning after the battle at Williamsburg, the National army might have- 
crushed that of tho Confederates, or followed them directly into Richmond. 



1862.] 



LINCOLN'S ADMINISTRATION. 



eir 



mac. General Wool,' in command at Fortress Monroe, had long desired to 
attempt the capture of Norfolk. Permission was at length given liim by tlie 
President and Secretary of War.' With a few regiments he landed [May 10, 
1862] in the rear of the Confederate works below Norfolk, and marched tri- 
umphantly toward the city. The Confederate forces tliere, under General 
Huger, destroyed the llerrirnack,^ and fled toward Petersburg and Richmond. 
Norfolk was surrendered to Wool by the civil authorities. The Confederate 
vessels of war in the James River fled up toward Richmond, and were followed 
by National gun-boats, under Commodore Rogers, to Drewry's Bluff, eiglit 
miles below the capital of the Confederates, where they were checked [May 
15] by a strong fort. 

Important events had also been occurring in the Shenandoah Valley and 
the adjacent region. At about the time of the siege of Yorktown, General 
Fremont was at Franklin, among the mountains of Western Virginia. Gene- 
ral Banks was at Strasburg, in the Shenandoah Valley, and General jMcDowell 
was at Fredericksburg, on the Rappahannock, for the double purpose of cover- 
ing Washington and co-operating with McClellan. Jackson had been joined 
by the skillful Ewell, in the vicinity of Harrisonburg. Other troops were near,, 
and he was watching Banks closely. At McDowell [May 8], west of Staunton,. 
he struck one of Fremont's brigades, under General Milroy, a severe blow^ 
while Ewell pressed Banks back to Strasljurg. Jackson and Ewell soon after- 
ward captured and dispersed [May 23] a National force under Colonel Kenly> 
at Front Royal, and sent Banks flying down the Shenandoah Valley from 
Strasburg, hotly pursued to Winchester. There Ewell attacked him [May 25],^ 
and after a severe contest he continued liis 
flight to the banks of the Potomac, near Wil- 
liamsport. The National capital was now in 
peril, and McDowell was ordered to send a 
large force over the Blue Ridge, to intercept 
the Confederates, if they should retreat, while 
Fremont should march on Strasburg from the 
west, for the same purpose. Jackson perceived 
his peril, and his whole force fled up the valley 
in time to elude the troops on cheir flank. 
Fremont pursued them up the main vallev, and 
Shields, with a considerable force, marched 
rapidly up the parallel Luray Valley. At a 
place called Cross Keys, near Harrisonburg, 
Fremont overtook Ewell, when a severe but 

undecisive battle ensued [June 7]. Jackson was then at Port Republic, a few 
miles distant, sorely pressed by Generals Carroll and Tyler. He called Ewell 
to his aid. The latter moved oS in the nisrht. Fremont followed : but Ewell 




T. J. JACKSON. 



' Page 413, and note 5, page 579. 

' Wool's command was not under the direction of McClellan. 
one so long as that veteran was at the head of that department. 
= Page 6U. 



It remained an independent 



(J]^8 THE NATION [1862. 

managed to cross the Shenandoah and burn the hriilge behind him before Fre- 
mont could reach that stream. ^leanwhile Jackson's assailants liad been 
repulsed, and on the 9tli of June the whole National army on the Shenandoali 
retraced their steps. So ended the second great race of the National and Con- 
federate troops in the Shenandoah ^'alley. 

AVhen Rogers went up to Drewry's Bluff,' the James and York Rivers 
"were botli opened as highways for supplies for the .Vrmy of the Potomac. 
McClellan determined to continue his Viaso at the head of York, until he 
should form a junction with McDowell. That event was postponed by others 
in the Slienandoah Valley, just recorded, and the two great amiies stood face 
to face near Richmond toward the close of May, with little expectation of aid 
from their respective comrades in that Valley. Their first collision was on 
the 23d, near Mechanicsville, when the Confederates were driven, and the army 
and loyal people were thrilled by a general order issued by MeClellan the next 
day, which indicated an immediate ad-\'ance \ipon Richmond. Every thing 
was in readiness for the movement, and the Confederates were trembling in 
anticipation of it." MeClellan hesitated, and the golden moments of opportu- 
nity were spent in flank movements, which resnlted in severe struggles, that 
were fruitless of good to the National army.' 

The skillful and vigilant Johnston, soon perceiving the ])erilous position of 
the National forces, divided by the fickle Chickahominy,^ and the timidity of 
their chief,, marched boldly out fi-om his strong intrenchmcnts before Rich- 
mond to attack them. On the aftei-noon of the 31st [May, 18C2], a heavy 
force of the Confederates fell luriously upon the most advanced National 
troops, nuder General Cas(>y, and a sanguinary l>attle ensued. Casey fought 
his foe most gallantly, until one-third of his division was disabled, and he was 

• Page 617. 

' The appearance of Rogers's flotilla before Drewry's Bluflf simultaneously with McClellan's 
advance toward the Chickahomiuy produced tlie greatest consternation in Richmond, especially 
amouK the Secessionists. Davis, tlicir cliief. ahnost despaired, and the general expectation 
that the National forces would speedily march into Richmond, caused the chief leaders to make 
preparations for flight. The ''archives of the government." so called, were sent to Columbia, 
South Carolina, and to Lynchburg. The railway tracks over the bridges at Richmond were 
covered with planks, so as" to facilitate the passage of artillery, and every man who was active in 
the rebellion trembled with fear. The Legislature of A'irgiuia. then in session, disgusted with 
the cowardice and perfidy of Davis and his chief associates in crime, passed resolutions calling 
upon them to act with manliness and honor, and to stay and protect at all hazards the people they 
had betr,ayed. This action, it is believed, was inspired by the manly .Tohuston, then at the head 
of the army, whose virtues were a standing rebuke to the cold selfishness of the chief con- 
spirator. 

' The troops engaged were regular cavalry under General Emory ; Benson's horse-battery ; 
Morrell's division, composed of the brigades of Martindale, Buttertield, and McQuade, and Ber- 
dan's sharp-shooters; three batteries under Captain Griffin, and a "provisional brigiide," under 
Colonel G. K. Warren, in support. Their first encounter was near Hanover Court House [May 
27], when a charge by Buttorfield's brigade dispersed the Confederates. At the same time Gen- 
eral Martind.ilo was contending with fresh troops that came up from Richmond, and attacked him 
while moving between Peake's Station and Hanover Court House. Porter sent assistance to 
Martindale, w'hen the Confederates, outnumbered, fell back, with a loss of 200 men dead on the 
lield, and 700 made prisoners. The National loss was 350. 

* Tho Chickahominy River is a narrow stream, ami liable to a sudden and great increase of 
volume and overflow of^ its banks liy rains. For this reason it might, in a few hours, become an 
impassable barrier between Ixidies' of troops where bridges did not exist. In this instance the 
Confederates had destroyed the bridges. 



1S62.] LIXCOLX'S ADMINISTRATION, g^g 

driven back by an overwhelming force. Troops sent to his aid bj' Keyes 
could not withstand the pressure, and all were driven liack to Fair Oaks Sta- 
tion, on the Richmond and York River Railway, wliere the struggle continued. 
Heintzelman and Kearney pressed forward -with re-enforcements, but fresh 
Confederates were there to meet them, and it seemed at one time as if the 
whole of the National forces on the Richmond side of the Chickahominy were 
doomed to destruction. At that critical moment the veteran General Sumner 
appeared, with the divisions of Sedgwick and Richardson, and checked tlie 
Confederate advance by a storm of canister-shot from twenty-four guns. But 
they soon pressed forward again and fought gallantly, notwithstanding John- 
ston, their chief, wlio was directing the battle, was severely wounded and 
borne away. Finally, at eight o'clock in the evening, a bayonet charge by 
five regiments broke the Confederate line into dire confusion. The contest 
■was renewed in the morning [June 1], and after a struggle for several hours, 
in which Hooker's command also was engaged, the Confederates withdrew, 
and retired to Richmond that night. So ended the battle of Fair Oaks, or 
Seven Pines. 

For nearly a month after this the Army of the Potomac lay along the 
Chickahominy, a few miles from Richmond, in a very unhealthful situation, 
quietly besieging the Confederate capital. Robert E. Lee' succeeded John- 
ston, and he was joined by Jackson and Ewell, with a force so considerable 
that he prepared to strike McClellan a deadly blow. Fifteen hundred of his 
cavalry, under J. E. B. Stewart," made a complete circuit of the Array of the 
Potomac at the middle of June, threatening its supplies 'at the White ITouse,^ 
near the head of York River, and gaining valuable information. Meantime 
the public expectation was kept on the alert by frequent assurances that the 
decisive battle would l)e fought " to-mori-ow." For that purj)ose re-enforce- 
inents were called for, and sent ; yet the cautious commander hesitated until 
Lee made a movement which compelled him to take a defensive position, and 
prepare to abandon the siege and retreat to the James River. That movement 
was made on the 26th of June. Jackson, with a considerable force, marched 
from Hanover Court House to turn IMcClellairs right, and fall ujion his com- 
munications with his supplies at the ^Vhite House ; and at the same time a 
heavier force, under Generals Longstreet and D. H. and A. P. Hill, crossed the 
Chickahominy near Mechanicsville, and assailed the National right wing, com- 
manded by General Fitz John Porter. A terrific battle ensued near Ellison's 

' Page 564. = Page 585. 

° The White House was the name of an estate on tlie Pamunkey River, that Ijelonged to the 
Custis family by inheritance from Mrs. Wasliington. whose tirst liusbancl owned it. Her great- 
grand-danghter was the wife of Robert E. Lee. and this pi-operty was in tlie possession of tlie 
latter's eldest son when the Civil War broke out. Tlie name was derived from the color of the 
mansion on the estate at the time "Washington was married to Mrs. Custis. It was white, and 
thus distinguished from others. Tliat mansion was deniolislied more than tliirty years before 
the wai', and near its site was another, of modest form and dimensions, which was called the 
" White House." This was held sacred, for some time, by the Union troops, in consequence 
of a false impression given by the family that it was thedriginal "White House." When 
McClellan changed his base to the James River, and his stores were fired, the modern 
"White House" was consumed. 



020 



Till': XATION. 



[1862. 



Mill, which ri'sultod in tho ilctV;it of thi' Confederates, wlio suffered a fearful 
loss.' 

Notwitlistuiuliiii; this \ ictory, IMcC'liliaii ilicicU'd lliat tlio time had conio 
for him to fly toward the .lanus Kivci-, if lu' would save his army. lie was 

left to choose between 
a eoncentration of Iiis 
whole force on the left 
bank of the Chick- 
aliomin}-, and give 
Ljener.il battle to Lee's 
army; to coTicentrate 
it on the right bank, 
and march directly on 
llichmond, or to trans- 
fer his right wing to 
that side of the stream, 
and with his su])])lies 
retreat to tlic James 
River, lie chose the 
hvtter course, and made 
preparations accord- 
ingly.* lie ordered 
the stores at the Wliite 
House to be destroyed if they could not be removed, and held Porter's 
corps in a strong position near (iaines's Mills, a short distance from 
Ellison's Mill, to give protection as far as ])ossible to the supplies, and 
to the rcniaiiidcr of the troojis in the rcnu>val of the siege-guns, their pas- 
sage of the river, and their inarch towanl the James. There, between Cool 
Arbor' and the Chickahoniiny, in line of battle on the arc of a circle, Porter 
stood when attacked by the Hills and Longstreet,* on the afternoon of the 
27thorjime. Very severe was the battle that ensued. Porter, hard pressed, 
sent to McCIellaii, then on the ojiposite side of the Chickahoniiny, for aid, but 
the commander, l)elieving Magrudcr's 2.5,000 men at Kichmond to be 00,000 
in number, could s])are only Slocum's division of Franklin's corps. Later, the 
brigades of Uichardson and Meagher were sent, and these arrived just in time 
to save Porter iVoiu amiiliilalion, for his shattered and disheartened army was 




VIKW ON TUE CHIOKAIIOMINY NKAU .MEOUANICSVILLB. 



' It was between 3,000 nnd 4,000 men. Tlio Nntionnl loss was about 400. Tho latter were 
well posted oil an eminence ; tho former were iiuicli exposed in approaching over lower and open 
proiiiiii. 

■■' Awoi'diiiK to oirioial and other stiitoiiiciits liy tho Coiifedorates, Ricliniond was at that time 
entirely at tho nuToy of llie Army of tlio roldniiic. it liciiijr ilofuiidi'd liy only 'J.'i.OOO men imkIit 
Ma«nider, who in his rc'|iort doclarcil that if MiClellaii had massed his force and moved on Rich- 
mond while Leo was beyond the Chickahoniiny, he nii{;ht easily have captured it. "His failure 
to do so," said Magnider in his report, "is tho besl evidence that our wiso commander fully 
understood the character of his opponent." 

" Tlie place of an ancient tavern and summer resort for the inhabitants of Richmond two 
generations before. 

* Tago 619. 



18G2.] LINCOLN'S ADMINISTRATION. Q21 

falling back to the river in disorder, closely pressed by the foo. The appear- 
ance and cheers of the fresh troops encoui-aged the fugitives, who re-formed, 
checked the alarmed pursuers, and drove them back to the field they had won. 
So ended the battle of Gaines's jMills.' Dui-iiig that niglit Porter's corps with- 
drew to the right bank of the Chickahomlny, destroying the bridges belund 
them. 

IMcClellan now turned his back upon Tlichmond, with his face toward the 
James, and tjave orders for his army lo move through the Wliitc Oak Swamji 
in the direction of Turkey Bend, on that rixer. Keyes led the way [June 28]. 
Porter followed ; and after these moved a train of 5,000 wagons, laden with 
ammunition, provisions, and baggage, and a drove of 2, ,500 beef cattle.'' So 
^vo\l was this movement masked from Lee, that he had no suspicion of it urtil 
more th.an twenty-four hours after it began.' lie had observed, in the morning, 
some singular movements of the divisions which remained behind, and some 
skirmishes had taken place, but he supposed IMcClellan might be preparing to 
move his forces and give battle in defense of his stores at the White House, 
or, if he retreated, would take the route on the left bank of the Chickahominy, 
by which Johnston came up from Williamsburg.^ But on the night of the 2Sth 
the amazing fact was disclosed to Lee that a greater portion of the Army of 
the Potomac had departed, not to give battle on the north side of the Chicka- 
hominy, nor to retreat down the Peninsula, but to take a !ie\v position on the 
James Kiver. Scouts had alr('a<ly informed Iiini that a large portion of the 
supplies at the White House Imd been removed, and that the remainder, and 
the mansion itself, were tlien in flames. 

McClellan had full twenty-four hours the start of Lee, yet ho found himself 
compelled to struggle for life in that retreat. His rear-guard, under Sumner, 
was struck at Savage's Station, wherc^ a severe battle was fought [June 29]. It 
continued \nuil late iji the evening, when the Confederates recoiled ; and 
before morning [July 1], the whole of INIeClellan's army was well on its way 
toward the James. Franklin, with a rear-guard, had been left to hold the 
main bridge over Wiiite Oak Swamji Creek, and so to cover the withdr.awal 
of the army to the high open country of the Malvern Hills; and at that point 
and at Glendale,' a short distance to the right, severe engagements ensued. 
The battle at the latter place was very sanguinary, in which the Pennsyl- 
vanians under McCall suflered much. That leader was captured, and General 
Meade was severely wounded. By the timely arrival of fresh troops under 

' TliG National loss wa.s about 8,000 men, of whom about 6,000 were killed and wounded. 
The Confederato los.s was about 5,000. Porter lost twenty -two sicKO-Runs. 

'' Tlio sick and wounded men, who could not marcli, were left behind, with surgeons, rations, 
and medical stores. These fell into the hands of tlio Confederates, and the men suffered terribly. 
The reason given for tliis abandonment of the helpless, and the sending away of the ambulances 
empty, was, that so lar^-e a number (about 2,500) of wounded and sick men would embarrass 
the army in its lliglit, and its escape might be impossible, 

' .\11 day long ilagruder and linger luid reported to Leo that the National fortifications on their 
front were as fully maimed as usual, and Lee supposed his foe was preparing for an oftensive 
movement. 

• Page 616. 

' Tlie name of an ost.ate. Tlio battle occiu'red on the property of several owners, .it is some- 
times called the Battle of Frazier's Farm. 



G2-2 



THE NATION. 



[1862. 



Hooker, Meagher, and Taylor, victory was given to the Nationals ; and early 
the next day the Army of the Potomac, united for the iirst time since the 
C'hiekahominy Iirst divided it,' was in a strong position on JIalvcrn Hills," in 
siglit of tlie James River. It was not considered a safe place for the anny to 
lialt, for it was too far separated from its supplies ; so, on the morning of tlie 
1st [July, 1862], MeCIellau went on board the guii-hoat Galena, and pro- 
ceeded down the river to "select the final location for the army and its depots." 
Ttiis was fixed at Harrison's Bar, a short distance from Malvern Hills. 

Preparations were made on Malvern Hills for a battle. Lee concentrated 
Ids troops at Glendale for that purpose on the morning of tlic 1st [July, isoj], 
and resolved, Avith a heavy line under Jackson, Ewell, Whiting, the Hills, 
Longstreet, Magruder, and Huger, to carry the intrenched camp of the Nationals 
by storm, and '"drive the invaders," he said, "into the James." This was 
attempted. .V furious l>attle ensued, in wliidi Porter, Conch, and Kearney 
were the chief leaders of fighting troops on tlie ])art of the Nationals, and tliese 
M'ere assisted by gun-lioats iu the river. The struggle was intense and destruc- 
tive, and did not cease \nitil almost nine o'clock in the evening, wlien tlie Con- 
federates were driven to the shelter of the ravines and swamps, utterly broken 
and despairing. The victory for the Nationals was decisive, and the Union 
leaders expected to follow it up, jiursue Lee's shattered ct)lunins, and enter 
Richmond \\itliiii twenty-four hours, Avhen they were overwhelmed with 
disappointment by an order from the Commander-in-Chief (who had been 
on the Galena most of the day) for the victorious army to "iall back 
_^ -■ "^^^s. ^^'^^^ farther" to Harrison's Landing.' 

.?*'> \%!^ ^-"^^^ss This seemed like snatching the \y.\\m of 

victory from the hand just opened to 
receive it, but it was obeyed, and on the 
evening of the 3d of July the Army of 
tlic Potomac, broken and disheartened, 
was resting on the James River, and on 
tlie 8th what was left of Lee's Army of 
Northern Virginia was behind the de- 
fenses of liichmond.^ 

Very grievous was the disappoint- 
ment of the loyal people when they heard 
Tin; ii\iausu.\ mansion'. of this disastrous result of the campaign 

against Richmond, and most astounding to the government was the assurance of 




' Papo GIG. 

' Thoso form a liigli rolling plateau, sloping toward Richmond from bold banks toward the 
r'.ver, and boundod by deep ravines, making an excellent defensive position. 

' McClellan's order prothiced consternation and great dissatisfaction among the officers and men. 
The veteran General Kearney was very indignant, and in the presence of several officers said: 
"I, Philip Kearney, an old soldier, enter niv solemn protest against this order for a retreat.' We 
ought, instead of retreating, to follow np the enemy and take Richmond; and, in full view of all 
the responsibilities of such a declaration, I say to j'on all, sucli au order can only be prompted by 
cowardice or treason." 

' The aggregate loss of the National army during the seven days' contest before Richmond, or 
from the battle near Mechauiesville [Mar 23] until the posting of the army at Harrison's Bar, was 



1862,] LINCOLN'S ADMINISTRATION. g23 

the commander of the Army of the Potomac, three days after the battle on 
Malvern Hills, that he had not " over 50,000 men left, with their colors !" 
Within the sjjace of a hundred days 1 GO, 000 men had gone to the Peninsula. 
"What had Ijecome of the vast remainder ? The anxious President hastened to 
the liead-quarters of McClellan for an answer to that question, for the latter 
was now calling for more troops, to enable him to " capture Richmond and put 
an end to the Rebellion." The President found nearly 40,000 more men there 
than the general had reported, and yet 75,000 were missing. He could get no 
satisfactory statement from McClellan,' and he found that several of the corps 
commanders had lost confidence in the chief In view of this fact, the con- 
centration of Confederate troops in tlie direction of Washington, and the 
assurance of McClellan that his army was not strong enough to capture Rich- 
mond by " one hundred thousand men, more rather than less," it was thought 
advisable by the President to withdraw that army from the Peninsula and 
concentrate it in front of the National capital. Orders were given accord- 
ingly. 3IcClellan was opposed to the measure, and at once took steps to 
defeat it. 

Here we will leave the Army of the Potomac for a little while, and observe 
events nearer the Xational capital, with which its movements were intimately 
connected. To give more efficiency to the troops covering Washingtoij, they 
were formed into an organization called the Army of Virginia, and placed 
imder the command of Major-General John Pope, who was called from the 
West* for th.at purpose. The new army was arranged in three corps, com- 
manded respectively by Major-Generals McDowell, Banks, and Sigel.' In 
addition to these, a force under General S. D. Sturgis was in process of forma- 
tion at Alexandria ; and the troops in and around Washington were placed 
under Pope's command. He also had about five thousand cavalry. His army 
for field-service, at the close of June, numbered between forty and fifty 
thousand effective men. He wrote to McClellan, cordially offering his co-opera- 
tion with him, and asking for suggestions. The cold and vague answer 
assured Pope that he need not expect any useful co-working with the com- 
mander of the Army of the Potomac. 

Immediately after the retreat of JlcClellan to Harrison's Landing,'' the Con- 
federates formed plans for the capture of Washington City ; and when, at the 
close of Jul}', Halleck' ordered the Army of the Potomac to jsrepare to move 

■ eported by McClellan at 1,582 killed, 1,109 wounded, and 5,598 missinp;. making a total of 15,249. 
Lee's loss was never reported. He declared that he captured 10,000 prisoners, and took 52 pieces 
of cannon and 35,000 small arras. 

' After his return to Washington, the President wrote to McClellan [July 13], asking him for 
an account of the missing numbers. He reported 88,665 "present and fit for duty ;" absent by 
authority, 3-i,4"2; absent without authority. 3,778; sio'ic, 16,665, making a total of 143, 580. The 
government was much disturbed by one item in tliis report, namely, that over 34,000 men, or 
more than three-fifths of the entire number of the army which he had reported on the 3d, were 
absent on furloughs granted by permission of the commanding general, when he was continually 
calling for re-enforcements and holding the government responsible for the weakness of his army. 
The President said to liim: "If you had these men with you, you could go into Richmond in tlie 
next three days." 

^ Page 600. ' Page 572. * Page 622. 

' Halleck was now acting General-in-Chief. See page 004. 



624 THE NATION. [1862. 

to the front of the National capital, ;uiil join Pope in its defense, Lee moved 
Avith energy to execute tlie orders of liis masti'rs, before tlie junction of the 
two Union armies could be efl'ccted. Satisfied that no further movements 
against llichniond were then contenii)lated, he was left free to act in full force. 
In the plan of the Confederates was the expulsion of the National troops from 
the soil of Slave-labor States, the invasion aiul plunder of Ohio and Pennsyl- 
vania, and the dictation of terms of peace at Cincinnati and Philadelphia; and 
the people of the "Confederate States" were made to expect a s])eedy vision 
of Davis in the chair of Dictatorship at Washington City. These dreams 
were almost realized before the heats of summer had departed. 

Pojio moved vigorously toward the advancing Confederates, in the direc- 
tion of Richmond, at the middle of July, and some of his cavalry destroyed 
railway-tracks and bridges within thirty-five miles of the Confederate capital. 
IMeanwliilc a heavy force under "Sttmewall " Jackson had gathered at Gor- 
donsville, and Pope's main army was near Cidpepper Covirt-llouse, between 
the I{a]i])ahannock and l!a]ii<l Anna' Rivers. They each advanced in force, 
and at the foot of Cedar, or Slaugliter jMountain, a few miles west of Culpej)- 
])er Court-IIouse, they had a severe battle on the 9th of August. The Nation- 
als were under the general command of Banks, ably assisted by Generals 
Crawtisrd, Geary, Auger, and others. They wei'e finally pressed back by 
overwhelming numbers and pursued, when the Confederates were checked by 
the timely arrival of Ricketts' division of McDowell's corps. The strife had 
been one of the most desperate of the war, a part of it hand to hand in the 
darkness, and under a pall of smoke that obscured the moon.' Two days 
afterward Jackson retreated precipitately to Gordonsville, leaving some of his 
dead unburied. He was chased, but a stulden rise of the Rapid Anna placed a 
barrier between the ])ursuers and the ])nrsued. Both parties claimed the palm 
of victory in the battle of Cedar Mountain. 

Soon after this conflict Pope and Jackson were both re-enforced. The 
former was joined by troo])S under Burnsi<le, from North Carolina,' and others 
under Stevens, from the coast of Soutli Carolina ; and the latter was strength- 
ened by divisions under Longstreet, some troops under Hood, and Stuart's 
cavalry. Pope moved to the Rapid Anna, with the intention of holding that 
position until the arrival of the Army of the Potomac in his rear; but Iteforo 
that event occurred, he was compelled to fall back by the advance of Lee in 
■crushing force. He retired behind the forks of the Rappahaimock, closely pur- 

' The name of this river has generally boon spelled Rapidan. It is one of three rivers in thut 
portion of Virginia bearing the name of Ann.i — namely, tho Rapid Anna, North Anna, and So\Uh 
Anna. Tlio lirst is tlis cliief tribntary of tho Rappahannock, and tho two latter form the Paniiin- 
key River. 

' General Crawford's brigade came out of that terrililo fight a mere remnant. Some regiments 
lost half their number. General Geary, with Pennsylvania and Ohio troops, made desperate 
charges, and was severely wonnded. General Auger was also woimded, and General Price was 
made prisoner. The National loss was about two thousand in killed and wounded, and that of 
the Confederates about the same. 

' Page .590. These had (irst gone to the Peninsula to aid McCloUan, and wore tho first of Uie 
troops tliere who promptly obeyed the summons of tho Army of the Potomac to tho defonso of 
Washmgton City. 



1862.] 



tINCOLN'S ADMINISTRATION. 



625 



eued by Lee's cavalry, and along the line of that river, above Fredericksburg, 
there was an artillery duel for two days [August 20 and 21, 1862]. Lee found 
that he could not force a passage of that stream, so he moved toward the 
mountains, for the purpose of flanking the Nationals. Pope made skillful and 
energetic clibrts to thwart the design of his enemy, but the danger became 
greater every hour. Pope's force had been greatly weakened by fighting and 
marching, and the Army of the Potomac was coming to his relief so tardily, 
that he almost despaired of its arrival in time to be useful.' 

The Natioual capital was now, late in August, in great peril. Pope, 
encouraged by the belief that McClellan's fresh troops, which had been resting 
for a month, would almost immediately re-enforce him, massed his army near 
Rappahannock Station [Aug. 2:!, 1862], for the purpose of falling upon a heavy 
flanking force. Movements to this end were made. Franklin, of the Army of 
the Potomac, had lately arrived with troops, and Heintzelman and Porter, of 
the same army, were also near, so that, on the 25th, Pope's army, and its re-en- 
forcements at liand, with their backs on "Washington and their faces to the foe, 
were about sixty thousand strong, but still somewhat scattered. On that day 
" Stonewall Jackson,'' leading the great flank movement, crossed the Rappa- 
hannock, and with his ac- 
customed celerity made 
his way over the Bull's 
Run ^lountains at Tho- 
roughfare Gap. At twi- 
light on the 26th he was 
on the railway in Pope's 
rear, and between his 
army and AVashington 
City. The Confederate 
cavalry swept over the 
country in the direction 
of Washington, as far as 
Fairfax Court-House and 
Centreville, and Jackson, 
taking possession in strong force of Manassas Junction,' awaited the arrival of 
an approaching heavy column under Longstreet. 

Both armies were now in a critical situation. Pope took vigorous measures 




J^iA: 



THOEODGHFAKE GAP. 



' At the close of .July, TIalleck ordered preparntions for the removal of tlio Army of the Poto- 
mac from the Peninsula, and on the 3d of Aufrnst he issued a positive order for it to move at ouce. 
McOloUau protested. He told his government tliat the force under Pope was " not necessary to 
maintain a strict defensive in front of Waslungton and Harper's Perry;" instructed liis 
superiors that the " true defense of AVashiugtou was on the banks of tlie James, where the fate 
of the Union was to be decided ;" and then awaited furtlier orders. Halleck repeated his com- 
inaud, and urg;ed McClellan to use all possible diligence in eft'ectmg tlie departure of his troops. 
After the battle of Cedar ilountain he told liira tliere " must he no further delay " in liis move- 
ments, for Washington was m danger. It was twenty days after McClellan received orders to 
transfer his army to Aquia Creek, on the Potomac, before they were executed, and that army 
foiled to give Pope timely and sufficient aid. 

" Pages 5G7 and 572. 



40 



626 



THE NATION. 



t' 



862. 



for capturing Jackson, or attlie least ]irc'venting tlie junction of his and Lon?- 
Street's forces. His plans, experts say, were well chosen, ancl, had they been 
as well executed by all of his subordinates, success must have crowned liis 
efforts. But they were not, and disaster was the consequence. Longstreet, 
with the van of Lee's army, joined Jackson [August 29] near Groveton, not 
far from the Bull's Run battle-ground, and there the combined forces fought 
the whole of Pope's army, excepting Banks's command, then at Bristow's Sta- 
tion. The battle was very severe, but not decisive. The loss was about seven 




MONUMENT AND BATTLE-GROUND NEAR GROVETON.' 



thousand on each side. Prudence counseled a retreat for Pope, but, stall 
expecting immediate re-enforcements, he prepared for a renewal of the strug- 
gle in the morning. When morning came ho was assured of no further aid 
from McClellan,' and he had then no alternative. He must fight. He prepared 
for battle. A movement of the enemy deceived him, and su})]iosing Lee to be 
retreating, he ordered a pursuit. On a portion of the Bidl's Bini battle-ground, 
near Groveton, his advance was assailed [August 30] by a heavy force in 
ambush. A sanguinary conflict ensued, in which the Nationals were defeated 
and driven across Bull's Run by way of the Stone Bridge.' At Centreville 
they were joined by the corps of Franklin ami Sumner. Lee was not disposed 
to attack them there, so he sent Jackson [August 31], with his own and E well's 
divisions, to make another flank movement. This brought on another battle on 



' After the war, Union soldiers, stationed near this battle-ground, erected a monument of the 
sand-stone of tlie vicinity, on tlie field of strife, to tlic ineniory of their comrades. The above 
picture sliows the monument and tlie liattle-field. lookiufr toward Manassas Junction. 

" Pope had received no rc-eiiforoeineiits or supplies since the 2iHh. He confidentl}' expected 
rations and forage from McClellan, wlio was at Alexandria, and had been ordered to supply them, 
but on the morning of the 30th, when it was too late to retreat and perilous to stand still. Pope 
received information that supplies would be "loaded into available wagons and ears." so soon as 
he should send a cavalry escort for the train ! — a thing utterly impossible. Meanwhile the corps 
of Sumner and Franklin, of McClellan's command, which might on that day liave secured victory 
for the Nationals, were not permitted to go within supporting distance of the struggling army 
until the next dav, when Pope, for want of support, had lost everv advantage. 
" Page 669. 



1662] 



LINCOLN'S ADMIXISTRATION. 



627 



the 1st of September, at Chantilly, not far from Fairfax Court-House, in which 
Generals Kearney and Stevens were sb.ot dead, and many gallant oiBcers and men 
were mortally wounded.' The Nationals 
held the field that night, and on the fol- 
lowing day [Sept. 2] fell back within the 
fortifications around Washington City." 
Thus ended Pope's campaign in Virginia, 
and also his military career in the East. 
He had labored hard under many difficul- 
ties, and he bitterly complained of a lack 
of co-operation with him, in his later 
struggles, by McClellan and some of his 
subordinates.' 

The Republic now seemed to be in 
great danger, and the loyal people were 
very anxious. Already the President, 
by a call on the 1st of June, had drawn 
forty thousand men for three months 
from New England. Already the loyal 

governors of eighteen States, acting under the conviction of a large portion of 
their constituents, who were evidently losing confidence in the leader of the- 
Army of the Potomac, had requested the President to call for three hundred 
thousand Yolunteers " for the war,"^ and he had complied [July 1 ] ; and when 
Pope was struggling with Jackson near the Rapid Anna, he called [August 
9th] for three hundred thousand men for nine months, with the understanding 
that an equal number of men would be drafted from the great body of the 
citizens who were over eighteen and less than forty-five years of age, if they 
did not appear as volunteers. These calls met with hearty responses, for the 
loyal people had determined to save the Republic. Thousands of volunteers- 
were now flocking to the standard of their country. The Confederates were- 
alarmed, and Lee was instructed to take advantage of the reverses to the- 
National arms, and act boldly, vigorously, and even desperately, if necessary, 
in an attempt to capture Washington City. He was re-enforced by the divi- 




PmLIP KEARNEY. 



' The National loss in Pope's campaign in Tirginia, from the battle of Cedar Mountain to that 
of Chantilly, was never officially reported in full. Careful estmiates make it (including aa 
immense number of stragglers who were returned to their regiments) 30,000. Lee's loss was 
probably about 15,000. 

" See map on page 512. 

^ During the last few days in which the Army of Virginia was struggling for life, the authori- 
ties at Washington, by commands and assistance, made every effort to induce McClellau to aid 
Pope, but in vain. And when, on the 29th of August, Halleck telegraphed to McClellan. sayiug. 
" I want Franklin's corps to go far enough to fiud out something about the enemy," the latter 
telegraphed to the President, saying: — "I am clear that one of two courses should be adopted: 
First, to concentrate all our available forces to open communication with Pope. Second, to kave 
PojK to get Old of his scrape, and at once use all our means to make the capital safe.'' 

* Clamors began to arise on every side. Men of influence, whose faith in the " young Napo- 
leon," as McClellan was fondly called, had been unljounded. now shook their heads doubtiugly. 
They clearly perceived that if 150.000 to 200,000 men could not make more headway in tlie work 
of crushing the rebellion than they had done under his leadersliip. during full ten months, more 
men must be called to the field at once, and put under a more efficient leader, or all would be lost 



'■626 



THE NATION. 



[1862. 



:'sion of 1). II. ilill, aihl ihcii, operating iqimi tlio oi'igiii:il j)l;m of General John- 
£tou, ol' pushing into Murylaiul and getting in the rear of Washington,' ho 
crossed the I'otoniae with almost his entire force by tlie Vth of September, with 
llie belief that thousamls of the citizens of Maryland woid<l Join his standard." 
Tlie Army of Virginia had now disappeared as a separate organization, and, 
became a j)art of tlie -Vrmy of the Potonjac, with McCli-llan still at its Iiead. 
"VVhen the latter was informed of Lee's movement into ]\Iaryland, he left Gene- 
ral I5anks in command in AYashington City, and with a greater i)art of liis 
.army, nearly 90,00o in number, he went in pursuit. He moved very cautiously, 
but was soon advised that Lee's plan wa« to take possession of Harper's Ferry, 
and open conununication with liichmond by way of the Shenandoah Valley j 
and meanwhile t" draw ]\Ie('lellan far toward the Susipichanna, and, turning 
suddenly ui)on hin\, defeat him and march upon Washington.' McClellan fol- 
lowed him through Frederick and over South Mountain into the Antietam 
Valley. At Turner's (iap, on the South Mountain, a portion of the National 
army, led liy i;urn>ide, had a severi- tight [September 14] w itii a part vi' Lee's, 
and at the same time another portion, under Franklin, was striving to Ibrce its 
..■^... vr;v?S«rti-;. .,,» '"■^y over the same 

range of hills at Cramj)- 
ton's Ga]i, nearer Har- 
per's Ferry. In the 
battle on South 3Io\in- 
tain, the gallant Gene- 
ral Keno was killed.'' 
Tlie strife ceased at 
evening, and the Na- 
tionals were prepared 
to renew it in the morn- 
ing. During the night 
the Confederates witli- 
drew from the emi- 
nence, and Lee concen- 
trated his tbi-ces nearlhe 
Antietam Creek, in the 
vicinity of Sharpsburg, 




"^ - i;h 




BATTLEFIELD OK SOOTH MOUNTAIN.' 



' Pago 584. 

' Lee iasued a proclamation [Sept. 8], and raised tlie standard of revolt. Ho called upon the 
Marylaiiciora to join his invading host, ossurinfr tlioin that ho had come to assist thoni in throw- 
ing oil' "the ferei^;M viilio " tlu'V wu[v fiiMi|"'ll<'l to licar. ami to "restore llie indepeudern'O and 
sovcn.'ij,'nt_v of their State." Ho disconi'sed fluently concerning the "outrages" and indig- 
nities inllieled upon them by their cver-geiierons National governnicnt ; Imt his appeals 
wore met by uiuwpeeled coldness. Ho t'onnil tliat the few disloyal Marylandors who had 
'Dined liis ai'uiv in Virginia did not ro()resenl the great mass of the people of tliut Stalo. 
le hist more by desertion than he gained liy recruits in Maryland. 

' Metnelliin's a.lvanee. on entering Frederiel<, loiind a copy of Leo's general order, issued oi; 
tlie 9lh, whicli revealed his plan. 

* McClellan reporied his loss in this engagement at 1,5G8, of whom 312 were killed. The 
Confederates lost alioiit the name number in killed and wonndod, and 1.600 prisoners. 

■• This shows the part of the bultle-field where General Reno was killed. Tho stone near tha 



i' 



1862.] LINCOLN'S ADMINISTRATION. 629 

All eyes wciv now turned toward Harper's Ferry, tlu-n in coniinand of 
Colonel T). IT. ]\Iiles, a ^[arylamler. Franklin fonglit his way over tlie moun- 
tain at- Craniitton's Pass into Pleasant Valley, and on the evening of tlio 1-tth 
of Sejitenilier he was within six miles of Harper's Ferry, then strongly invested 
l)Y troops under " Stonewall Jackson." They h.ad possession of Maryland and 
Loudon Heights, which completely commanded that post. Its salvation from 
caiiture depended upon the ability of the garrison to liold n\it until relief 
sluMild come. But Miles, either incompetent or disloyal, sent otf Ids cavalry, 
two thousand strong, on the night of the Uth, and surrendered to Jacksou 
the next morning, before tlie victorioiis Franklin could make his way thither.' 

,AlcClellan followed the Confederates in their flight from South ]\Iomitaiuo!.v 
the morning of the loth [Sept., 1802], but w^as so impressed w'ith tlie ideatliat 
thev were on his front in overwhelming numbers, that ho deferred an attack 
until the next day. The Conlederates were posted almig the right bank of the 
Antietani, and the Nationals on its left; anil on the luoi-ning of tlu' IGtli the- 
former opened artillery upon the latter. It was past noon before McClelkiit 
was ready, there being a lack of ammunition and rations, forwhicli ho waited.. 
Finally, Hooker crossed the .Vntietam on the extreme left of the Confederates^ 
and other troops were sent over during the ntght. Hooker's force had a sharp» 
and suceesstul liglit, and rested on their arms that night ; and both armies ])re- 
pared fir a decisive struggle in the morning. Hooker opened it at dawn oit 
the Confederate left, and with varying fortunes the T)attle raged on that wing 
and along the center until late in the afternoon. Meanwhile the National left,, 
under IJurnside, had been contending with the Confederate right under Long- 
street, with varied success; and when darkness fell upon the scene that night, 
both armies, sorely smitten, rested where for twelve or fourteen liours they 
had contended, the advantage being with tlie Nati(uials.' 

The Confederates were now in a perihms ])osition. Lee could not easily 
call re-enforcements to his aid, his supplies were m-arly exhausted, and his 
army was terribly shattered and disorganized. ]\IeClellan, on the contrary, 
hail fourteen thousand fresh troops near, and these Joined him the next morn- 
inij;. It would h:i\e been an easy matter, it seems, to have captured the whole- 
of Lee's army by a vigorous movement. Prudential considerations restraine<T 
IMcClellan,^ and when he was ready to move on his foe, thirty-six hours after 
the battle [Sept. 18], Lee, with his shattered legions, wore behind strong bat- 
teries on the Virginia side of the Potomac, whither they had fled under the 

fis-uro Willi a ciiip marks the spot whoro he fell. The chestnut tree was scarred by bullets whea 
the writer vi.sited tlie tirUl, in llienutiuiin of 186G. 

' The luuuber of nun surremlereil was 11,583, most of them new levies. The spoils were IS 
cannou, 13,000 small arms, 200 wagons, and a larg-e qnautity of supplies. 

" In this battle JleClellan's etlective force was ST.OOO, and Lee's G0,ii00. McClcIlan reported 
his entire loss at 12.469 men, of whom 2.010 were killed. Anions' tl<e latter was General .T. K. 
F. Mauslield, and General Richardson was mortally wounded. Lee's loss was probably somewhat 
larser. Six thousand of his men were made prisoners, and the spoils were 15,000 small arms, lit 
cannon, and 39 battle-dags. 

' In his report he said: — " Virpinin was lost. Washington menaced, Maryland invaded — tho- 
National cause could allbrd no risks ol defeat." He therefore hesitated, and. in opposition to tlio- 
advice of Franklin and others, deferred a renewal of the battle until Lee h.ad placed the Poto- 
mac botwoeu the t\vo armies. 



630 



TlIK NAT I OX. 



[I8G2. 



cover of darkness the night before. A feeble attempt to follow was made, and 
quickly abandoiicil [Si'pt. 10], when Lee moved leisurely uj) the Shenandoah 
Yallev, mid ]\IcC"ltlI:in took jiossossion of Harper's Ferry. He now called for 
re-enforcements and siqii'lics, ami ten days after the battle, the government 
and the loval people, who liourly expected the announcement that the Army 
of the rotomac was in swift p\irsnit of Lee's broken columns, were sadly dis- 
appointed by MeClellan's declaration that he intended to hold his army where 
it was, and "attack the enemy should he attempt to recross into JLiryland." 
The I'resident hastened to McClellan's head-quarters [Oct. l], and there became 




VIEW OP TUE AXTIETAM BATTLE-GROUNT).' 



SO well satisfied that the army was competent to move at once in pursuit of 
Lee, that he instructed its leader to cross the Potomac immediately for that" 
puqwse. Twenty days were spent in correspondence between the commander 
of the Army of the Potomac and the National authorities before that order 
was obeyed, din-ing which time the beautiful October weather, when the roads 
were good in Virginia, had jtassed by, and Lee's army had become thoroughly 
recruited, strengthened, and supplied, and his communication witli Kidimond 
Vas re-established. On the 2d of November McClellan announced that his 



' Tliis was the nppearaiicc of tliat portion of tlio battle-ground where the struggle was it»sl 
-.aevere, on the Confederate left, as it appeared when the author sketched it. early in October, 
1866. The five birds seen in the distance are over the spot where Mansfield was killed. The 
JVntietam Trcck is seen in tlie foreground. The view is from near the house of Mr. Prv, where 
ilcClellau had his head-quarters. 



1 862. J 



LINCOLN'S ADMINISTRATION. 



631 



whol 
■east 



lole army was once more in Virginia, prepared to move southward, on the 
St side of the Bhie Ridge, instead of pursuing Lee up the Shenandoah Val- 
ley, on the western side. The faith of the government and of the loyal people 
in McCleUan's ability or disposition to aeliieve a victory by such movement 
was now exhausted, and on the oth of November he was relieved of command, 
and General Burnside was put in his place. Thus ended McClellan's unsuccess- 
ful militarj- career. 

Burnside now reorganized the Ai-my of the Potomac (then numbering about 
one hundred an.l twenty thousand men) and changed the plan of operations, 
by \\-liich the capture of nichmond, rather than the immediate destruction of 
Lee's army, was the objective. lie made Aquia Creek, on the Potomac, his 
base of supplies, and took position at Fredericksburg, from which he intended 
to advance. Before he had accomplished that movement and was prepared to 
cross the Pvappahannock, Lee had occupied the heights in rear of Fredericks- 
burs, in full force, full eighty thousand strong. The bridges were destroyed, 
and Burnside could pass the river only on pontoons or floating bridges. These 
were constructed, and under cover of a heavy fire of artillery from Stafford 
IleiLrhts, the Xational columns crossed over. A sanguinary battle ensued on the 
13th of December. Ter- 
rible was the roar of 
three hundred Confede- 
rate cannon and half 
that number of Na- 
tional guns. The city 
was battered and fired. 
The Nationals were re- 
pulsed.' Two days 
more [December 1-t- 
15] they remained on 
the city side of the 
river, and then with- 
drew under cover of 
the darkness, and Lee 
tookpossession of Fred- 
ericksburg. Burnside 
was soon afterward 
superseded in com- 
anand [January 2(5, 1S03] by General Joseph Hooker. Here we will leave the 
Army of the Potomac, in winter cpiarters on the Pappahannock, and consider 
tlie stirring events in the great Valley of the Mississippi. 

"We left the Lower Mississippi, from its mouth to New Orleans, in posses- 




SCENE IN FREDERICKSBURG ON THE MORNING OF THE 12TH. 



' The National loss was about lo.OOO men. A large number of the wounded (seventy per 
^ent.) soon rejoined tlie army, their hurts being slight. There were 3,234 of the total loss 
reported " missing," many of whom soon returned, so that the absolute loss to the army, othef 
than temporary, was not very large. The Confederate loss was probably about 7,000. 



632 



THE NATION. 



[186Z 



sion of the Xational forces \uu\v\- rnuKr ami Farragul' at the beginning of the 
sniiinioi- of 1S02, and at the same time the river was held hy the same power 
from Mi.'mj)liis to St. Louis. Southern Tennessee and Northern Alabama and 
Mississippi were also luld hy the Nationals, and the Confederate ai-my, driven 
from Corinth, was at Tupelo." At about this time a Kentuckian, named John 
II. ]\Iori;an, and a notorious leader of a guerrilla hand who had penetrated hi* 
native State from East Tennessee, was raiding through that eonimonwealth, 
preparatory to the advent, under E. Kirby Smith, of an invading force of 
Confedt'rates, the ad\ance of an army under General Bragg. Another bold 
leader of Confederate horsemen was N. 15. Forrest, who swept through Ten- 
nessee in various directions, and tinally, at the middle of July, threatened 




roRTinc.iTioNS of the state-uouse at nasuville.' 

Nashville, then in command of General Negley, who had caused fortifications 
to be built at points around the city, and breastworks to be thrown up around 
the State capitol in its midst. In the mean time Bragg was moving through 
the State eastward of Nashville, toward Kentucky, wliile General Ibu'Il was 
moving in the same direction, on a nearly parallel line, to foil his intentions. 

General E. Kirby Smitli, with a consi.lcrable force, entered Kentucky from 
East Tennessee, and pushed on in the dirc'Ction of Frankfort, the capital of the 



' P.ipeGll. • Page 604. 

' This is a view of the breastworks at one of the fronts of the capitol. seen near the thret 
smaller fipures, with a portion of tlie city, tlie Ciunberhind River, and the country around, as they 
appeared when skelche d by tlio writer in May, 1 SGG. 



1862.J 



LINCOLN'S ADMINISTRATION. 



635 



State. He fought a severe battle [August 30, 1862] with Union troops under 
General M. D. Manson, near Richmond, Avliere General Nelson' took command. 
The Nationals were routed and scattered, and Snnth passed on to Lexington. 
The ailVighted Legislature of Kentucky, then in session at Frankfort, fled to 
Louisville. The secessionists of that region warmly welcomed the invader, 
and the conqueror juished vigorously toward the Ohio, with the intention of 
capturing and plundering Cincinnati. lie was unexpectedly confronted there- 
by strong fortiticatious constructed and a large force collected on the soutlierii. 
side of the Ohio, under the direction of the energetic General Lewis Wallace. 
By these the career of the invader was chocked, the city was saved, and "Wal- 
lace received the thanks of the authorities of Cincinnati and of the Legislature 
of Ohio, for " the promptness, energy, and skill exhibited by him in organizing- 
the forces and planning the defenses " wliich saved the soil of that State from 
invasion.' Foiled in this attempt, Smitli tui'ned his face toward Louisville. 
He captured Frankfort,^ and tliere awaited the arrival of Bragg, who for almost 
three -weeks had been moving northward from Chattanooga, with over forty- 
regiments of all arms and forty cannon. His destination was Louisville. 

Bragg crossed the Cumberland River at Carthage, and entered Kentucky 
on the 5th of September, his advance, eight thousand strong, pusliing toward 
the railway between Nashville and Louisville. x\.t Mumfordsville, on that 
railway, a National force under Colo- 
nel T. J. "Wilder fought [September 14] 
some of the troops of the disloyal Buck- 
ner for five hours, and repulsed them. 
Two days afterward, a strong Confede- 
I'ate force under General Polk appeared, 
and, after another severe battle [Sep- 
tember 10], Wilder was compelled to 
surrender. Bragg was elated by this 
event. Buell, then ,at Bowling Green, 
had sent no relief to "Wilder, and he 
seemed to be so exceedingly tardy, that 
the Confederate leader had no doubt of 
an easy march upon Louisville. On the 
1st of October he formed a junction 
with Kirby Smith's troops at Frank- 
fort, and his marauding bands were out plundering the people in all direc- 
tions.'' Then Buell, who had kept abreast of Bragg, turned upon the latter,. 




DON C.IRLOS BUELL. 



' Paore 577. 

" Wallace was satisfied tliat nothing but the most vigorous measure.s wonUl save the city. 
He declared martial law, and ordered tae citizens, under the direction of the Mayor, to assemble 
on hour afterward, in convenient public places, to he organized for work on intrenchments on the 
south side of the river. "The willing," he said, "shall be properly credited, the unwUling- 
promptly visited. The principle adopted is: citizens for labor — soldiers for tlie battle." 

' There Brafvg performed the farce of making a weak citizen, named Hawes, " Provisional 
Governor of Kentucky." 

' On the 15th of September Bragg issued a proclamation to the inhabitiints of Kentucky, assu- 
ring them that he came as their " liberator from the tyranny of a despotic ruler." He told them 



(534: TUE NATION. [1862. 

und iip.ar Perryvillo thoy hail a sevore l>attlo on the Sth [October, 1802], 
in wliicli tlie Coiitl'iU'rates were so routtlily hamlloil that tliey flod during 
tlic night, and niado their way as rapidly as possible toward East Tennessee' 
Bragg pretended that he expected a general uprising in Kentucky in favor 
<if tlie Confederate cause on liis arrival, an<l was greatly disa])i)ointod. His 
invasion proved a disaster rather than a benetit. It might have proved utterly 
ruinous had the invaders been vigorously pursued in their retreat, but General 
Buell, like General JlcClellan, was too cautious to secure all of the advantages 
of a victory. The governmont ]ierceived tliis, and at the close of October 
relieved hhu of his coinmaiul, and gave it to General Rosecrans." Then the 
title of his large force, called the Army of the Ohio, was changed to tliat of 
the Army of the Cumberland. 

Simultaneously with the movement of Bragg toward Kentucky, was an 
advance of Generals Van Dorn and Price (who had been left in IMississippi) 
toward Tennessee ; and strong bands of Confederates, under dift'ercnt leaders, 
were raiding through the western portion of that State, all working in aid of 
Bragg's movement. Rosecrans was then at the head of the ^Vrmy of the 
Mississippi, whoso duty was to hold the region in Northern Mississippi and 
Alabama which the capture of Corinth' and the operations of ^Mitchel'' had 
secured to the Nationals. He was at Tnscumbia when word came from Grant 
that danger Avas gathering west of him. He moved his main force toward 
Corinth, when Price advanced to luka Sjjrings,' and captured a large amount 
of National property there. 

General Grant, in chief command in that region, had watched these move- 
ments very vigilantly, and now he sent a force under General Ord to co- 
operate with Rosecrans against Price. Before Ord's arrival, Rosecrans, 
with a greatly inferior force, attacked Price [September 1!'], and, in a severe 
battle near the village of luka Springs, the Confederates were beaten.* 

ho must have supplies for his nrmy, but that they should be fairly paid for. He had n«ither 
means nor intention to do so. lie plundered the people, without inquirinp: whether they 
were his friends or foes; and lie started to Heo from the State witli a wafron train of stolen sup- 
plies forty miles in lenj:tli, but so fearful was he of cajituro lliat he left a lariie portion of his 
plunder ijehind. In truth, tlio in\asion of Kentucl<y by Kirl)y Smith and Kraxton Hrapg w»s 
nothing b\it a great iihnulerinir raid, and the wealth of that State and of Southern Indiana and 
Ohio was the eiiief oliject of tlieir mareh from the Tcmiessee toward the Ohio River. 

' BucU's entire army numbered at this time about 100,000 men. Bragg's force in Kentueky 
was about G5,000. Only portions of each army were in tlie battle near Perry ville. Buell reported 
that his force which ad\'anucd on Bragg was 5S,000 strong, of whom 22,000 were raw troops. 
Ho reported his loss in llie battle at 4,348, of whom 910 were killed. Among tlie slain were 
Generals .lackson and Terrell. Tlio Confederate loss is supposed to have been nearly the same. 
Bragg claimed to have caiitured 15 guns and 400 prisoners. 

■' Pago 563. ' Page 004. * Pago 001. 

' This is a celebrated summer resort for the people In tlio Gulf region. It is on tlio Memphis 
suid Charleston railway, a few miles east of Corintli. 

' The disjiarity of numbers in this engagement was very great. "I say boldly," reported 
General llaiiiiltou, on the 23d of Sojilcmbcr, "that a force of not more than 2.800 met and con- 
fronted a rclicl force of U.OoO, on a tield chosen by Price, and a position naturally very strong." 
Only a small portion of Uosecrans's force was engaged, and these won tlie victory, luit with fearful 
loss to the few National regiments in tlie liglit. The men of the llth Ohio Battery sull'ered 
dreadfully. Seventy-two were slain or wounded, and all the horses were killed before the guns 
were abandoned. The appearance of their burial-place on llie battle-tleld, wlien the writer visited 
tiie spot, in tlio spring of ISGO, is seen in the eugruviug ou the uext pagi.'. Kosecrana reported Uia 



1862.J 



LINCOLN'S ADMINISTRATION. 



635 




GRAVES or THE ELEVENTH OHIO B.VTTERY-.MEN. 



They fled southward, pursued some distance by the victors, and at Ripley, in 
Itlississippi, the forces of Van Doru and Price were united. Then they moved 
upon Corinth, now occu- 
pied by Rosecrans, and 
there, on tlie 3d and 4th 
of October [1S62], a san- 
guinary battle was fought, 
in which both parties dis- 
played the greatest valor. 
The Nationals were be- 
hind the fortifications, 
and had some advantage 
in that respect.' The 
struggle was feariul, and 
ended in the repulse of 
the assailants, who fled 
southward, vigorously 
pursued as far as Ripley.'^ 

The repulse of the Confederates at Corinth was followed by brief repose 
in the department over which General Grant had cliief command. Hut tliere 
were stirring scenes lower down the Mississippi Ri\'er. The hills abinit llie 
city of Vieksburg had been covered with fortifications, and tlie capture of tliis 
poin-t, and the works at Port, Hudson below, which constituted tlic only for- 
midable obstructions to a free navigation of the river, was umv an object 
toward which military movements in the Southwest wore tending. Curtis, 
whom we left, after tlie battle of Pea Ridge, marching eastward,^ was making 
his way toward Helena for that purpose, and the forces under Butler and 
Farragut were at work for the same end. So early as the Tth of May 
[1S02], Baton Rouge, the capital of Louisiana, had been captured, and Far- 
loss in this battle at 782, of whom l-U were killed. He estimated the Confederate loss at 1,438. He 
captured from them 1,629 small arms and 1.3.000 rounds of ammunition and other war materials. 
' The fortifications thrown up aroiuid Corinth by the Confederates had been strengthened by 
the Nationals and new batteries constructed. At one of these, called Fort 
Robinet, the struggle was very severe. In four lines Te.xans and Missis- 
sippians approaelicd to assail it, in the face of a terrible storm of grape and 
canister shot. They reached the ditch, paused for a moment, and then,^ with 
a brave leader (Colonel Rogers) bearing the new Confederate flag* in his 
hand, they attempted to scale the parapet, when the concealed Nationals 
behind suddenly arose, and poured murderous volleys of bullets upon them 
that swept them down by scores. 

" In this retreat troops under General Onl had a severe battle at Davis' .s 
Bridge, on the Hatchee River, with a part of Van Corn's column, in which 
the Union general was severely woumled. Rosecrans reported his loss in 
the battle at Corinth and in the pursuit at 2,359, of whom 315 were killed. 
He estimated the Confederate loss, inchiding 2,248 prisoners, at a little more 
than 9,000. Among the trophies were fourteen flags, two guns, and 3.363 
small arms. Rosecrans reported that, according to Confederate authority, 
they had 38,000 men in the battle, and that his own force was less than 20,000. 
' Page 592. 




CONTEDBBATE FLAG.' 



• By s recent Act of the Confe.lemtc " CDnsress." the " Stars nnrt Bars " of tlic first Confederate Hag [page 5553 
had been sup«raeded by a while flag, the stars ou a blue field arranged in the form of a cross. 



636 



THE NATION. 



[1863. 




DAVID G. P.tKRAOnT. 



ragut's vessels wiiit tip to Vioksburg and exchanged greetings with others 
that famo dowu from Memphis. Vicksbnrg was attacked on the 2tUli of 

June, and Farragut, witli liis flag-ship 
(Hartford) and otlier vessels, ran by 
and above it. He besieged Vicksbnrg, 
and attcmiitcd to cut a canal across the 
]H'ninsul.i in front of it, so as to avoid 
the city and its fortilicatiins altogether. 
But these operations failed, and the 
fleet went down the river. Not lonj; 
afterward the National troops at l>aton 
Rouge, under General Williams, were 
assailed [August 5, 180-'] by Confede- 
rates under Breckinridge. Williams 
M as killed, but the Confederates were 
repulse<l,' and this result was followed 
by the destruction of the formidable 
Confederate ram Ai'kmisas^ [August G] 
by the Essi.v, Captain Porter, and two other gini-boats. Then Porter went 
up the river to rconnoiter, and on the Ttli of September he had a sharp light 
w ilh the glowing batteries at Port Hudson. 

.Vt the beginning of September General Butler was satisfied that the Con- 
federates had ab;iniloned all idia of attempting to retake New Orleans, so he 
sent out Mime aggressi\e exjieditions. Tiie most important of these was for 
the ]iurp(ise of " repossessing'' tiie rich La Fourclie district of Louisiana. The 
command of it was intrusted to General (nxllVey Weitzel. lie soon accom- 
])lislied tile task, alter a sharp engagoment [October 27] near Labadieville, in 
M'hich he lost eighteen killed and seventy-four wounded, and captm-ed two 
hundred and sixty-eight jirisoncrs. A large jiortion of Louisiana, boidering on 
the western shore of the ^[ississippi, was brought under the National eontrol 
before the close of the year,' when General Jbitler was relieved of the command 
of the I^epartment of the Gulf, and General ]>anks became [l)i>cember Hi] his 
successor. 

Tn the mean lime there had been ai'tive military movements in ^Missouri 
and .Vrkansas. Since tlu' autumn of 1801, General J. 3L Sehofield had been in 
command in the former Slate, and with twenty or thirty thousand men, scat- 
tered over the eommonweallh, he made successful wart'are on the Confederate 



' Tlio Niitioii.nl Idss was 371, of whom 82 were killed. The Confedornto loss is imkno^vii. 
Oiu> huiulrt'd of the Inttor wore nmdo prisoners. 

' Tills nim \v;is bnilt in i1k> Yiizoo Kivor, in the rc.ir of Vickplinrp, nnd wns intended to 
sweep the X.iliu;\nl pim-lmiits from the Mississippi. 8lie eanie down to n.<sist liivekmridge in tlie 
nssanit on Baton Kongo. Five miles above tliat jilaee slie wa.s ntlaeked. driven ashore, set on 
flro bv her commander, and liy the explo.sion of her majrazine was blown into fragments. 

* The rebellion had parah/ed tlie industrial o|ieiatlons in tliat region, nnd General Bntle^ 
thonglit it exix'diont. an n State poliey, nnd for the sake of hnmanity, to eontiseato the entiro 
property of La Fonrelie distriet. He appointed a oomniission to take elinrire of it, who employed 
the negroes nnd s.aved tlie crops. Two Congressional distriets were " reiKJSsessed," and iu Do. 
comber the loyal citizens of Xew Orleans elected two members of Congress. 



1862.] 



LINCOLN'S ADMINISTRATION. 



637 



guerrilla bauds late in the summer of 1802. From April until September of 
tliat yrar, about oue hundred battles and sklrniishis occurred in IMissouri. 
Troops from Arkan.sas, who came tliither to aid their insurgent lirt'thren, were 
driven back. These formed a nucleus for a ilnw wliich, late in September, 
vas gathered in Arkansas, full forty thousand strong, under T. C. TTindman, a 
former mend)cr of Congress. Against these Seliotii'ld marched with what was 
called the Army of the Frontier. Joining General J. G. Blunt, in the southern 
part of Missouri, the combiiu'd forces, ten thousand strong, sought the insur- 
gents. The latter were shy, and hovered cautiously among the Ozark Hills. 
A portion of them were attacked near Maysville [October 22] by Blunt, and 
driven in disorder into the Indian country. Six days afterward, another por- 
tion, mostly cavalry, were struck by General Francis J. Ilerron, and driven to 
the mountains. Soon after this ill health compelled Schotielil to leave the 
field, and the command devolved on General Blunt. 

Ilindman now determined to strike a decisive blow f.ir the recovery of his 
State. Toward the close of November he had collected an army about twenty 
thousand strong on its western border. His advance was attacked by Blunt 
on the Boston Mountains on the 26th of that month, and were ilriven toward 
Van Buren, wlien Blunt t<iok position at Cave Hill. Ilindman, with about 
tdeven thousand men, marched from 'S'an Buren to crush him. Blunt sent for 
Ilerron, then in Missouri, to come and help lam. lie did s:i, ;ind at a little 
settlement called Prairie Grove, on Illinois Creek, they utterly defeated Ilind- 
man in a severe battle, and drove his shattered army over tl'.e mountains. In 
the mean time there W'as bloody strife in Texas, where Confederate rule was 
supreme, and the Unionists there suffered the rigors of a reign of terror 
unparalleled in atrocity. Some attempts had been made to "repossess" impoi- 
tant points of that State, especially the 
city of Galveston. So early as May, 
1862, a demand for the surrender of 
that city had been made by the com- 
mander of a little squadron and refused, 
and so matters remained until the 8th 
of October, when the civil authorities 
•of Galveston surrendered it to Com- 
mander Renshaw, of the National navy. 

Let us now see what was occurring 
eastward of the Mississipjii, bearing 
upon the capture of Vicksburg, at the 
close of 1862. Grant had then nuived 
the bulk of his ai-niy to the region of 
Holly Springs, in Mississippi, where lie 
was confronted by Van Doru ; and 
IJosecraus, who succeeded Buell,' was moving southward from Nashville. 

Rosecrans found the Army of the Ohio (now the Army of the Cumberland) 




WILUAM S. BOSEORANS. 



' Page 634. 



(3;ks 



TIIK NATION. 



[1862. 



ill a sail fiMiilil idii — waslKl in siilislain'i' liv iiiarclii'S ainl cDiitru'ts, ami di^ 
iiKirali/i'il liv lai'k of succoss — "its sjiirit lin>ki'ii, itH coiitidi'iK'i' ilcstroyoil, 
its (lisfi|>liiit' n'laxi'il, its courage wcaki'iicd, aiul its liopi's sliattcrcil."' Its 
circclivc t'lirco was only sixty-li\c liiciusaml, ami ils cavalrv was weak in 
nmiilM'r ami ('<|iii]imciil, wliiic llu^ rougli-iiilcrs <il" I'\)rr('st, ami ISlDrgaii wore 
very slroiiii aiul liolil. Tliat aniiy was in llic vicinity of Howling CJrccn and 
(Jlasgow when Hoseei'ans ini>k coniniaud nl' ii, and r>rau'g liacl concentrated 
Ills foix'cs at !>riii'rrccsl)oi-ii", lii'low Nashville, tVoni which went out ex]U'dition3 
thai scrionslv ihrralmcil the lallcr city. Perceiving ils ]>eril, liosecrans moved 
in thai dirrclinn al llic licLiiiniin'j; of Xmcinlur, and \rv\ seviTc encountei'a 
het ween Ills I'oiccs and llragg's « arneil the laller thai he ha<l now a loyal, 
earnest, and energetic leader to deal with, and he liecame circunis|)ect. 

liosecrans ]ire|iaii'd to n\o\ c upon Kragg, and on Ihe nnn-ning of the 2(5th 
of Iteccinlier, llii' hulk ol' his army, aliont l'orly-li\e ihousaiul in nnniber, wont 
forward, and, al'ici- \aiious |irelinnnary operations, it appeared before the Con- 
feilerale jmst al Mnrfreeslioro' on the !.".>th of Decendter. l!oth armies mado 
vigiu'ons pre] )a rations foi' hat lie. Jvosecrans had anmng his snhordinate leaders 
( iencrals McC'ook.'rhoma--, ( rii iciiden, Ifousscau, llai'kcr, Palmer, Sheridan,.!. C. 
Pa vis, Wood, ^ an ('le\ c, II a /en, Xi'^lcv, Mai hews, ami others ; and liragg had 
polk, r»i-eckinriilge, llardce, Kirhy Sniilh, C'lieathani, "Withers, Clehorno, and 
\\'harlon. The armies |;iy upon each side of Stone's IMver, wilhin caiuion-shot 
• lislance ol' Mnrfreeshoi-o'. There a nnist s.angninary battle Mas begun on tho 
nnirning of tho Itlst, [IV'C, 1><(1'.'|, and raged tnitil evening with varied success, 

when tho Nationals 
hail lost very heavily 
in men and gnus, but 
were not disheartened.* 
The gallant IJtisecrans 
had been seen at every 
post of danger during 
the battle, and his men 
had jierfect conlidenco 
in him. 

]>ragg that night 
felt sure of victory, and 
expected to tlnd his too 
in lull retreat beforo 
morning. IIo was mis- 
taken. There was lv»iso- 
crans ready for battle. 
Tho astonished Bragg 
moved cautiouBly, and 







UONDMKNT ERKOTKD BY IIAZEN'S DttlQABB. 



' .Iniinfa ot'l?ie Ariiiu nf the Cuiiilvrlamt, liv .loliii Kilch. 

' To the lirivrml" of .\ciiuir liriitU'lior-tioiuTnl \V. H. llnr.oii wius IVooly givon tlio.lionor o( 
(taviii/ il.o (!'..v for tin- Nir.lonaU. l'i">ii l>i« yM-xW Imna tlu' l.nuit of Imltlo foU nl n critical 
ii.uHioul, wlio'u liiH tliirti-eu ..-.UHin.u men. fkilllnllv hiui.'.loil, k.pt thoiisaiida iil Iwy, uml suiyeU 



1803] LINCOLN'S A DMI N 1ST 11 A T I N. g39 

llic sum of llial, (lay's [.Ian. 1, ISO;!] operations was boiiu- heavy skirmisliing. 
Oil tho I'oUowing moniing [Jan. 2] the conflict was ivnowcil. The stnigtjlo 
was torrilio. Botli sides massed their batteries and plied them with destruc- 
tive cflcet. h'lir .a time it seemed as if mutual annihihilion would lie the result. 
Finally, a charge hy seven National regiments' decided the day. The Con- 
federates were scattered by it, and in the space of twenty nunntes they lost 
two thousand men. So emled, in comj)leto victory for the Nationals, tho battle 
of Stone's Jiiver or Murfreesboro'." Bragg retreated to Tullahoma, in the direc-. 
tion of Chattanooga, and Rosecrans occupied Murfreesboro'. Such continued 
to be the rel;itive jiosition of the two armies for several numths afterward. 

While for nuuv than a year and a half the National armies had been striv- 
ing to crusii the gigantic rebellicm, the loyal people aiul the goverumeut hail 
been contem))lating the jiropriety of striking a wiliieriiig blow at tiie niirigh-. 
teous Labor System, for the spreail and jierpetuation of which the war was 
waged by tho Secessionists and llieir friends. The subject of slavery, and its 
abolition, as a w.ar measure, occu[)ii'd miieh cif the attention of Congress dur- 
ing its session in the winter of IStU-ii'J. 'i'he pulilic mind had been ftir :> 
long time excited by tlie conduct of several military commanders who had 
returned fugitive slaves to their masters. Tliis was forbidden bylaw; and 
the Ivi'imblican partyMn Congress prcsseil wiiU earnestness measures looking 
to the emancip.atiou of the slaves as a necessary means for suppressing the 
i\'bellion. The I'resideut, kind and forbearing, proposed to Congress to co-ope- 
rate with any StTato goveiinnent whose inhabitants might adopt measures for 
em.incipation, by giving pecuniary aid ; but the slave-holders everywhere 
refused to listen to any propositions tending to sucli result. So Congress 
abolished slavery in the District ol" Columbia, over wiiieli it liail control ; ,ind 
finally that boily gave the Chief Magistrate discretionary jiowei* to declare tho 
emancipation of all slaves in States where rebellion existed, under "ertain coii' 
ditious, and to employ them in the armies of the ii'epnblie. Accordingly, on 
tho 22d of SejUemlu'r, lS(i2, the Chief Magistrate declared it to be his purpose 
to issue a proclamation mi the first of January, 180H, pronouncing forever tree 
the slaves within any State or designated parts of a State, the people wheivof 
should then bo in rebellion. At this tho Secessionists sneered, and their 
friends compared tho proulamation to " the Pope's bull against a comet ; " and 
on the designated day the insurgents were nnnv rainjiaiit than ever. Tho Presi- 
dent, who had hoped that kindness niigiit affect tho misled pooplo, now saw that 

tlio tide of viptorv for tho Confederntca. wliich hnil been roUiiio: stomlily forwnnl for hours. On 
the spot vvhoro tlio stnigglo occiu'rud llazou'a mau eroctod a iii(iiiiiim.'ut to tlio memory of thoir 
slahi comnulca. 

' Tlio tilth Illinois, ISth, 21st, and Tltli Ohio, ISth Ponnsylvnnia, lllli Miohifcan, and :i"th 
Iiuluuia, 

'' Rosocrnns offloially roportodhls loss at nearly 12,000 men, while \M-njtg estimalM it at 2'l,000. 
Boaoerans had \,(>:i3 liillod. Brap; admitted a losa of 10,000 on his part, of wliom 9,000 wero 
killed ami wounded. Amonp; tlio killed were Generals Rains and Hanson. 

Wliilo the movements of tlie two armies were temilng tnwanl the deeisivo hatllo, Hrngg'l 
superior cavalry were raiilini; ovi>r Western 'I'eiinessee, lo previMil euiiuniiniealion between (Iran' 
«ud Roseerans, and to strike the eonimiinieations of tlie latti'r witli Nasliville. Al aliout tho suini^ 
lime a snccesaful couutcr-raid into East Teuuesseo was made by Lleucral S. 1'. Carter. 

' Pago 529. 



^^Q THE NATION. [1863. 

every concession was spurned witli scorn, and on the designated day [January 

1, 18Cn], lio issued tlio tliri'iitenod Proclamation of Etnanoi|(ation.' Tlien the 
shackles fell from the limbs of three millions of slaves; and from that hour 
when the nation, by its chosen head, jiroclaimed that act of justice, the power 
of the rebellion began to wane. The conspirators were struck with dismay, 
for thuy well knew that it was a blow fatal to their hopes. It touched with 
mighty power a chord of sympathy among the asjjirants for genuine freedom 
;in the elder world ; and from that hour the prayers of true men in all civilized 

' Tho following is a copy of thnt proclnmatioii : 

Whereas, On tlic 22d day of Soptomber, in tlio year of onr Lord one thonsand eight hundred 
and sixty-two, a proclamation was issued by tho President of tho United States, containing, 
amoiin other tliinifs, tlio following, to wit : 

"That on tlio 1st day of January, in tho year of our Lord one thousand eipht hundred and 
sixty-three, all persons hold as slaves within any State or desifrnated part of n State, the people 
whereof shall then be in rebellion against tlio I'niteil States, shall be then, thenceforward, and for- 
ever free; and the Kxecutive Oovernnient of the United States, ineludiii^r the military and naval 
jiuthority thereof, will reeoxni/.e and niaintuin the freeiioni of such persons, and will do no act or 
.ads to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may mako for their actual 
freedom. 

"That the E.xeeutivo will, oil the first day of January aforesaid, by proclamation, designate 
the States and parts of States, if any, in which the people thereof, respectively, shall then bo in 
Tcbellion against tho United States: and the fact that any State, or the people thereof, shall on 
that day be in good faith represented in the Congress of the United States, by members chosen 
thereto at elections wherein aiuajorily of the (|ualiHed voters of such State shall have participated, 
shall, in the absence of strong couiilervailing le^timoDy, be deemed conclusive evidence that such 
State, and the peojile thereof, are not tlieii in rel)ellii>ii against the United States." 

Now, llierefore, I, Abraluim Lincoln, rresident of tlie United States, by virtue of tlio power 
In me vested as Conimaiider-in-Chief of tlie Army and Navy of tho ITnited States in time of 
actual armed rebellion against tlie authority and Government of the United States, and as a fit 
and necessary war measure for su])pressiiig said rebellion, do, on tliis first first day of January, 
in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, aii<l in .accordance with my 
purpose so to do, publicly proclaimed for the full jieriod of one hundred days from the day first 
above mentioned, order and designnte, as the States and parts of Stales wherein the peoplo 
thereof, respectively, are this day in rebellion against tlie United States, the foUowhig, to wit: 

Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana (except the parishes of St. Bernard, I'laquemines, JelTer.son, St. 
John, St. Charles. St. James. Ascension, Assumption, Terre Bonne, Lafourche, Ste. Marie, St. 
Martin, and Orleans, including the city of New Orleans), Mississippi, Alabama. Florida, Georgia, 
South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia (except the forty-eight counties designated .is West 
Virginia, and also the counties of Berkley, Accomac, Norlh.ampton, Klizabeth City, York, Princess 
Anne, and Norfolk, iiieluding the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth), and which excepted parts 
-arc, for the present, left precisely as if this proclamation were not i.ssuctL 

And by virtue of the power and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all per- 
sons held "as slaves witliin saiil designated Slates and parts of Slates are, and henceforward shall 
•jofree; and that the Kxecutive Government of tlie United Suites, including the military and 
naval authorities thereof, will recognize and inainlain tho freedom of said persons. 

And I hereby enjoin upon tho peoplo so declared to be free to abstain from all violence, unless 
'n necessary self defense ; and I recommend to thorn that, in all cases when allowed, they labor 
faithfully for reasonable wages. 

.\nd I further declare and make known that such persons, of suitable condition, will bo 
■Tceived into the nrme(l service of the United States, to garrison forts, positioms, stations, and 
olher places, and to man vessels of all .sorts ill .said service. 

And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution, 
ipon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious favor of 
.Vlinighty (tod. 

In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my name, and caused tho seal of the United States 
•« bo alllxed. 

Done at the City of Washington, this first day of January, in tho year of our Lord 
II. b.] one thousand eight hundred and sLxty-three, and of tho Independence of tho United 
States the eighty-seventh. 

ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
Cy the President. 
WlLUAM U. Sbward, Secreiary of State. 



1863.] 



LINCOLN'S ADMINrSTRATION. 



641 



lands went up to tlie tliroiic of God in supplicatioti for the success of tlio 
armies of the lv('[)iil)lic against its enemies.' 

While tho National government was thus working for the elevation of the 
race, the " Ooiifcderatc States government" at Richmond was putting forth 
amazing energies in the prosecution of measures for the perpetuation of slavery. 
Their " Provisional Constitution '" had been succeeded by a " Permauent 
Constitution," and Jefferson Davis had been elected [Feb. 22d, 1862] "Perma- 
nent President" of the Confederacy for mx. years.' In tho "Congress" at 
Kichinond were delegates from all the Slave-lalfor States excepting Maryland 
;iiiil Delaware, and resolutions were a<lopted and measures were devised for 
prosecuting the war with the greatest vigor, declaring that they would never, 
"on any terms, politically aflilia(e with a people who were guilty of an inva- 
sion of their soil and the butchery of their citizens." With this spirit they 
]irosec\itod the war on land, and by the aid of some of the British aristocracy, 
merchants, and ship-builders, they kept afloat hostile craft on the ocean, that 
i\>r a time drove most of the carrying trade between the Ignited States and 
Euro^)e to British ships. One of the most noted of these marattding vessels was 
the Alabama, built, equipped, armed, pro- 
visioned, coaled, and manned by the British,^ 
and commanded by Raphael Semmes. She 
roamed the ocean a simple searrobber ;' and 
during tho last ninety days of 18C2, she 
destroyed by fire no less than twenty-eight 
iielpless American merchant vessels. While 
her incendiarism was thus illuminaling the 
sea, the Geovf/e Griswold, huk'u with pro- 
visions, furnished by the citizens of New 
York who had suffered most by tho piracies, 
Avas out upon the ocean, bearing a gift of 
food from them, valued at one hundred thou- 
sand dollars, to the starving English opera- 
tives in Lancashire, who had been de])rivedof 
work by the rebellion. And that ship of mercy wan convoyed by an American 




RAPHAEL SEMMES. 



' Tlic first repiment of colored troops raised by the authority of an act of Conpress was 
organized in Beaufort District, Soutli Carolina; and on the day when this proclamation was 
issued, a native of that di.strict (Dr. Bi'isbarie), who had been driven away many years before 
because he emancipated his slaves, announced to these troops and other freed people tho great 
fact tliat thev were no loni,'er in bonds. 

" Taf^c .')47 

'' His iininodiate advisers, to wliom he gave the titles of tho cabinet ministers of his govern- 
ment at Washington, were Judah P. Benjamin, ''Secretary of State;" George W. Kandolph, 
"Secretary of War;" S. U. Mallory, "Secretary of the Navy ;" 0. G. Memminger, " Secretary of 
tlio Treasury;" Thomas II. Watts, "Attorney-General;" and John H. Reagan, "Postmaster- 
General." 

* WhMe these vessels were a-building in England, and their destination was known, tho 
.iVmcrican minister in London called the attention of the Britisli government to tlie fact. Ho 
failed to elicit any action that might prevent their going to sea, fully manned and armed. It was 
painfully evident that the government was willing they should go to sea in aid of tho rebellion. 

' Immediately after tho attack on Fort Sumter [page 55S], JelTersan Davis recommended, and 
his fellow-disnnionists in "Congress" authorized, the employment of armed vessels to destroy 

41 



642 



THE NATION. 



[186£ 



ship of war to protect her from the torch of a foe lighted by British hands. 
The subsequent eareer of the Alabama will be coiisidereil hereafter. 
Let us now turn again to a consideration of military events. 
At the close of ls02, the Civil "War was in full career. Up to that time 
the loyal people had furnishe<l for the contest, wholly by volunteering, moie 
than one niillion two Inindred thousand soldiers, of whom, at the beginning of 
1863, about seven hundivd thousand were in the service. The theater of strife 
was almost co-extensi\e with the Slave-labor States, but the most important 
movements were those connected with preparations for a siege of Vicksburg, 
and the capture of Port Hudson, twenty-five miles above Baton llouge. 
Between these places only, the Mississippi was free from the patrol of National 
war-vessels, and it was determined to break that link between the Confederates 
east and west of the river. For that purpose Grant concentrated his troops 
near the Tallahatchee, where the Confederates were strongly posted. Troops 
under Hovey and Washburne came over from Arkansas to co-operate with him, 
and early in December liis main army was at Oxford, and an immense amount 

of his supplies were at Holly Springs. 
The latter, through the carelessness or 
treachery of the commander of their 
guard, were captured by Van Dorn on 
the 20th. This loss compelled Grant 
to fall back and allow a considerable 
Confederate force, under General J. C. 
Pemberton, to concentrate at Vicks- 
burg. 

Meanwhile, in accordance with 
Grant's instructions, General W. T. 
Sherman moved down the Mississijipi 
from Memphis, with a strong force, and 
siesre-cruns, to beleaguer Vicksburg. 
Troops from Helena joined him al 
Friar's Point [Dec. 20], and there he 
was met by Admiral D. D. Porter, whose naval force was at the mouth of the 
Yazoo River, just above Vicksburg. The two commanders arranged a plan 
for attacking \lcksburg in the rear, by passing up the Yazoo a few miles and 




M" ■ m /I 



sows C. PEMBERTON. 



American shipping on the high seas. These, according to the laws of nations and the proper 
dotinition of the word. -were pirates. A pirate is defined as "a robber on tlie liigli sea.'i," and 
piracy, as ''taking property from others by open violence, and withont anthority. on the sea.'' 
These vessels, and their otticers and crews, answered this detinition, for Davis and Toombs, who 
Higned their commissions, were not " authorized" to do so by any real government on the face ol 
the earth. The "government" they represented had no more " 'authority'' than JactCadc, Daniel 
Shays. Nat Turner, or Jolm Brown. Hence these Confeder.ite marauders were not "privateers." 
but " pirates." .Semmos's vessel had neither register nor record, and no sliip captured by her 
was ever sent into any port for adjudication. She had no acknowledged llag or recognized 
nationality. .\11 the regulations of public justice which discriminate the legalized naval vessel 
from tlie pirate were disregarded. She had no accessible port into which to send her captives, 
nor any legal tribunal to adjudace her captures. She was an outlaw roving the seas, an enemy 
to mankind. 



1SS3.] LINCOLN'S ADMINISTRATION. g43 

reducing battmes along a line of blufts, by wliirli approaches lo it were 
defended. This was undertaken, but after a severe battle on the Chickasaw 
Bayou [Dec. 28, 1862], in which Sherman lost about 2,000 men, and his foe 
only 207, the Nationals were compelled to abandon the enterprise. At that 
moment [January 2, 1863] General McClernand' arrTved, and, ranking Sher- 
man, took the chief command. 

Toward the middle of January the army and na\ y in the vicinity of Vieks- 
burg went iip the Arkansas River and captured Fort Hindman, at Arkansas 
Post [.Jan\iary 11, 1863], a very important position. The fort and much valu- 
able jiroperty was destroyed." Meanwhile Gi'ant had come down tlie river 
from Memphis, and arrangements were at once made for a vigorous j)rosceu- 
tiou of tlie siege of Vicksburg. lie organized his army into four corps,^ and 
encouraged the enlistment of colored men. He weighed well all proposed 
]>lans for the siege, and being satisfied that the i)Ost was too well fortified to 
warrant an attack on its river front, ho determined to get in its rear. First 
file canal begun by Farraguf* received his attentiou. It was a failure, and that 
jiroject was abandoned. Other passages among the neighboring bayous were 
souglit, and finally a strong land and naval force made its way into the Yazoo, 
with the intention of descending that stream, carrying the works at Haines's 
Lluif," and so gaining the rear of Vicksburg. Tlie exi)edition was repulsed at 
Fort Pemberton, near Greenwood, late in March, and the entei7jrise was aban- 
doned. Porter, with amazing energy and perseverance, tried otlier channels, 
but failed. A record in detail of the operations of the army and navy in that 
region, during the winter and spring of 1863, would fill a volume. 

In the mean time there were stirring scenes on the bosom of the Missis- 
sippi. Son\e of the war-vessels passed by the batteries at Vicksburg [Feb., 
1863], for the purpose of destroying Confederate gun-boats below, but were 
themselves captured.' Later, when Grant had sent a strong force down thft 
west side of the river, under McClernand and McPherson, toward Xew Car- 
thage, Porter determined to run Viy Vicksburg with nearly his whole fleet, and 
the transports and barges. This was successfully done on the night of the 
16th of April. Six more transports performed the same perilous feat on the 
night of the 22d, and Grant prepared for vigorous operations against Vicks- 
burg on the line of tlie Big Black Ri^-er, on its flank and rear. 

Let us now turn for a moment, and see what was occurring in the Depart- 
ment of the Gulf under General Banks, the successor of General Butler, who 

' Page 577. 

'' The Nationallnss was 980 meu. The Confederates, to the number of 5,000, were made 
prisoners, and the spoils were 17 cannon. 3,000 small arras, and a large quantity of stores. 

' These were commanded respectively by Generals McClernand, Sherman, Hurlbut, and 
McPherson. 

* Page 63i5. 

' This was at the end of the range of bluffs extending from Vicksburg to the Tazoo. 

' One of them was the powerful iron-clad Indianola. She was attacked, injured, and captured. 
TThile the Confederates were repairing her. Porter, one evening, sent down the river an old flat- 
boat, arranged so as to imitate a gun-boat or ram. It seemed very formidable, and drew tlie tire 
of the Vicksburg batteries as it passed sullenly by them. Word was sent to warn Confederate 
vessels below, and the Indianola was blown into fragments to prevent her being captured by this 
supposed ram. 



<jU 



THE NATION. 



[1863. 



■Nvas co-operating with Grant against Vicksburg, and was also charged with the 
task of gaining possession of Louisiana and Texas. Galveston, as we have 
seen, was in possession of a Xatiimal naval foree.' Banks sent troops to its 
tiiipjioit, and on the morning of tlie first of January, 18U3, the Confederates, 
■under General Magruder,'' attacked the troops and tlie war-vessels. A sevpve 
4itruggle ensued, which resulted in the defeat of the Nationals. Galveston was 
repossessed hy the Confederates, but on account of a vigorous blockade, at 
once esiablislu'd by Farragut, tlie victory was almost a barren one. 

ISauks now turned las attention to the recovery of Louisiana west of the 
]Mississip[)i, and along its sliores. Already a force under General Grover occu- 
jjied IJaton Kongo; and early in January [1S63] a land and naval force under 
General Weitzel and Commodore Buchanan was sent into the Teche region, a 

,jj^ country composed of fertile 

plantations, extensive forests, 
sluggish lagoons and bayous, 
and almost impassable swamps. 
The expedition was successful. 
Banks now concentrated his 
forces, about 12,000 sirong, at 
Baton Rouge, for the purpose 
of co-operating with -Vdmira! 
Farragut in an attempt to pass 
the no\v formidable batteries 
at Port Hudson. This Avas 
attem]iled on the night of the 
l.Slh of March, when a terrible 
contest occurred in the gloom 
between the vessels and the 
land batteries. Only tlie flag- 
ship {Hartford) and com- 
panion [Albatross) passed by. 
Then Banks again sent a large 
portion of liis available force 
into the interior of Louisiana, 
where General Richard Taylor was in coiumand of the Confederates. The 
troops were concentrated at Brashear City early in April, and moved trium- 
jihantly through the country to the Red River, accompanied by the Depart- 
ment commander. At the close of the first week in INlay they were at 
Alexandria, on the Red River, where Banks announced that the j)ower of the 
Confederates in Central and Northern Louisiana was broken. "With this 
impression he led his troops to and across the MississipjM, and late in May 
invested Port Hudson. 

AVe left. Grant, late in April, below Vicksburg, prepared for new o]ierations 
against that post.' By a most wonderful raid, pertbrmed by cavalry under 




A LOUISIANA SWAMP. 



' Page 637. 



' Page 6G2. 



' Page 643. 



18G3.] 



LINCOLN'S ADMIN 1ST i'.ATJON. 



645 



Colonel Grlerson^ in the heart of Mississippi,' he was satisfied that the bulk of 
the Confederate soldiers of that region were near Yicksburg, under Pember- 
ton. So he prepared to act with \igor. Porter attacked and ran by [April 
•29] tlie batteries at Grand Gulf, and Grant's army crossed the river at Bruins- 
burg, a little below, jiushed on, and near Port Gibson gained a decisive vic- 
tory [May 1] over the Confederates.' ]Mcan while Sherman, wlio had been left 
to operate in the Yazoo region, and liad made another nnsnecessful attempt to 
ca))ture Haines's Bluff,^ was ordered to marcli down the west side of the Mis- 
sissippi and join the main army. This junction was effected on the 8th of 
^lay, near the Big Black River, and the whole army pressed on toward .Jack- 
son, the capital of Mississippi, where General Joseph E. Johnston was in com- 
mand. In a severe battle at Raymond [^lay 12], on the way, the Confederates 
Mere defeated.'' Such, also, was the result of a battle at Jackson [^lay 14], 
\s-hen the Confederates were driven noithward, the city was seized, and a large 
amount of public property Avas destroyed. TJieii the victors turned toward 
Yicksburg, and fonght [May 16] a severe battle with the Confederates under 
Pemberton at Champion Hills, and were victorious.' Grant pressed for,vard, 
an<l after a battle at the passage of the Big Black River [May 1 7], the Confede- 
rates were again driven. Grant crossed that stream, and on the lOtL of May 
his army, which for a fortnight had subsisted off the country, invested Vicks- 
burg, and received sup- 
jilies from a base on the 
Yazoo established by 
Admiral Porter. 

Grant made an un- 
successful assault upon 
Yicksburg on the day 
of his arrival. Another, ft 
with disastrous effect on 
the Nationals, was made 
three days later [May 
22], Avhen Porter with 
his fleet co-operated, and 
then Grant commenced 
a regular siege, which 
continued until the first 




CAVE-LIFE IN VICKSBDRO. 



' Grierson left Lagrange, Tennessee, on the Htli of April, with a body of cavalry, and swept 
through the country soutlivvard, between the two railways running parallel with tlie Mississippi 
River, striking them here and there, smiting Confederate outposts, and destroying public property. 
At times his troops were scattered on detached service, find often rode fifty and sixty nules a day, 
over an exceedingly difficult country to travel in. They killed and wounded about 100 of the foe ; 
captured and paroled full 500 ; destroyed H.OOO stanil of arms, and indicted a loss on the Confed- 
erates of property valued at about §6,000.000. Griorson's loss was 27 men, and a number of 
liorses. 

'■' The National loss was 840 men. They captured 3 gims, 4 flags, and 580 prisoners. 

' Page 6-13. 

' The National loss was 442 men, and that of the Confederates S2;i. 

' The National loss was 2,i57. The loss of tlie Confederates in tlio battle was about tho 
Bame, besides 2,000 prisoners. 



640 THE X AT ION". [1863. 

week ill July, ami jirodiicLMl the givatfst ilistress in the city, and in tlic bclea- 
gii red camps. Slu)t and slioll were hnrlcil upon it daily from lan<l and water, and 
the iiilialiitants were compelled to live in eaves' cut in the clay hil'-i on wliich 
\'icks1)urg is hnilt. as the only safe place for their persons. At lengtli one of the 
prineipal forts was hlown up hy a mine made under it hy the Nationals, and 
(ulier mines were ready for tlicir infernal work. Famine was stalking through 
the city and the camps. Fourteen ounces of food had become the allowance 
for each j)erson for fort}"-eight hours, and the fli'sh of mules had been pro- 
nounced a savory dish." Pemberton now lost all hope of aid from Johnston, 
in Grant's rear (who had been watching for an opportunity to strike the 
besiegers), or the salvation of his army, ancl on the 3d of July he offered to 
surrender. That event took j)lace on the morning of the 4th, when 27,000 
nun became prisoners of war, and the stronghold of Vicksburg j).issed into 
the possession of the National power.' 

This victory, won simultaneously with another at GeltysViurg, in Pennsyl- 
vania, produced unbounded joy in all lo3'al hearts. It was followed a few days 
later by the surrender of Port IIn<lson, which had been besieged by General 
Banks for forty days, his gallant troops at times performing great achievements 
of valor and fortitude. He had been ably su]>ported by Farragut and liis squad- 
ron. The missiles sent by the army ami navy had caused great destruetion within 
the fortiKcations. The animunitinn and pro\isi()ns <if the giuvison were nearly 
e.xhausted, and \\h<n news came of the fill of Vieksburg, General Gardner, 
the commander of Port Hudson, despairing of succor, surremlcred the post, 
ai;il its occupams and sj)oils, on the 9th of July. Then, ibr the first time in 

' The '.streets of VicK-slmrsr are cut tliroupli the liills, .iml liou.ses are often seen far above the 
street ]iasseiiger?. In the perijendioiilar banks formed b_v these euttings. and composed of clay, 
oaves v.-ero dug at the liegiiuiing of the .«iege, some of thetn sufBcieutly large to accommodate 
whole families, and in some instances connnunieating with each other by corridors. Snch was tho 
character of some made on Main Street, opposite the house of Colonel Lyman .J. Strong, for tho 
nse of his family and others, and of which the writer made the .sketch on page G4S. in April. 1866. 
These caves were then in a partially mined state, as were most of them in and aronnd Vicksburg, 
for rains had washed the banks away, or had caused tlie filling of the entrances. In this picture 
the appearance of the caves in their best estate is delineated, with furniture in accordance with 
descriptions given to the writer hy the iiiliabitants. 

^ "This day," wrote a citizen of Vicksburg in his diary, under date of June 30. "we heard of 
tho first mule meat bi'iiig eaten. Some of the officers, disgusted with the salt j\uik. proposed to 
slaughter some of the fat mules as an experiment; as, if tho siege lasted, we must soon come to 
that diet. The soup from it was quite rich in taste and appearance. Some of the ladies ate of it 
without knowing the ilift'orence." 

^ Grant and Pembrrton met under a live-oak tree, on a slope of the liill ou which the fort tliat 
was blown up was situated, and there agreed upon terms of surrender. That treo was soon 
afterward cut down and converted into canes and other forms, as mementoes of the event. A 
marble monument, with suitalile inscriptions, was afterward placed on the spot. It soon became 
mutilated, and in its place a lOO-ponnder iron caunon was erected, and suitably inscribed. 

General Grant thus stated the result of the operations of his army from Port Gibson to 
Vicksburg: "The result of this campaign has been tlie defeat of the enemy in five battles outside 
of Vieksburg: the oi'cupation of Jack.son, the capital of the State of .Mississippi, and the capture 
of Vieksbm-g and its garrison and nuuiitions of war : a loss to the enemy of thirty-seven thousand 
(37,000) prisoners, among whom were lifteen general ofticers; at least ten thousand killed and 
wounded (among the killed Generals Tracy, Tilghman, and Green), and hundreds, and perhaps 
thousands, of stragglers, who can never be collected and reorganized. Arms and munitions of 
war for an army of sixty thousand men have fallen into our Iiands, besides a large amount of 
other public property, consisting of railroads, Iccomotives, cars, steamboats, cotton, Ac, and much 
was destroyed to prevent our capturiug it," 







EFJTEMfniEW mmwwmjy^ 



186:!.] LINCOLN^S ADMINISTRATION. (34'^ 

more tli;in two years, every imijediineiit to tlie free navigation of the Missis- 
sippi was removed. Powerful j)ortions of the Confederacy were thus severed 
.■ukI weakcnod, and tlie loyal jii'()i)lo of the land were jubilant with the hope 
and e.\pectation that the en(l of tiio terrible strife was nigh. Tiie blow dis- 
mayed the Secessionists, and the wiser men in the Confederacy clearly perceived 
that all waa lost.' 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

THK CIVIL WAR. [ISOl — 18G5.] 

Wiiii.K a portion of the Nation.al troops were achieving important vic- 
tories on the banks of the Lower Mississippi," those composing the Army of 
the Potomac were winning an equally important victory not ftir from the 
banks of the Suscpiehanna. We left that army in charge of General Joseph 
Hooker after sad disasters at Fredericksburg ; ' let us now observe its move- 
ments irom that time until ils triumi)hs in the eontlict at (Gettysburg, between 
the Suscjuehaiiiia and Potomac rivers. 

From January until early in ,\pril, liciukcr was employed in prc|i:ii-ing the 
M-eaken<'d and demorali/.i'd .Vrmy of tiio Potomac for a vigorous campaign. 
It lay ou the norlhern side of the liajipalianuoek liivcr, nearly op])osite Freder- 
icksburg, anil, with thi' exception of some slight cavalry movcnu'nts, it remained 
quiet during nearly three months of rest and preparation. It was reorganized,'' 

' The blow was iincxpcctotl to tlio Confederates. They knew how strous- Vieksbuvg was, and 
were confident tlial tlie aecoiiiphshed soUlior. lieiural .lohiiston. would compel Grant to raise the 
siefjo. lOvcii the Dnily Citizen, a paper printed in A'iekshur}!:, only two days l.iefore the surrender 
(July 2), talked as boastfully as if perfectly coulidcnt of succes.s. In a copy before the writer, 
printed on wall-paper, the editor said : " The g-reat Ulysses — the Yankee generalissimo aiu-nanied 
Grant — has expressed his intention of dining in Viekshurg on Saturday next, and celebrating the 
Poui-th of July by a grand dinner, and so forth. When asked if he would invite General Joe 
Johnston to join him, he said, 'No! for fear there will bo a row at the talde.' Ulysses nuist get 
into the city before he dines in it. The way to cook a rabbit is. Mirst catch the rabbit,' 4c." la 
another paragraph, the Citizen eulogized the luxury of mule-meat and fricasseed kitten. 

' See page GIG. " See page G31. 

' The .anny was arranged in seven corps, named, respectively, the 1st, 2d, 3d, 5th. Cth, 11th, 
and 12th, and each was distinguished by peculiar badges, worn on the hat or cap, and composed 
«f scarlet, white, and blue cloth, made in the forms shown in the engraving, whose numbers cor- 
respond with those of the resiieotive corps, as follow : — 

1 2 3 6 (■ II 12 

I 
The corps composed twenty-three divisions; and at the close of April [1863], the army consisted 
of 110,000 infantry and artillery, with 400 guns, and a well-equipped cavalry force, 13,000 strong. 
The corps commanders were Generals J. F. Reynolds, D. N. Couch, D. E. Sickles, G. G. Meade, 
J. Sedgwick, 0. 0. Iloward, and H. W. Slocum. 




648 THK NATION. [1803. 

and weeded of iacoiupetent and di.sloyal officers.' Measures were t.aken to 
prevent desertions and to recall a vast number of absentees.' Order and dis- 
ei]ilino were thoroughly established; and, at the close of April, Hooker found 
himself at the head of an army more than one liundred thousand in number, 
well diseii)lined, and in fine spirits. General Lee, in command of the Army 
of Northern Virginia, then lying on the Fredericksburg side of the Rappahan- 
nock, had been equally active in reorganizing, strengthening, and disciplining 
his forces. A vigorous conscription act was then in operation througliout the 
Contederacy, and in Ajiril, Leo found liimself at the heail of an army of little 
more than sixty thousand nu'u of all arms,' unsurpassed in discipline, and fidl 
of enthusi;isni. ,V \i:\vl of liis army, under General Longstreet, was absent in 
Soutln>astern Virginia, confronting the troo])S of General .T. J. Peck, in the 
vicinity of Norfolk. Yet with his forces thus divided, Lee felt competent to 
cope with his antagonist, for he was behind a strong line of intrenchments 
reaching from Port Koyal to Uanks's Ford, a distance of about twenty-five 
miles. 

We have observed that only some cavalry movements disturbed the quiet 
of the Army of the Potomac in the winter and spring of 18C3. Early in Fel> 
ruary the Confederate General W. II. F. Lee made an unsuccessful attempt to 
surprise and capture National forces at Gloucester, opposite Yorktown ; and 
at a little past midniglit of the Sth of ISIarch, the notorious guerrilla diief, 
Mosoby, with a small band of mounted men, dashed into the village of Fairfax 
Court-IIouse. and carried away the Union commander there and some others. 
A few days later the first purefy cavalry battle of the war occurred not far 
from Kelly's Ford, on the Rappahannock, between National troops under Gen- 
eral W. \V. Averill and Confederates led by Fitz-IIugh Lee. Averill encoun- 
tered Lee while he was pushing on toward Culpepper Court-IIouse, from the 
Rappahannock, when a severe contest ensued, and continued until late in the 
evening, wlien Averill retreated across the river, pursued to the water's edge 
by his foe. Each lost between seventy and one hundred men. 

Early in April, before the i-anks of his army were full, Hooker determinecl 
to advance, his objective being Richmond, for the terms of enlistment of a 
large [)ortion of his men would soon expire. He ordered (Jenoral Stoneman to 

' Tlierci were officers in tliat army, liitrh in rank, who were op]iosc(l to Iho policy of cman- 
cipatinp the slaves as a war measure, wliioh, from tlie betrinninc. luul been coutem plated by the 
government. The proclamation of the President to that eltbct cievelopeil this ojiposition iu con- 
siderable strength, and this in connection with the active intliieuee of a part of the Opposition 
party, known as the Peace Faction, npon the friends of the soldiers at home, had a most depress- 
ing etTect npon the army. The men were impressed with the idea that it was becoming a " war 
for the negro," instead of '"a war for the Union." Oflicors knowni to be inclined to give snch a 
tone of feeling to their men wore replaced by loyal men, in active sympathy with the govenimeni 
in its elTbrts to crush the rebellion. 

' When Hooker took command of the army, he foimd the niimbor of reported absentees to be 
2,!>22 commissioned officers and 81,96-i non-commissioned officers and privates. This, donbtless, 
included all the deserters since the organization of the Army of the Potomac, and the sick and 
wounded in the hospitals. It is estimated that 50.000 men, on the rolls of that army, were absent 
at the time we are considering, namely, the close of January, 1863. 

' Lee's army was composed of two corps, commanded respectively by Generals ,T. Longstreet 
and T. J. ("Stonewall") Jackson. His artillery was cousolidated into one corps, under the com- 
mand of General Pendleton as chief. 



1863.] 



LINCOLN'S A D il I N I S T R A T I N . 



649 




i 



JOSEPH HOOKER. 



cross the Rajjpahannock with a large force of cavah'v, strike and ilis|)erse the 
horsemen of Fitz-IIugh Lee, of Stuart's cavalry, known to be at Culjx'iiper 
Court-IIouse, and then, pushing on to Gordonsville, turn to the left, and 
destroy the railways in the rear of 
Lee's army. Heavy rains, whicli made 
tlie streams Virinifid, foiled the niove- 
iiient at its beginninu', ami Stoneman 
and his followers swam their horses 
across the Ilapjiahannock, and returned 
to cam]!. Hooker then [laused for a 
fortnigjit, when he put his whole army 
in motion, for the purpose of turning- 
Lee's llank. He sent ten tluuisand 
mounted men to raid on his rear, and 
tiirew a large jiortion of his army 
(Fifth, Eleventli, and Twelfth Corps) 
across the Kajipahannock, above Fred- 
ericksburg, with orders to concentrate 
at Chancellorsville, in Lee's rear, ten 

miles from tliat city. This was accomplished on the evening nf the 3011* 
[April, 18(53], when over thirty-six thousand troops threatened the rear of the- 
Confederate army. 

Meanwhile, the left wing of Hooker's army (First, Tliird, and Sixth Ci)r])s), 
under General Sedgwick, left near Fredericksburg, had so comjjU'tely masked 
the movements of the turning column, by demonstrations on Lee's fnuit, that 
tlie latter was not aware of the jieril that threatened his army until that 
column had crossed the Rappahannock, and was in full march on Chancellors- 
ville. Hooker expected Lee would timi and tly toward liiclimond when he 
should discover this peril, but he did no such tiling. On the contrary, he pro- 
ceeded to strike his antagonist a heavy blow, for the twofold ])arj)ose of 
securing the direct line of communication between the parts of Hooker's now 
severed army, and to compel him to fight, with only a pai-t of his force, in a 
disailvantageous position, at Clmncellorsville, whicli was in the midst of a 
region covered with a dense forest of shrub-oaks and pines, ami tangled under- 
growths, broken by morasses, hills, and ravines, called The Wilderness. Fo?* 
this purpose, Lee put "Stonewall "' Jackson's column in motion [May 1] toward 
Chancellorsville, at a little ]iast midnight. 

Early in the morning Jackson was joined by other troops, and tlie whole 
force moved upon Chancellorsville by two roads. Hooker sent out a greater 
part of the Fifth and the whole of the Twelfth Corps, with the Eleventh in 
its support, to meet the advancing columns. A battle ensued ; and the effort* 
of Lee to seize the communications between the parts of Hooker's army, just 
alluded to, were foiled. But the Nationals were pushed back to their intrcnch- 
ments at Chancellorsville, and there took a strong defensive position. 

Both commanders now felt a sense of imi)ending danger, for both armies 
were in a critical position in relation to each other. Hooker decided to rest on the 



^50 '^^I'"' ^'ATION. [1863. 

defensive, but Lee, in accordance -Hitli the advice of Jackson, took the bold aggres- 
sive step of detaching the wliole of tluit leader's corps and sending it on a secret 
flank movement, to gain the rear of the National army. The movement was 
succcsKfuUy niaile, thongli not entirely uiKibserved ; l)Ut the troops seen moving 
behind the thick curtain of The AVilderness thickets were supposed to be a 
part of Lee's army in retreat. While General Sickles, in command of tliat 
portion of the line where the discovery was made, was seeking jjositive knowl- 
edge in the matter, Jackson, who had gained the National rear, solved the 
problem by bursting suddenly from l>ehind that curtain with twenty-five thou- 
sand men, tailing suddenU" and firmly upon Hooker's riglit, crundjling it into 
atoms, and driving the astounded column in wild confusion upon the remainder 
of the line. A general battle ensued, in winch the residue of the Confederate 
ami}', under the direct command of General Lee, jiarticipated, he having 
attacked Hookers left and center. Tiie conflict continued until late in the 
evening, wlien the Confederates sustained an irreparable loss in the death of 
Jackson, \\ ho was accidentally shot, in the gloom, by his own men.' 

Hooker made new dispositions to meet the inevitable attack the following 
morning [May 3, 1863]. He had called from Sedgwick the First Corps, full 
twenty thousand strong, and it arrived that evening and swelled the National 
force at Chancellorsville to about sixty thousand men. He had also ordered 
Sedgwick to cross the Kappahannock at once, seize and hold the town and 
heights of Fredericksburg, and push the bulk of his force with all possible 
liaste along the roads to Chancellorsville. He also changed a portion of the 
front of his own line so as to receive the expected attack. During the night 
Lee ettc'cted a slight connection between the two wings of his army, and soon 
afterward, Stuart, at dawn, slioutcd at the head of the Confederate column on 
Hooker's right, "Charge, and remember Jackson I" whoso troops he M'as lead- 
ing, and fell furiously upon a portion of the line commanded l)y General 
Sickles. Lee attacked Hooker's left and center again. The struggle was 
severe and sanguinary, and when, toward noon. Sickles, finding himself sorely 
pressed, sent to Hooker for rc-enfbrcemeuts, the chief had just been prostrated 
l>y an accident, and for a brief space the army was \»ithout a head.' There 
■was an injurious delay, and finally, after long and hanl fighting, the whole 
National army was pushed from the field, and took a strong position on the 
Toads l)ack of Chancellorsville, leading to the Ilajiid Anna and Happahanuock. 
Lee's army was now united, while Hooker's remained divided. 

Sedgwick had endeavored to obey Hooker's command to join him, but 
failed to do so. He had thrown his army across the river on the morning of 
the 2d [May], and was lying quietly wiieii he received the order at midnight. 
He moved immediately, and took possession of Fredericksburg. General 

' Jackson had been reconnoiteriiig in front of his forces, and, when retiring in the darkness, 
he and liis companions were mistaken by their friends for L'nion cavalry, and were fired upon. 
Jackson fell, pierced by their bvdlets, and some of his stall" were killed. His arm was shattered, 
and afterward amputated. He died on tlie 10th of May. 

° A cannon-ball strnok a jMllar of the Chancellor House, and hurled it with 9\ich force 
against Hooker, that it stunned him. The command then devolved on Couch, but Hooker was 
•ble to resume it iu ths course of a few hours. 



1863.] 



LINCOLN'S ADMINISTRATION. 



651 



Early was then in command on the heights. Sedgwick formed storming col- 
umns in the morning, drove the Confederates from the fortified ridge, and with 
nearly his entire force pushed on toward Chancellorsville. At Salem Church, 
a few miles from Fredericksburg, he was met and checked, by a force sent by 
Lee, after a sharp fight, by which he lost, that day, including the struggle for 
the heights in the morning, about five thousand men. Instead of joining 
Hooker, Sedgwick found himself compelled, the next day, in order to save his 
army, to fly across the Rappahannock, which he diii, near Banks's Ford, on the 
night of the 4th and 5th of May. Hooker, meanwliile. had heard of the 
perilous situation of Sedgwick, and, on consultation with h<s corps command- 
ers, it was determined to retreat to the north side of the river. Lee had pre- 
pared to strike Hooker a heavj' blow on the oth. A violent rain-storm 
prevented, and that night the Nationals passed the river in safety witliout 
molestation. On the same day the Confederate army resumed its position on 
the heights at Fredericksburg. Both parties had suffered \erj severe losses.' 
While Hooker and Lee were contending at Chancellorsville, a greater por- 
tion of the cavalry of the Army of the Potomac, commanded by Stonoman, 



,*^' *if~i-^", 9^--* T 




BUINS OF TUE CHANCELLOR ilAXSION.' 

were raiding on the communications of the Army of Northern Virginia. 
They crossed the Kappahannock [April 29], and swept down toward liicli- 
mond in the direction of Gordonsville. Unfortunately for the efficiency of 
the expedition, the command was divided, and raided in various directions, 
one party, under Kilpatrick, approaching within two miles of Richmond. They 
destroyed much jaroperty, but the chief object of the expedition, namely, the 
breaking up of the railways between Lee and Richmond, was not accomplished, 
and the week's work of the cavalry had very little bearing on the progress of 
the war. 



I The National loss wag reported at 17,197, includins? about 5.000 prisoners. Thev left 
behind, in their retreat, their dead and wounded, \?, pieces of artillerr. about 20.000 smail-arms, 
17 colors, and a large quantity of ammunition. The Confederate loss was probablv about 15,000, 
of whom 5,000 were prisoners, with 15 colors, and 7 pieces of artillery. 

' The villa and out-buildings of Mr. Chancellor constituted ■'Chancellorsville." That man- 
Biou was beaten into ruins tlurmg the battle. The picture gives its appearance wlien the writer 
sketched it, ki June, 18C6. 



652 THE NATION. [1803. 

We have observed' that LiJiiLCstrcct was operating against General Peek 
in the vieinity ot' Norfolk. The latter oftieer, with a eonsiderable force, was 
in a strongly fortitieJ position at Suffolk, at the head of the XansenionJ River, 
from wliieh lie kept watch over Norfolk and the month of the James Iliver, 
and furnislied a base for operations against Petersburg and the inii)ortant Wil- 
don i-ailway. Eai'ly in April [1803], Longstrcet made a sudden and vigorous 
movement against SuH'olk, expecting to drive the Nationals from that post, 
seize Norfolk and Portsmouth, and perhaps make a demonstration against 
Fortress 3Ionroe. But Peek met his foe with such skill and y.iUn- that 
Longstrcet was compelled to resort to a siege. In this he failed, and on 
hearing of the battle at Chancellorsville, he withdrew and joined Lee, making^ 
that commander's army nearly as strong as that of his antagonist. Hooker's 
losses, and the e.\i>iratiou of the terms of his nine months' and two years' 
men, to the nuinlier of almost 30;000, about to occur, greatly reduced his num- 
bers. Lee's army was buoyant,' and Hooker's was desponding. 

Impelled by false notions of the tcmjier of the people of the Free-labor 
States, and the real resources and strength of the government, and elated by 
the events at Chancellorsville, the Chief Leader now ordered Lee to invade 
Maryland and Pennsylvania again. Hooker suspected such intention, and so 
reported, but the authorities at Washington were slow to believe that Lee 
would repeat the folly of the jirevious year. But he did so. By a tl.-ink 
movement he caused Hooker to break up his encampment on the IJappahan- 
nock, and move toward Washington, after there had been some sharp cavalry 
engagements near the river, above Fredericksburg. Lee sent his left wing, 
under Ewell, thriJBgh Chester (iap of the Blue Ridge, into the Shenantloali 
Valley. He swept down rapidly to Winchester, and drove Milroy [June ] .5, 
1863], who was there with seven thousand men, across the Potomac into Mary- 
land and Pennsylvania, witli the loss of nearly all of his artillery and ammu- 
nition. He also lost many, men in the race from Winchester to the Potomac, 
but saved his trains. 

Hooker, at the same time, had moved from the Rajiiiahannock to Ceutre- 
ville, for the purpose of covering Washington, while Longstrcet marched on a 

' See page 648. 

' The Confederates amt their friends were full of hope nt this time. The repulse of the Army 
of tlie Potomac seemed to promise security to Kiclimond for some time. A'iol<sl)urg and Port 
Hudson [see page 64G] then seemed impregnable; and llie promises of the disloyal Peace Faction 
at the North, of a counter-revoluiion in tlie Free-labor States, seemed likely to be soon fultillcd. 
The news of the Battle of Cliancfllorsville inspirited the friends of tlie Confederates in Kngland, 
and these were clamorous for tlieir government to acknowledge (lie Confederacy as an inde- 
pendent nation; and in tlie spring of 1SG4 a large body, representing tlie ruling classes in Eng- 
land, formed a league, to assist the Confederates, called the iSimth'ni Ind-'pendencn Associotion. 
But the British government wisel_v hesitated, and only the Pope of Rome, of all the rulers of thi' 
earth, ever recognizOil " Presi<leMt" I>avis as the head of a nation. In a friendly letter ho 
addressed liini as " tlie Illustrious and Honorable Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederatet 
States of America." .\t this time a scheme of the French Emperor for destroying the Kepublie 
of Me-xico and aiding the Confederates, was in operation, 20,000 French troops and 5,000 recreant 
Mexicans being engaged in the work. Tlio .Vustrian Archduke Maximilian was made Emperor 
of Mexico by means r.f French bayonets, but when the Civil AVar dosed, in IsilS, and tho 
scheming Napoleon saw tliat our Kepublio was stronger than ever, he abandoned the enterprise 
and his dupe, and Maximilian, overthrown, was shot by order of the legitimate Kepublican Chief 
Magistrate of Mexico. 



1863.] 



LINCOLN'S ADMINISTRATION. 



653 



parallel line along the eastern bases of the Blue Ridge, watching for an oppor- 
tunity to pounce upon the National Capital. Cavalry skirmishes often occurred, 
for the hostile forces were continually feeling each other. Meanwhile fifteen 
hundred Confederate cavalry had dashed across the Potomac in pursuit of 
Milroy's wagon-train, swept uj) the Cumberland Valley to Chambcrsburg, in 
Pennsylvania, destroyed tlie railway in that region, and ]ilnndered the people. 
TJiis raid ju'oduced great alarm. Governor Curtin issue.l a call for the Penn- 
sylvania militia to turn out in defense of their State, and the National authori- 
ties had taken measures to meet the peril. When, a little later, the Confederate 
army was streaming across the Potomac, about fifty tliousand troops, or one 
half the number the President had called for from the States nearest the Capi- 
tal, were under arms. .Vlmost one half of these were from Pennsylvania, and 
fifteen thousand were from New York. The apathy t-lmwu by Penusyhanians 
when danger seemed remote, now disappeared. 

By skillful movements, Lee kept Hooker in doul)t as to his real intentions, 
mitil Ewell's corps had crossed the Potomac at Williamsport and Sliepards- 
town [June 22 and 23], and was pressing u}) the Cumberland Valley. Ewell 
advanced with a jiart of his force to within a fi'W miles of the capital of Penn- 
sylvania, on the Susquehanna, while another portion, luider Early, reached 
tliat rivei' fartlier down, after jiassing through Emmettsburg, Gettysburg, and 
York, and levying contributions on tlie people. Tlicse movements created 
an intense panic, and with reason, for at one time it seemed as if there was no 
power at hand to prevent the invaders from marching to the Schuylkill, and 
<'ven to tlie Hudson. Three days after Ewell crossed the Potomac, Longstrcet 
iiud Hill followed, and on the 25th of June [1803] tlie whole of Lee's army 
was again in ]\Laryland and Pennsylvania. 

The Army of the Potomac was thrown across the river at and near 
Edwards's Ferry, one hundred tliousand strong, having been re-enforced by 
troops in the vicinity of Washington. 
A difference of opinion now arose be- 
tween Generals Hooker and Halleck 
(the latter then General-in-Chief of the 
armies), concerning the occuj)ation of 
Harper's Ferry. Their views Mere ir- 
reconcilable, and the former offered his 
resignation. It was accepted, and Gen- 
eral George G. Meade was placed in 
command of the Army of the Potomac, 
.and did not relinquish it until the close 
of the war. A change in the cotn- 
maiiders of an army in the presence of 
an enemy is a ])erilous act, but in this 
ease no evil followed. General Meade 
assumed the command on the 2Sth of 
June, when the army was lying at Frederick, in ^Maryland, in a ]>osition 
to dart through the South Mountain Gaps upon Lee's line of communication, or 




GEORGE G. ME.iDE. 



654 '^^^^ M ATI ox. [1863. 

upon his coluiuns in ivtreat, or to follow him mi a jiaralh'l line toward the 
Susquehanna. 

T.ee was about to cross tlie Susquelianiia at ITarrishurg, ami march on 
I'liiladclphia, wlicn he was alanuc(l l>y information of the position of tlie Arniy 
of till' Potomac in incivast'il force, wliich was threatening his flank and rear. 
He ohserved at tlie same time the rapid gatheriiiLT of the yeomanrv of Penn- 
sylvania, and troops from other States on his front, and he thought it prudent 
to ahaiidnii his scheme of further invasion. lie immediately recalled Ewell, 
and ordered a concentration ni' the .Vrmy of Northern Virginia in the vicinity 
of (Jettyslmrg, with a view of falling upon the Nationals with crushing force, 
and ilien marching on Baltimore and ^Vashington, cir, in the event of defeat, 
to have a direct line of retreat to the Potomac. 

Ill tile mean time Meade had put his army in motion towanl the Siisque- 
hann.i. hut it was not until the evening of the 30th of June that he was 
adviseil of Lee's evident intention to give battle in full force. Satisfied of this, 
lie jirejiaivd to meet the shock on a line south of Gettysburg. He had already 
sent his eavalry forward to I'econnoiter. ,Vt Hanover, cast of Gettysburg, 
Kilpatrick's command encountered [June 20] and defeated, in a sharp fight, 
some of Stuart's cavalry, and on tlie same day IJuford and his horsemen 
entered (tettvsburg. The Confeder.ites were not vet there, and on the follow- 
ing day the First Corps, coiiimanded by General .1. F. Keyuolds, ri'ached that 
jilace. General Hill Mas then appiMaching from Cluunbersburg, ami that night 
Buford lay between the (.'onfederates and Gettysburg. On the following 
morning [.Tiily 1] he met the \au of the Confederates. iV hot skirmish ensued, 
licyiiolds hastened forwai'd tn the scene of action, and on Oak or Seiniiiarv 
Ividge a severe battle was fought, in which lieynolds was killed. 3Ieainvhile 
the Eleventh (Howard's) Corps came up, and the contlict assumed grander 
proportions, for T^i'c's troops were concentrating there. The Nationals were 
finally pressed liack, and under the direction of Howard took an advantageous 
position on a range of rocky heights back of but close to (Gettysburg, forming 
two sides of a trianule. whereof Cemetery Hill, nearest the town, was thu 
apex. There tlie Nationals bivouacked that night, and Meade and the 
remainder of the troops hastenccl to join tlieni. Lee's army occupied Seminary 
liidge that night. 

Both coramamlers wt^'w averse to taking the initiative of battle, and it was 
beivrecn three and four o'clock in the afternoon of the 'Jd before the struggle 
was renewed. Tiien Lee tell heavily u])on Meaih''s left, commanded by Sickles. 
A sanguinary "ontest ensued, which gradually extended to the center, where 
Hancock was in command. The chief struggle was for a rocky eminence, 
called T>oiiud Top Pidge, or Little Pound Top ; but the Nationals firmly held 
it against fierce assaults. Heavy masses were thrown against Hancock, but 
these were cast back with heavy losses; and, at sunset, the battle ended on 
the left and center of the Nationals. When the somids of conflict died away 
on that jiart of the field, they were heard on the right anil right center, where 
Slocum and Howard were in command. Howard was on Cemetery Hill, and 
Slocum oil Culji's Mill, .\gainst tiiese Early and Johnson, of Ewell's corps. 



1863.] 



LINCOLN'S A D M I X I S T R A T I X . 



655 



advanced with groat vigor. They were thrown back from Cemetery Hill, but 
snceeeded in penetrating, and holding for tlie night, the works on the e.\;treme 
right of Slocum's command. It was near ten o'clock at night [July 2, 1863] 
when the battle ended, and the advantage seemed to be with the Confederates, 

Both parties now prepared tor another struggle the next day. It was 
begun at t'owr o"eh>ek in the niiii-ning [•Tuly -i], when Sloeuin drove the Con- 
federates out of his lines, and some ilistance back. It required a hai'd fight foi 
four hours to aeeomplish it, but it was done. Then Ewell was firndy held ii: 
cheek. Round Top Ridge, on Meade's extreme left, was impregnable, and s<> 
Lee determined to assail his more vulnei'able center. He spent the whole fore- 
noon in preparations for an attack, and, at one o'clock, he opened upon Cem- 
etery Hill and its immediate vicinity one hundred and forty-five cannon. A 
hundred National guns quickly responded, and for the S]iace of two hours 
Gettysburg and the surrounding country were made to tremble by the thunder 
of more than two hundred cannon. Then, like a stream of lava, the Confed- 
erates, jireceiled by a cloud of skirniisliers, swept over the jjlain, and assailed 
the Xational line. Fearful was tlie struggle, and tearful the loss. At near 
sunset the assailants were repulsed at every point, and the great and decisive 
Batth' of Gcft;/.<f>iiri/ was won by tlie Army of the Potomac. It ha<I been 
fought with amazing courage and fortitude by both armies, and eai'h was 
dreadfully shattered by the collision.' The writer was upon the ground a I'ew 
days after tlie battle, ,^^^^^^-_ _»*-_ _ 

when full two hundred 
dead horses were still 
unburied. The annexed 
picture shows a group of 
them as they fell in the 
road in front of a farm- 
house, near General 
Meade's head-quarters. 

On the evening of the 
day after the battle [July 
4, 180:i], Lee began a re- 
treat toward Virginia, 
and, the next day, was 
followed by Meade, who 
chased him to the Potomac, at Williamsport, above Harper's Ferry. Thei-e, by 
strong iutrenchments and a show of force, Lee kept 3Ieade at bay until he could 
construct pontoon bridges, when, over these, and by fording the river above, tlie 
whole remnant of his army, his artillery and trains, passed into Viruinia, and 
escaped, much to the disappointment of the loyal people. "When it was known 
that the Confederates had been beaten at Gettvsburs, and were in full retreat. 




.;•^;»^J^.'? 



SCE>rE ON THE GETTYSBURG BATTLE-GEOUN'D. 



' The National loss during the three days of conflict was 23. 1 8G men, of whom 2.834 were 
killed, 13,709 wounded, and 6,643 were missing. Lee, as usual, made no report of his los.ses. 
He spoke of them as harin? been '• severe." A careful estimate, made from various statement?, 
places it at about 30,000, of whom 14,000 were prisoners. 



g5G '^^^^ NATION. [ISCS. 

it was expected they would lie captured at the margin of the swollen Potomac. 
But that disappointment speedily gave way to a feeling of satisfaction because 
of the important victory. That battle proved to be the pivotal one of the 
■war — the turning point in the rebellion. The scale of "uccess was then turned 
in favor of the National cause. It was so regarded at he time, and in view of 
the importance of the victory, the President, as the representative of the 
nation, recommended the observance of a day [Aug. 15] "for National thanks- 
giving, praise, and prayer." ' 

While the loyal people were rejoicing liecause of the great deliverance at 
Gettysburg, and the government was preparing for a final and decisive 
struggle with its foes, leading politicians of the Peace Faction, eviik-nlly in 
nffiliation with the disloyal secret organization, known as Knii/hts nf the 
Goldiii Circle,^ were using every means in their power to defeat the patriotic 
]iur])oses of the Administration, and to stir up the peopk' of the Free-labor 
States to a counter-revolution. This had been their course for several months 
duriifg' the dark hours of the Republic, before the dawn at Gettysljurg ; and 
the more strenuous ajipeared the efforts of the government to sup])ress the 
rebellion, more intense was their zeal in opposing it. This opposition was 
specially active, when the President, according to the authority of Congress, 
found it necessary, in consequence of the great discouragements to volunteering 
pvodu<'ed by the Peace Faction, to order [May 8, 1863] a draft or eonserijition 
to be made, to fill up the ranks of the army. This measure, the sus])ension of 
the ])rivilege of the writ of Ilaheas Corpus, and arbitrai'y arrests, were severely 
denounced. These, and the arrest and ]iunishment, for treasonable practices, 
of C. L. Yallandigham, a citizen of Ohio and late member of Congress, one of the 



' The Secretary of State, satisfied that the rebellion would soon be ended, addressed [August 
12, 1SG3] a cheering circular to the diplomatic agents of tlie government aliroad. in which he 
recited the mo.st important events m the history of the war thus far. and declared that the country 
" showed no signs of exhaustion of money, men, or materials :" and mentioned the fact that our 
loan was purchased, at par, Ijy our citizens at tlie average of $1,200,000 daily, and tliat gold v.-as 
selling in our market at 23 and 28 per cent, premium, "while in the insurrectionary region it 
commanded 1,200 per cent, premium." According to the report of the Confederate "Secretary 
of iho Treasury," at that time, the Confederate delit was over $000,000,000. At about the saino 
time "President" Davis sent forth iiu address, tor the purpose of "firing llie Southern 
heart," and reconciling the people to llie merciless conscription they were then suVijectcd to. filled 
•with tlie most flagrant uiLsreiu-eseutations. He told tliem, in effect, that the Northern people 
were little lictter th.au savages. " Their malignant rage," he said, "aims at nothing less than the 
<\\termination of yourselves, your wives, and your children. They seek to destroy what they 
•cannot plunder. They propose as spoils of victoiy that your homes shall be partitioned among 
wrctclics whose atrocious cruelty has stamped infamy on their government. They design to 
incite servile insurrection, and light the fires of incendiarism whenever they can reach your 
homes; and they debauch an inferior race, heretofore docile and conter-tod, by promising them 
the indulgence of the vilest passions as the price of their treachery." 

Davis was then exasperated by the failiwe of an attempt of his to gain an ollicial recognition 
by the governineut, l)y means of a triek. He sent his lieutenant. Alexander IT. Sieplieus, under 
a false pretense, at the moment when Lee, as ho thought, Wiis marching triumphanllv on I'hila- 
delphia, to seek an interview with tlie President, as the representative of the " government." so- 
■called, at Richmond. ."Stephens went to Fortress Monroe, but was not permitted to go farther. 
His mission to Washington doubtless had a twofold object, namely, an ollicial recognition of the 
Contederacy by the act of treating with it, and for the purpose of proclaimine the "Confederate 
government," with Jefferson Pavis as Dictator, from tlie portico of the Capitol, when Lee should 
seize Washington, as it was ooufideutly believed ho was about to do, 

' See page 520. 



1863. 



LINCOLN'S ADMINISTRATION. 



657 



most conspicuous leaders of the Peace Faction,' furnished that active fragment 
of the Democratic party' with pretenses for the most bitter denunciations 
of the government, and violent opposition to its measures. 

The inflammatory appeals of politicians excited the passions of the more 
dangerous classes in cities, and finally led to a fearful riot in the city of New 
York, at the middle of July, the immediate pretext being opposition to the 
Draft, which commenced there 
on Monday, the 13th. A mob .,v<&.\ 
suddenly collected, destroj'ed 
the apparatus for making the 
Draft, and burned the build- 
ing. Like a plague this pub- 
lic disorder seemed to break 
out simultaneously at different 
points in the northern part of 
the city, and for three days 
the commercial metropolis 
was at the mercy of lawless 
men and women, cbieflv na- 

' •' DEAFTIKG. 

tives of Ireland of the lower 

class, and disloyal men from Slave-labor States. The cry against the Draft 
soon ceased, and was followed with that of, " Down with the Abolitionists ! 
Down with the Nigger ! Hurrah for Jeff. Davis !" Arson and plunder 
became the business of the rioters, and maiming and murder was their recrea- 
tion. The colored population of the city were special objects of their wrath. 
These were hunted down, bruised, and killed, as if they had been noxious wild 
beasts. Men, women, and children shared a common fate. An asylum for 
colored children was sacked and burned, while the poor, affrighted orphans, 
some beaten and maimed, fled in terror to whatever shelter they could find. 
Finally, the police, aided by some troops, quelled the riot with the strong arm 
of power, after a sacrifice of full four hundred human lives, and the destruction 
of property valued at 82,000,000. After that, the Draft was resumed, and 
went quietly on.' 




' General Burnside, in command of the Department of the Ohio, issued an order for the sup- 
pression of sedition and treasonable speech and conduct. VaUandigham, whose sympathy with 
the cause of tlie Confederates had been conspicuously shown from the beginuing. denounced this 
order, aud openly violated it. He was arrested, tried b_v a mir[tar3' commission, found guilty, and, 
by orders of the President, was sent within the Confederation, with a penalty of imprisonment 
should he return. He was treated with contempt by his ''Southern friends," and soon made his 
way in a blockade-runner to Halifax, and thence into Canada. 

' The Peace Faction of the "Democratic" or Opposition party did not fairly represent the 
great mass of the members of that party. It was essentially disloyal : they were loyal. Yet 
the influence of that faction was so potent, that it controlled the policy of the party as an organi- 
zation. Its aims appeared no higher than the control of the emoluments and offices of the gov- 
ernment : and the encouragement it continually held out to the Conspirators, by falsely repre- 
senting the Opposition party as friendly to their cause, and discouraging volunteering and other 
efforts for putting down the rebellion, prolonged the war at least two years, and, as a consequence, 
tens of thousands of precious lives, and tens of millions of treasure, were wasted. 

' Horatio Seymour, who was one of the ablest of the leaders of the Peace Faction, and then 
Governor of the State of New York, had denounced the government as a despot, because of th« 



42 



g58 THE NATION. [I86i 

Tliere appears to be ample evidence that preparations had been made 
among the disloyal politicians of the Free-labor States, at the time we are con- 
sidering, for a counter-revolution, which sliould coinjiel the government to 
make terms of peace with the Confederates, on the basis of a dissolution of the 
Union and the independence of the so-called Confederate States. The invasion 
of Maryland and Pennsylvania, so as to encourage the Peace Faction, was a 
part of the drama ;' and chiefly for the encouragement of the same class in 
the Western States, and to form a nucleus for armed opponents of the govern- . 
ment in that region, the notonous guerrilla cliief, John IT. Morgan, was sent 
into Indiana and Ohio at the close of June, with over three thousand mounted 
men. He crossed the Ohio River from Kentucky into Indiana, some distance 
below Louisville, and, pushing a little into the interior, made a plundering 
raid eastward through that State and Ohio, well toward the Pennsylvania 
border. There was an uprising of the people because of his presence, but not 
such a one as the Peace Faction had led him to expect. Within forty-eight 
hours after Moi'gan entered Indiana, sixty thousand of its citizens had re- 
sponded to the call of the Governor to turn out and drive him out of it. 
Equally patriotic were the people of Ohio. Morgan was pursued, and 
finally captured, with a remnant of his band, nearly all of whom were killed 
or made prisoners. The truth seemed to be that the reverse of Lee at Gettys- 
burg had disconcerted the leaders of the Peace Faction, and they were com- 
pelled, by prudence, to postpone their revolutionary operations. The riot in 
New York seems to have been an irregular manifestation of an organized out- 
break in that city, wlien, as it was expected, the neighing of the horses of Lee's 
cavalry would be heard on the opposite banks of the Hudson. 

When Lee escaped into Virginia [July 14, 1SG3], and moved up the Shen- 
andoah Valley, Meade determined to follow him along the route pursued by 

arrest and punishment of Vallandisrham, " not," he said, " for an oflfense against law, but for a 
disregard of an invalid order, put forth in an utter disregard of the principles of civil liberty." 
He opposed the Draft; mildly and without effect ho interposed his authority as Governor to quell 
the riot, and sent his adjutant-general to Washington to demand the suspension of the PrafY. 
This he told the raob, and said: " Wait till ray adjutant returns from Wasliington, and you shall 
be satisfied." He wanted the Draft postponed until the courts should decide whether it was cou- 
stitiitional, biit this obvious advantage to tlie Confederates, who were then filling their ranks by a 
rigorous conscription, the President refused to give, and the Draft went on. 

' Lee's invasion was covmtcd on largely as an aid to the Peace Faction in carrying out their 
plans. And after his failure, and ho was lying quietly near the Rapid Anna, in September, the 
Richmond Enquirer .said : " The success of the Democratic party [at the approaching election] 
would be no longer doubtful, should General Lee once more advance on Meade. . . . He 
may so move and direct liis army as to produce political results, wliich. in their bearing upon tins 
war, will prove more effectiuil tlian the bloodiest victories. Let him drive Meade into Washing- 
ton, and he will again raise the spirits of the Democrats, confirm their timid, and give confidence 
to their wavering. He will embolden the Peace party should he again cross the Potomac, 
for he will show the people of Pennsylvania how little security they have from Lincoln for the 
protection of their homes." 

Matthew F. Maury, formerly Superintendent of tho National Observatory, and one of tho 
most active enemies to his country, said, in a letter to tho Drndon Times, on the 17th of 
August, 1863: "There is already a Peace party in the North. All the embarrassments with 
which that party can surround Mr. Lincoln, and all the difficulties that it can throw in the way 
of the War party in the North, operate directly as so much aid and comfort to the South. . . . 
New York is becoming the champion of State Rights in the North, and to that extent i.s taking 
Southern ground. . . . Vallandigham waits and watches over the border, pledged, if elected 
GoTemor of Ohio, to array it against Lincoln and the war, and go for peace." 



1803.] LINCOLN'S ADMINISTRATION. '659 

'McClellan in his race for the Rappahannock with the same foe the year before,' 
keeping close to the eastern slopes of the Blue Ridge, and using its gaps as circum- 
stances might dictate. The Army of tlie Potomac crossed the river on the 1 7tli 
and 1 Sth of July, and moved rapidly forward, getting the start of its ant.agonist, 
which had lingered between the Potomac and Winchester. Lee tried to recall 
Meade, by threatening another invasion of Maryland. He failed, and then 
marclied rapidly up the Shenandoali Valley to meet the dangers that threatened 
his front and flank. There were skirmishes in tlie mountain-passes during this 
exciting race, one of which, at Manassas Gap, so detained Meade's army, that 
Lee, by a quick movement, went through Chester Gap, and took position iu 
front of the Nationals, between the Rappahannock and Rapid Anna rivers. 
Meade slowly advanced to the Rappahannock, and then the two armies rested 
for some time. Both were somewhat weakened by drafts upon them for men 
to serve elsewhere. Finally, at the middle of September, Meade crossed the 
;iver and drove Lee beyond the Rapid Anna, wliere the latter took a strongly 
defensive position. In the mean time Meade's cavalry had not been idle, and 
divisions under Buford and Kilpatrick liad considerable skirmishing with those 
of Stuart between the two rivers. 

General Meade contemplated a forward movement for some time, and Lee,. 
feeling able to cope with Ids antagonist, proposed to march directly on Wasli- 
ington, at the risk of losing Richmond, but he was overruled by his " govern- 
ment." So he proceeded to employ the more cautious measure of turning 
Meade's right flank, and attempting to get in his rear and seize the National 
Capital. He had moved some distance for this purpose, and was on Meade's 
flank before the latter was aware of it. Then a close race in the direction of 
Washington, by tlie two armies, occurred for the third time. The Anny of 
the Potomac was the winner, and reached the heights at Centreville, the first 
objective [October 15, 1863], before its antagonist. There had been some 
severe collisions on the way. Gregg's cavalry was routed, with a loss of five 
hundred men, at Jeflfersonton. Stuart, with about two thousand men, hung^ 
closely upon the rear flank of Meade's army, and at Auburn he came near 
being captured, with all his men. He escajied, however ; and from that point 
^.o Bristow Station there was a sharp race. There a battle occurred between 
the corps of Generals Warren and Hill, in which the pursuing Confederates 
were repulsed, and the Union force moved on and joined tlie main army, then 
at Centreville. At Bristow Station Lee gave up the race, and fell back to the 
Rappahannock, destroying the Orange and Alexandria railway behind him. 
Meade slowly followed, after the railway was repaired, attacked the Confed- 
erates at Rappahannock Station, on the river, and, after a se^■ere battle, drove 
them toward Culpepper Court-House. 

Lee now took post again behind the Rapid Anna, and Meade's army 
lay quietly between the two rivers until late in November, while he was 
watching for a favorable opjjortunity to advance on his foe, whose forces, 
he had observed, were spread over a considerable surface, in the direction 

' See page 631. 



660 



THE NATION. 



[lt!C3. 



■of GorJonsville. But Lee had begun the constructiou of strong defenses along 
the line of Mine Run, and Meade deterniined to advance and attempt to turn 
Jiis position. It would be a perilous undertaking at that season of the year, 
for it involved the necessity of cutting loose from his supjjlies, which could not 
be carried with safety to the south side of the Rapid Anna. The risk was 
taken. The troops were j)rovided with ten days' rations, and, crossing the 
river on the L'Otli [November, 1863], pushed on in the direction of Mine Run, 
along the line of which were strong intreuchments, defended by heavy ahatia 




ABATIS.' 

General Warren, in the advance, opened a battle, but it was soon found that 
the Confederates were too strongly intrenched to promise a successful assault. 
So Meade suspended the attack, withdrew, and established his army in winter 
quarters on the north side of the Rapid Anna. So ended the campaign of the 
Army of the Potomac in lt^63. 

In Western Virginia, adjoining the great theater on which the armies of 
the Potomac and of Xorthern Virginia were performing, there had been very 
few military movements of imj)ortance since the close of 18(51. In the summer 
of 1863 a raiding party, under Colonel Tolland, went over the mountains from 
tlie Kanawha Valley, and struck the Virginia and Tennessee railway at 
Wytheville. • Finding sharp resistance, they retraced their steps with great 
suffering. A little later, General W. W. Averill went over the mountain- 
ranges from Tygart's Valley, with a strong cavalry force, destroyed Confed- 
erate salt-works and other property, and menaced Staunton. He fought Con- 
federate cavalry near AVliite Sulphur Springs for nearly two days [August 26 
and 27], and was comi)elled to retreat. Early in November he started on 

' Abatis is a Froiicli tern; in Fortilioation, for otistructions placed in front of works, composed 
of felled trees, with their branches poiutiug outward. Such obstruetiou is represented in the 
engraving. 



I8G3.] LINCOLN'S A D M IX I STR ATI ON. 661 

anothor oxpeditioii, pushing tlie Confederates before him in the mountain 
regions, and nearly purtjintj "West Virginia of armed rebels. He pushed for- 
ward for the purpose of breaking up the Virginia and Tennessee railway, 
which was the ehief eomuiunication between the armies of Lee and Bragg, 
and on the 16th of December, after a perilous march, over icy roads, he struck 
that hiuhway at Salem, and destroyed the track and other property over an 
extent of about fifteen miles. The Confederates in all that region were 
aroused, and no less than seven difl'erent leaders combined in an attempt 
to intercept AverilFs return, but failed. Tlie raider escaped, with two hun- 
dred i)risouers, and a loss of only six men drowned, five wounded, and ninety 
missing. 

Let us now turn our attention to events in Tennessee, where we left the large 
armies of Rosecrans and Bragg, after the Battle of Stone's River, the former 
at ilurfreesboro' and the latter a little further southward.' Bragg's line was 
alon<T the general direction of the Duck River, from near the Cumberland 
mountains westward," and in that relative position the two armies lay from 
January until June [186:^], Rosecrans waiting to complete full preparations for 
an advance, before moving. Meanwhile, detachments of the two armies, chiefly 
of mounted men, were active in minor operations. At the beginning of Feb- 
ruary, General Wheeler, Bragg's chief of cavalry, with Wharton and Forrest 
as brigadiers, concentrated liis forces, over four thousand strong, at Franklin, 
a little south of Nashville, and, advancing rapidly to the Cumberland River, 
attempted to cajatnre the post of Fort Donelson,^ then commanded by Colonel 
Harding. They were repulsed, after considerable loss on both sides. General 
J. C. Davis was operating in Wheeler's rear, and hastened his departure from 
the region of the Cumberland. A little later, General Earl Van Dorn was 
found hovering around Franklin with a considerable force of cavalry and 
infantry, and against these General Sheridan and Colonel Colburn were sent. 
The latter was compelled to surrender [March 5] to superior numbers, while 
the former drove Van Doni southward across the Duck River. 

There was a severe struggle eastward of Murfreesboro' [March 18] between 
troops under Colonel Hall and those of Morgan, the guerrilla chief, in which 
the latter were worsted, and lost between three and four hundred men. 
Early in April Van Dorn was again in the vicinity of Franklin, with a force 
estimated at nine thousand men, the object being to seize that post, preliminary 
to an attack on Nashville, the great depository of Rosecrans's supjilies. Gen- 
eral Gordon Granger was then in command at Franklin, where he was building 
a fort on the bank of the Harpeth River, and, being forewarned, he was pre- 
pared for an attack, which Van Dorn made on the 10th [April, 1863]. The 
Confederates were repulsed and retired to Spring Hill, after a loss of about 

• See page 639. 

' Brafrg's line extended from Columliia. on the west, to McMinnville. on the east. His infantry 
occnpied the space between Wartrace and .^helliyville; his cavalry, on his right, stretched out to 
McMinnrille, and on his left as far as Siting Hill, between Franklin and Columbia. 

' Forrest had been operating at one or two other points on the Cumberland, for the purpose 
of cutting off Rosecrans's supplies by way of that river, for his army was chiefly subsisted by 
provisions that came down from the region of the Ohio River. 



662 



THK NATION. 



[1863. 



three Imiulred men. The Union loss was less tlian forty.' A few days later 
& detachniont of Rosecrans's army, under General J. .1. Reynolds, drove a band 
of Morgan's men from ]\[c]\Iinnville [Ai)ril 20], and destroyed a good deal of 
Confederate property there ; and these and lesser e.xpeditions, sent out from 
time to time, while Rosccrans was jirocuriug cavalry horses and making other 
]>reparations for an advance, caused great circumspection on the part of the 
Confederates. 

A more ambitious expedition than any previously sent out by Rosecrans, 
moved toward the middle of April, under Colonel A. D. Streight, for the pur- 
jjose of crippling the resources of the foe. He left Xashville in steamers [April 
11], and, debarking at Fort Donelson, crossed over to the Tennessee River at 
Fort Henry, and ascended that stream to the borders of Mississi])pi and Ala- 
bama, gathering horses for his use on the way. At Tuseumbia, most of his 
troops being tlien mounted, Streight turned southward, and, sweeping through 
Alabama in a curve bending eastward, pushed on toward Rome, in Northern 
Georgia, wliere extensive iron- works were in operation, and Atlanta, an import- 
ant railway center. The cavalry of Forrest and Roddj' followed. The 
parties skirmished and raced; and finally, when near Rome, Streight's 
exhausted command was struck and mostly captured [May 3, 1863], when 




LIIiBY PHISO.V, RICUMO-NU. 



they were sent to Richmond, and confined in the famous Libbv Prison. From 
that loathsome place the leader and one juiiidred of his olTicers escaped, in 
February following, by burrowing under ilie foundations of the building. 

As June wore away, and the Army of the Cumberland (Rosecrans's) was 

' Van Dorn was one of the most cJashinir of the Confederate leaders. lie was shot soon after 
the battle we have just considered, by an iadiguant husband, whoso wife the Confederate leader 
had dishonored. 



1863.] LINCOLN'S ADMINISTRATION. gg3 

yet lying at Murfreesboro', the public, unable to comprehend the obstacle to 
its advance, became impatient of the delay. The cavalry of that army was 
then in a fair condition, and its supplies being abundant, Rosecrans, on the 
23d of June, ordered an advance, his grand objective being Chattanooga 
Bragg, his antagonist, was strongly intrenched among hills favorable for 
defensive operations. Yet the Army of the Cumberland, moving in three 
corps, commanded respectively by Generals Thomas, McCook, and Crittenden, 
was so skillfully managed, that the Confederates were soon pushed from their 
position along the line of the Duck River, back to TuUahoma. When Bragg 
saw Rosecrans seize the mountain passes on his front, and threaten his flanks 
in his new position, he fled [June 30, 1863] without offering to give a blow in 
defense of a line of most formidable works which he had cast up in the course 
of several months. 

Rosecrans now pressed hard upon the rear of the fugitive Confederates, 
but the latter having the railway for transportation, kept out of his reach, and 
pushed as rapidly as possible over the Cumberland Mountains toward the Ten- 
nessee River, which they crossed at Bridgeport, destroyed the bridge behind 
them, and hastened to Chattanooga.' Rosecrans advanced his army to the 
base of the mountains, when, finding Bragg too far ahead to be easily over- 
taken, he halted his entire force, and rested more than a month while gathering 
supplies for his army at proper places," and repairing the railway from the 
iiigh table-laud at Decherd, down through the mountain pass of Big Crow 
Creek, to Stevenson. At the middle of August he moved forward, his army 
stretched over a long line east and west, with cavalry on its flanks. In the 
course of four or five days it crossed the mountain ranges and stood along the 
shores of the Tennessee from above Chattanooga westward for a hundred 
miles, startling [August 21, 1863] Bragg by its apparition, the thunder of can- 
non on the eminences opposite that town, and the screaming of shells over the 
Confederate camp. 

Early in September, Thomas and McCook crossed the Tennessee with their 
corps at points each side of Bridgeport, where the railway spans it, and by 
the 8th had secured the passes of Lookout Mountain as far as Valley Head, 
while Crittenden's corps took post at Wauhatchie, in Lookout Valley, nearer 
the river. Informed of these threatening movements, Bragg abandoned Chat- 
tanooga, passed through the gaps of the Missionaries' Ridge ' to the West 
Chickamauga River, in Northern Georgia, and posted his army in a strong 
position near Lafayette, to meet the National forces expected to press through 

' This expulsion of Bragg'a army from Middle Tennessee, by which a greater portion of that 
State and Kentucky was left imder tlio absolute control of the National authority, was a dis- 
iiearteuiug event for the Confederates, and tlicy now felt that every thing depended upon their 
holding Chattanooga, the key of East Tennessee, and, indeed, of all Northern Georgia. 

" Bragg had stripped tliat mountain region of forage, so Rosecrans waited vintil the Indian 
corn, in cultivated spots, was sufficiently grown to furnish a supply. Meanwhile he gathered 
supplies at Tracy City and Stevenson, and thoroughly picketed the railway from Cowan to 
Bridgeport. 

' The writer was informed by the late John Ross, the venerable Chief of the Cherokee 
Nation, that this undulating'ridge, lying back of Chattanooga and rising about 300 feet above the 
Tennessee River, was named the Missionaries' Ridge because missionaries among the Cherokees 
had a stati'oa on the southeastern slope of it. 



6(54 



THE NATION. 



[1863. 



the mountain passes. This was done in expectation of precisely what Rose- 
crans jn-oeceded to do, namely, pass through the mountains, and threaten his 
enemy's communications between Dalton and Resaca. Rosecrans came to this 
determination with tlie mistaken idea, when informed by Crittenden that 
Bragg had left Chattanooga, that the latter had commenced a retreat toward 
Rome. Crittenden, who had made a reconnoissance on Lookout Mountain, 
anil from its lofty summit looked down upon Chattanooga and observed that 
Bragg had retreated from it, immediately moved his corps into the Chatta- 
nooga Valley, and on tlie evening of the 10th of September, eneami)ed at 
Rossville, within tliree or four miles of the deserted village. Thus, without a 
battle, the chief object of tlie movement of the Army of the Cumbei-land 
over tlie mountains was gained. With great ease Bragg had been e.xpelled 
from ^Middle Tennessee, and was now held at bay in an unfortified position, 
away from the coveted stronghold and strategic position of Chattanooga. 

General Burnside, who w.is in command of the Army of the Ohio, was 
now brought into active co-operation with Rosecrans, having been ordered to 
pass over the mountains into East Tennessee to assist that leader in his struggle 
with Bragg. \Yheu summoned to that field, he concentrated his command, 
then in hand, about twenty thousand in number, at Crab Orchard, in South- 
eastern Kentucky. He prepared for a rapid movement. Ilis infantry were 

mostly mounted ; his cavalry and artil- 
lery had good horses, and his supplies 
were carried on pack-mules, that more 
facile movements might be made than a 
wagon-train would allow. On tlie day 
when Bragg was startled bj- the great 
guns of his pursuer at Chattanooga 
[August 21, 1863], Burnside began his 
march over tlie Cumberland mountains, 
a cavalry brigade in advance. They 
^ .,, „^ jcMi aj jjtsi 1 .H ^oon passed the great ranges, and were 

■'^''''^^^^■^^^i^- V 'Wi'V^Aff \ spcedilv posted on the line of the rail- 
^<>=»''-'^'m^ " ■ r 'i l,"*f f 1 ' ■ ^i , 1 ^ T 1 41 

way southwesterly trom Loudon, on the 

PACK-MtJLES. Tennessee River, so as to connect with 

Rosecrans at Chattanooga. General 
Buckner, who comm.aiided about twenty thousand troops in East Tennessee, 
had retired on Burnsidc's approach, and joined Bragg, and the important moun- 
tain pass of Cumberland Gap was soon in possession of the Nationals. The 
great valley between the Alleghany and Cumberland mountains, from Cleve- 
land to Bristol, seemed to be permanently rid of armed Confederates.' 




' The magnificent Valley of East Tennessee lias .in average width of sevcuty-fivo miles, and 
a length of two hundred miles. The loyal inhabitants of that region received the National 
troops with open arms. It is difficult to conceive the intensity of the feelings of the Union peo- 
ple along the line of Burnsidc's march. "Everywhere," wrote an eye-witnefss, "the people 
flocked to the roadsides, and. with cheers and wildest demonstrations of welcome, saluted the 
6ag of the Republic and the men who had borne it in triumph to the very heart of the ' Confed- 
eracy.' Old men wept at the sight, which they had waited for through months of sufferings 



1863. 



LINCOLN'S ADMINISTRATION. 



665 



Believing, as we have observed, that Bragg had begun a retreat toward 
Rome, Rosecrans pushed his troops tlirough the gaps of Lookout ]Mountain to- 
strike his flank, but he soon ascertained that his foe, instead of retreating, was 
concentrating his forces at Lafayette, to attack the now attenuated line of the 
Army of the Cumberland, wliose left was at Ringgold and its right near Alpine 
— points, by the National line, about fifty miles apart. Rosecrans immediately 
ordered the concentration of his own troops, to avoid and meet perils that 
threatened them. This was quickly done, and at a little past the middle of 
September [1863], the contending forces confronted each other, in battle array, 
on each side of the Chickamauga Creek, in the vicinity of Crawfish Spring 
and Lee and Gordon's Blill, the line of each stretching northward to the slopes 
of the Missionaries' Ridge. 

General Thomas took position on the extreme National left, and opened 
battle on the morning of the 19th [September], by attacking the Confederate 
right. The conflict raged almost without intermission until four o'clock in the 
afternoon, when there was a lull. It was renewed by the Confederates at five 
o'clock, and continued until dark. On the right center there had been some 
severe fighting, and when night fell the advantage appeared to be with the 
Nationals. In the mean time Long- 
street, who had been sent from Vir- 
ginia, by Lee, with his corps, to help 
Bragg, and had passed through the 
Carolinas and Georgia to Atlanta, was 
now coming up with his forces. He 
arrived on the field that night, and 
assumed command of Bragg's left, and 
on the morning of the 20th the Con- 
federates liad full seventy thousand 
men opposed to fifty-five thousand 
Nationals. 

Both parties prepared to renew 
the struggle in the morning. Thomas's 
troops intrenched during the night. 
A heavy fog enveloped the armies in 
the morning, and when it lifted, between eight and nine o'clock, a most san- 
guinary battle was commenced on the wing where Thomas was in command. 
It soon raged furiously along the whole line. Finally a desperate charge was 
made upon the temporarily weakened right center of the Nationals, when the 
line was broken. The right wing was shattered into fragments, and fled in 
disorder toward Rossville and Chattanooga, carrying along upon its turbulent 
and resistless tide Rosecrans, Crittenden, and McCook, while Sheridan and 

children, even, hailed with joy the sign of deliverance. Nobly have these persecuted people 
stood by their faith, and all loyal men will rejoice with them in their rescue at last from the clutch 
of the destroyer." "They were so glad to see Union soldiers," wrote another, " that they cooked 
every thing they had, and gave it freely, not asking pay, and apparently not thinking of it. Women 
stood by the roadside with paila of water, and displayed Union flags. The wonder was where 
all the 'Stars and Stripes' came from." 




GBOEGE H. THOMAS. 



606 '^"^ NATION. [1863 

Davis rallied a portion of it upon another road. Rosecrans, unable to join 
Thomas, and believing the whole army would be speedily hurrying, pell-mell, 
toward Chattanooga, pushed on to that place to make provision for holding 
it, if possible. But Thomas stood firm, and for awhile fought a greater part 
of the Confederate army, enduring shock after shock, and keeping it at bay 
until he could withdraw his forces, in obedience to an order from Rosecrans. 
This was done in good order, and the worn and wearied troops took position in 
the Rossville and Dry Valley gaps of the Missionaries' Ridge, where they 
bivouacked that night. On the following evening the whole army fell back to 
Chattanooga ; and within forty-eight hours after the battle it was so strongly 
intrenched that it defied Bragg, who had not thought it prudent to follow the 
retreating forces from the battle-field. lie contented himself with taking pos- 
session of the Missionaries' Ridge and Lookout Mountain. Victory was won 
by the Confederates in the battle of Chickamauga, but at a fearful cost to both 
armies.' 

The Army of the Cumberland was now closely imjii-isoned at Cliattanooga. 
By holding Lookout Mountain, which abuts upon the Tennessee River, Bragg 
commanded that stream and cut off Rosecrans's communication with his sup- 
plies at Bridgeport and Stevenson, and compelled him to transport them in 
wagons, over the rough mountains, fifty or sixty miles. This was a severe and 
precarious service. For awhile the army was on short allowance, and not less 
than ten thousand horses and mules were worked or starved to death in the 
service. In the mean time a change in the organization of the army was 
effected. It was determined by the government to hold Chattanooga, and for 
that purpose it was ordered that the armies under Burnside, Rosecrans, and 
Grant, should be concentrated there. Over these combined forces Grant was 
placed. His field of command was called the Military Division of the Missis- 
sij)pi.' 

When Grant arrived at Chattanooga, late in October, he found Thomas 
alive to the inij)ortanco of securing a safe and speedy way for supplies to reach 
that post. Nearly the whole of Bragg's cavalry had been operating against 

' The National loss was reported at 16,326, of whom 1,687 were killed. The total los3 of 
officers was !n4. It ia probable the entire Union loss was 19,000. The Confederate loss was 
20,950, of whom 2,674 were killed. Rosecrans bronglit off from the field 2,003 prisoners, 36 
guns, 20 caissons, and 8,450 small-arms. 

' Rosecrans was relieved of tlie command of the Army of the Cumberland, and was succeeded 
by Thomas, and General W. T. Slierraau was promoted to the command of Grant's Army of the 
Tennessee. Rosecrans was ordered to St. Louis, and was placed in command of the Department 
of Missouri. 

Before Grant was called to his enlarged command, he had taken measures for securing every 
Advantage of the victories at Yicksburg and Port Uudson. He sent liis paroled prisoners (see 
page 046) to the Confederate lines at Jackson, and on the same day ordered Sherman to lead a 
lieavy force against Johnston, wliose troops wore hovering in tlie rear of Vicksburg. His liead- 
<iuarter8 was at Jackson, and wlien Slierman advanced, he concentrated his forces tlierc, V)chiud 
intrenchmcnts. From there lie was driven on the 13tli of July, wlien lie lied toward tlie interior 
of Mississippi Grant cast up a line of fortilications around Vicksburg. and with tliese, and the 
expulsion of Johnston, tliat post was made secure. On tlie day of tlie fall of Vicksburg. the 
important post of Helena, in Arkansas, farther up the Mississippi, was attacked by a heavy force 
of Confederates, but they were repulsed with lieavy loss; and when Grant was summoned to the 
■command at Chattanooga, the freedom of navigation on the Mississippi River seemed to be per- 
manently secured. 



1863.] 



LINCOLN'S ADMINISTRATION. 



667 



his line of commnnications among the mountains. Tliey had seized and 
destroyed wagon-trains, and, notwithstanding they were driven here and there 
by Union cavalry, these raiders made the safe transportation of supplies so 
■doubtful, that the troops at Chattanooga were threatened with famine. Thomas 
had already devised a method of relief. General Hooker had been sent with 
the Eleventh and Twelfth Corps (Howard's and Slocum's), from the Army of 
the Potomac, to guard Rosecrans's communications. He was now at Bridge- 
port with a part of these forces, and it was proposed that he should cross the 
Tennessee with them, and, pushing into Lookout Valley, threaten Bragg's 
left, and cover the river to a point where a short route by land to Chattanooga 
might be obtained. Grant approved the plan, and it was executed. Hooker 
reached Wauhatchie, in Lookout Valley, after some fighting, on the 28th of 
October, and at the same time General W. F. Smith came down from Chatta- 
nooga, and threw a pontoon bridge across the river at a point only a few miles 
from that town.' This movement, a Richmond journal said, deprived the 
Confederates " of the fruits of Chickamauga." 

From the hour when Hooker entered Lookout Valley, his movements had 
been keenly watched by the Confederates on Lookout Mountain, and at mid- 
night [October 28, 29] a strong body of them swept down from the hills and 
fell suddenly upon the Nationals at Wauhatchie, commanded by General 
Geary, exjaecting to surprise them. They were mistaken. Geary was awake, 
and met the attack bravely ; and, with the help of troops from Howard's 
(Eleventh) corps, repulsed the assailants, and scattered them in every direc- 
tion. From that time the safe passage of the river, from Bridgeport to 
Brown's Ferry, was secured. Bragg's 
plans for starving the National army 
were defeated, and a little steamboat, 
called Chattanooga, was soon carry- 
ing provisions up the river, in abun- 
dance." 

While these events were occurring 
near Chattanooga, others of importance 
were seen in the great Valley of East 
Tennessee. Burnside's forces were busied 
in endeavors to drive the armed rebels 
•out of that region, and in so doing sev- 
eral skirmishes and heavier engagements 
occurred, the most prominent of which 
were at Blue Springs and Rogersville. 




THE CHATTANOOGA. 



Meanwhile, Longstreet was sent by 



' Eighteen hundred troops, under General Hazen, went down the river in batteaux at about 
midnight [October 26 and 27]. gUding unobserved by the Confederate sentmels along the base of 
Lookout Mountain, where the Tennessee sweeps around Moccasin Point, and, with other troops 
that went down by land, seized Brown's Ferry and threw a pontoon bridge across the river there. 
Hooker's troops coming up, connected with those at the ferry, and secured its possession to the 
Nationals. 

" There was no steamboat to be found on the Tennessee River in that region, so mechanics of 
the army built ono for the public service, and called it Chattanooga. 



668 TlIK NATION. [18G3. 

Bragg to sel«e Knoxville and drive the Xatioiiuls out of East Tennessee. He 
advanced swiftly and secretly, and on the 20th of October struck the first 
startling blow at the outpost of T'liiladelphia, and drove the Nationals to the 
Tennessee, at Loudon. BeloAV that ])oint he crossed, and moved on Knoxville, 
but was temporarily checked by Eurnside in a severe fight at Campbell's Sta- 
tion, each losing between three and four hundred men. Burnside fell back to 
Knoxville, where he was strongly intrenched, closely followed by Longstrect, 
who began a regular siege of the place. 

While the Confederates were besieging Knoxville, stirring events were 
occurring near Chattanooga. Grant had been waiting for the arrival of forces 
under Sherman, to enable him to advance on Bragg and send relief to Burn- 
side. So early as the 22d of September, that commander had been ordered, 
■with as many troops as could be spared from the line of the IVIississijipi, to 
proceed to the help of Rosecrans. These troops were on the line of the Mem- 
phis and Charleston railway, at the middle of October, and toward the close 
of the month they were summoned by Grant to Stevenson, to head off an 
anticipated flank movement by Bragg, in the direction of Nashville. "When 
Sherman arrived there, events were in such shape that Grant thought it projKT 
to attack Bragg as speedily as possible, for the twofold purpose of preventing 
his flight southward, which he suspected was his design, and to demorali/.e or 
weaken Longstreet's force and compel him to abandon the siege of Knoxville. 

Grant determined to aim his first heavy blow at Bragg's right, on the Mis- 
sionaries' Ridge. Sherman was directed to cross the Tennessee, and menace 
his right on Lookout IMountain, and then secretly recross, move to a point 
above Chattanooga, cross again, and advance on the Ridge. All this was 
satisfactorily done. Meanwhile, it was thought best to make a movement 
from the center, at Chattanooga. This was performed [November 2;?] by 
Thomas, when a commanding eminence in front of the Missionaries' Ridge, 
called Orchard Knob, was seized by the Nationals and fortified. Hooker was 
then ordered to attack Bragg's right on Lookout Mountain early the next 
morning, so as to attract the attention of the Confederates while Sherman 
should cross the Tennessee above Chattanooga. 

Hooker performed his prescribed duty with vigor and success. He openeci 
his guns upon the breastworks and rifle-pits of the Confederates along the 
steep, wooded, and broken slopes of the mountain, and then his troops, dash- 
ing vigorously forward, swept every thing before them, and captured a large 
portion of their foes on their front. Then the victors scaled the rugged sides 
of the mountain, up to the muzzles of cannon planted in a hollow fir toward its 
summit, and driving the Confederates there around an arable belt in the direc- 
tion of the Chattanooga Valley, established a line firmly on the eastern face 
of the mountain, with its right resting at the ])alisades at its top. During a 
greater part of the struggle which ended in this advantage to the Nationals, 
Lookout Mountain was hooded in a mist that went up from the Tennessee in 
the morning, and Hooker's troops were literally fighting in the clouds, and 
were hidden from their listening brethren at Chattanooga below, Avho heard 
the thunders of the cannon, but could only get an occasional glimpse of the 



1863.] 



LINCOLN'S ADMINISTRATION. 



669 



Uuioa banners.' Perceiving the danger of having their only way of retreat to 
the Chattanooga Valley cut off, the Confederates occupying the summit of the 
mountain fled at midnight, masking their retreat by an attack on the Nationals, 
ill the gloom. In the bright sunliglit and 
crisp morning air the next day, the National 
flag was seen by delighted eyes below, wav- 
ing over Pulpit Rock, on the top of Lookout 
Mountain, where, only a few days before, Jef- 
ferson Davis had stood and assured the assem- 
bled troops that all was well with the Con- 
federacy. 

While Hooker was fighting on Lookout 
Mo jitain, Sherman's troops were crossing 
the Tennessee on pontoon bridges. They 
were all over at noonday, and, pressing for- 
ward, secured a position on the northern end 
of the Missionaries' Ridge. That night [No- 
vember 24] both armies prepared for a struggle 
in the morning. Bragg withdrew all of his 
forces from Lookout Mountain, and concen- 
trated them on the Missionaries' Ridge ; and 
on the following day [November 25, 1863] 
they were attacked there in flank and front. 
Sherman moved early along the ridge, with 
flank columns at the base on each side. Hooker descended from Lookout 
Mountain, and, entering Ross's Gaj), made a similar movement upon Bragg's 




PULPIT ROCK. 




THE MISaiONAEIES' RIDGE, FROM THE CEMETERY AT CHATTANOOGA.' 

right, in the afternoon. A terrible struggle ensued, which Grant, standing on 

' During this struggle, a battery, planted on Moccasin Point, under Captain Naylor, did 
excellent service. It actually dismounted one of the guns in a Confederate battery, on the 
summit of the mountain, 1,500 feet above the river. 

'' This ridge is made up of a series of small hills, with gaps or passes between. The hill more 
m the foreground, at the left, is Orchard Knob, on which Grant made his quarters during the 
battle of the 25th. 



(370 



THE NATION. 



[1863. 



Orchard Knob, watched willi tlic most intense interest. The center, under 
Thomas, was ordered forward. The eager soldiers cleared the rifle-pits at tlie 
foot of the ridge, and then scaled tlie acclivity. The Confeder.ates were speedily 
driven from their stronghold, and tied in the direction of Ringgold; and th:it 
night the Missionaries' Ridge blazed with the camp-fires of the victors.' Early 
the next morning, Sherman, Palmer, and Hooker went in pursuit of liragg's 
flying army. His rear-guard, under Cleburne, the "Stonewall Jackson of the 
South," was struck at Ringgold, and, after sharp fighting, was driven. Then 
Grant's troops fell back, and General Sherman was sent to the relief of Burn- 
side. Bragg retreated to Dalton, established a fortified camp there, and was 
succeeded in command by General Joseph E. Johnston. Davis made Bragg 
General-in-Chief of the Confederate armies. 

Immediately after his arrival before Knoxville, Longstreet opened some of 
his guns [November 18,1 863] upon the National works, and sharply attacked 

their advance, under General "W. P. 
Sanders, who was in immediate com- 
mand there. A severe but short en- 
gagement ensued, in which Sanders 
was killed, and his troops were driven 
back to their works. From that time 
until the dark night of the 2Sth, 
Longstreet closely invested Knoxville.^ 
Then, alarmed by the news of Bragg's 
disaster at Chattanooga, and being 
re-enforced by nearly all of the Con- 
federate troops then in East Tennessee, 
he proceeded, at midnight, to assail 
Fort Sanders, the principal work of 
the defenses of Knoxville. It was 
a strong, bastioned earth-work. The 
troops that defended it, as well as others there, were under the immediate 
command of General Ferrero. A gallant defense was made. A heavy storming 
party of Confederates, who made a most courageous attack, were repulsed 




^^t' i^^" o:^^^\H^^i 



JAMES LONGSTREET. 



' The Union loss was .^),R16, of whom 757 were killed. The Confederate loss was a little- 
over 9,000, of whom fi.OOO were prisoners. Grant captured, 40 pieces of cannon and 7.000 
Bmall-arms. General Halleok said, in a report of the operations of the army: "Considering the 
strength of the rebel position and the dilTiciilty of storming his intrenchments, the Battle of 
Cliattanooga must bo regarded as the most remarkable in history. Not only did the officers and 
men exhibit great skill and daring in their operations in the field, but tlie highest praise is also 
due to the commanding general for his admirable dispositions for dislodging the enemy from .i 
position apparently impregnable." 

' When the siege commenced there was in the commissary department little more than one 
day's rations, and supplies could then bo received only from the south side of the Holslon, across 
a pontoon bridge, the foe holding the avenues of approach to Knoxville on the north side of the river. 
Bumside's efforts were directed to keeping open the country between the Ilolston and the French 
Broad, and every attempt of Longstreet to seize it was promptly met. A considerable quantity 
of corn and wheat, and some pork, was soon collected in Knoxville, but almost from the beginning 
of the siege the soldiers were compelled to subsist on half and quarter rations, without cofl'ee or 
sugar. Indeed, during the last few days of the siege, the bread of their half-rations was mad© 
of clear bran. 



1S63.] LINCOLN'S ADMINISTRATION. g7J 

x\-hh fearful loss, and Knoxville was saved.' Sherman's force.: were then 
pressing forward, and on tlie morning of the 3d of December, wiien Long- 
street perceived that his army was flanked, he raised the siege, and witlidrew 
toward Virginia. Then Sherman and his troops returned to Chattanooga. 
Because of the victory at the latter place and the salvation of Knoxville, the 
President recommended the loyal peojjle to give public thanks to Almighty 
God "for the great advancement of the National cause." 

Let lis now turn again to the Atlantic coast, and consider the most prom- 
inent events there after the departure of Burnside from North Carolina and 
the seizure of the coasts of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida.' Burnside left 
General Foster in command of the troops in North Carolina ; and from New 
Berne, which was his principal head-quarters, the latter sent out expeditious 
from time to time to break up rendezvous of Confederates and scatter their 
forces, for it was evident that they were watching opportunities to recapture 
lost posts in that State. Sometimes sharp skirmishes would ensue, and heavy 
losses occur. In one of his raids to Goldsboro' [Deceniber, 1862], for the pur- 
pose of damaging the Weldon and Wilmington railway, Foster lost over five 
hundred men. He attempted to establish communication with the National 
forces at Suffolk and Norfolk, but when Burnside was repulsed at Fredeiicks- 
burg,' and Confederate troops sent from North Carolina to assist Lee in that 
campaign were thereby released, he abandoned further attempts at that time. 
Finally, General D. H. Hill was ordered to make a diversion in favor of Long- 
street at Suffolk,^ where, with a considerable force, he first menaced New 
Berne, and then marched on Little Washington. He invested that place 
[March 30, 1863], and the little garrison of twelve hundred men were speedily 
cut off from the outside world. Finally, the Fifth Rhode Island Regiment 
went to its relief, from New Berne [April 8], by water. The blockade of the 
river was run [April 13], and the garrison was relieved; and when, a little 
later, Foster marched upon Hill, the latter withdrew to the interior of the 
State. During the succeeding summer Foster kept up his raids, until he was 
called to take the place of General Dix, in command at Fortress Monroe. 

Looking farther down the Atlantic coast, we observe vigorous preparations 
for an attempt to take Charleston. Admiral Dupont was working with Gen- 
eral Hunter to that end, in the spring of 1862, when, at the middle of May, a 
slave named Robert Small (a pilot), and a few fellow-bondmen, came out of 
the harbor of Charleston in the Confederate steamer. Planter, delivered her to 
Dupont, and communicated information concerning military affairs at Charles- 

' The charge of the storming party was greatly impeded by a novel contrivance. Between the 
abaiis and rifle-pits in front of Fort Sanders, the ground was covered with the stumps of recently 
felled trees. Extending from one to another of these stumps were strong wires, about a foot 
above the ground, and these tripped the assailants at almost every step. Whole companies were 
prostrated by this wire net-work, and at the same time the double-shotted guns of the fort were 
playing fearfully upon them. Yet the assailants pressed up, gained the ditch, and one officer 
actually reached the parapet and planted the Confederate flag there. He soon rolled dead into 
the ditch, which was swept by a bastion cannon. Lieutenant Benjamin, chief of artillery in the 
fort, actually took bomb-shells in his hand, ignited the fuses, and threw them over into the 
ditch, where they produced great destruction of life. 

' See pages 607 and 60S. ' See page 631. « See page 662. 



gY2 ■''"^ N A TV ON. [1863. 

ton of great valiK'. Hunter concentrated tro^^ps on Eclisto Island, preparatory 
to throwing them suddenly upon James's Island, and marching swiftly on the 
<lee[)ly offending city, while other troops were >;ent to Lreak up the railway 
<'onnecting the cities of Charleston and Savannah. Meanwhile the Confed- 
erates prepared to meet the Nationals on James's Island ; and, finallj', when 
X^'nion troops crossed over to that island, under the direction of General Ben- 
ham, and attacked [June 10, 1802] Confederate works at Secession ville, they 
were repulsed with great loss. This event postponed the intended march on 
Charleston, and in Sejjtember Hunter was superseded by the energetic General 
O. ^r. Mitchel. That officer was making j)reparations for vigorous measures 
for indirect operations against Charleston, when he sickened and died [Oct. 
SO]. General Brannan attempted to carry out his plans against the Cliarleston 
and Savannah railway, but he found that road so well guarded at points to 
•wiiich ho penetrated that he could not accomplish his purpose. 

After Mitchel's death little was done by the military in the Department 
of the South until the following spring. The navy in that region was some- 
M-hat active in other than mere blockading service. Late in February [18G.3], 
the famous blockade runner, Nashville, imprisoned iu the Ogeechee Ivi\-er, 
below Savannah, was attacked by the "monitor" 3IontauJc, commanded by 
Captain John L. "Worden, and destroyed [Feb. 28, 1863]. She had been lying 
under the protection of the guns of Fort McAllister, and upon this work Com- 
mander Drayton tried the guns of some armored vessels a few days later, but 
Avithout serious effect. Meanwhile Admiral Dupont was preparing for a vigor- 
ous att.ack on Charleston. Hunter was again in command of the Department 
of the South, an<l was strengthened, for co-operation with Dupont, by twelve 
thousand troops from Xorth Carolina. Four tho\isand men, under General 
Truman Seymour, were stationed in a masked position on Folly Island at the 
beginning of April, and on the 6th of that month Dupont crossed Charleston 
bar with nine "monitor" vessels, leaving five gun-boats outside as a reserve 
squadron. It had been determined by the government to speedily reduce the 
offending city to subjection, for resisting forces were yet intensely active 
there.' 

Dupont moved up to attack Fort Sumter, the most fonnidable obstacle in 
the way to Charleston. The Confederate batteries near were ominously silent, 
until the advanced vessels became entangled in a terrible net-work of torpe- 
does and other obstructions. Then Fort Sumter, and other batteries, bearing 
an aggregate of nearly three hundred guns, opened a concentric fire upon the 
assailants, repulsed them after a sharp fight, and destroyed the JCcokiik, one 
of the smaller but most daring of the monitors. The fact was, the harbor 
was filled with formidable obstructions, and around it were guarding batteries 



' At the close of .T.inuary [1S63] two formidable ''rams" darted out of Charleston harbor 
in the obseuritj' of darkness and fog, and attacl<ed the blockading squadron. Two of the ships 
were quiekly disabled, and comiielled to strike their colors. Although the assailants fled back to 
Charleston without taking possession of the disabled vessels, the "government "at Richmond 
actually proclaimed to the world that the blockade of Charleston harbor was raised. 



I8C3.] 



LINCOLN'S ADMINISTRATION 



6T3 



of great strength,' and the attempt to enter it was necessarily a failure. The 
land troops were not in a condition to co-operate, excepting in the event of 
tlie reduction of Fort Sumter. 

There was comparative quiet along the coasts of South Carolina and Geor- 
gia for some time after Dupont's attack on Fort Sumter. General Hunter was 
succeeded [June 12, 1SG3] Ly General Q. A. Gillmore." He found a little less 
than eighteen thousand troops in the Dejsartmeut, M-ith arduous duties to per- 
form.' There were eighty cftective cannon and an ample supply of small-arms, 
munitions and stores, at his command. With these forces and supplies he set 
about organizing an expedition for the capture of Charleston by troops and ships. 
He determined to seize Morris Island and its fortifications, and from it batter 
down Fort Sumter and lay the city in ashes by liis shells, if not surrendered. 
Dupont, having no faith in the scheme so far as the navy was concerned, was 
relieved of the command of the fleet there, and was succeeded by Admiral 
Dahlgren on the 6th of July.* 

Gillraore found Folly Island, next to Morris Island, well occupied by Union 
troops on his arrival. He caused batteries to be erected to bear upon the lat- 
ter, so as to make way for his 
forces to cross Light-House In- 
let to that island, and attack 
Fort Wagner. These fortifica- 
tions were well made behind a 
curtain of pine-trees, under the 
direction of General Vogdes, 
and a large number of cannon, 
mostly Parrott guns, were 
planted on them. Then General Terry was sent to James's Island with a force 

' The fortifications consisted of two batteries on Sullivan's Island seaward from Fort Moultrie, 
and Battery Bee, landward from it. On Mount Pleasant, on the main near the mouth of Cooper 
River, was a heavy battery. In front of the city was Castle Pinckney ; and on a submerged 
sand-banls, between this work and Fort Johnson, was Fort Ripley, or Middle-ground Battery. 

Along the southern border of the harbor were Fort Johnson 
and some batteries. On Morris Island, not far from Fort Sum- 
ter, was Battery Gregg, on Cummings's Point, from which the 
first shot was hurled at Fort Sumter in 1861 ; and back of it 
■was Fort Wagner, a very strong work, stretching entirely 
across Morris Island at that point. Across the channels of 
TORPEDO. the harbor, rows of piles had been driven, and there were chains 

composed of railway iron linked ; and across the main channel 
a cable was stretched, from which hung festoons of torpedoes in the form given in the engraving, 
which were to be exploded by electricity, through wires extending from apparatus at Forts Sumter 
and Moultrie. At one point, where a space in the row of piles had been left open, inviting a ship 
to enter, was a submerged mine containing 5,000 pounds of gunpowder. 
■' See page G07. 

' The Department did not extend far in the interior, but its line parallel with the coast was 
about two hundred and fifty miles in length. This was to be picketed, and posts at different 
points were to be maintained. 

* At about the time of Gillmore's arrival, rumors reached Dupont that a powerful " ram " 
was nearly ready, at Savannah, to make a raid on his blockading squadron, near the mouth of 
the Savannah River. This was the swift blockade-runner Fingal. which, unable to escape to sea, 
had been converted into an armored warrior of the most formidaVile kind, and named Atlanta. 
Dupont sent two monitors ( Weehawken and Nahant) to Warsaw Sound to watch her. She appeared 
in those waters on the morning of the 17th of June. She was supposed by the Confederates t« 
bo an overmatch for both monitors; and gun-boats, filled with spectators, accompanied her to tow 

43 




A PARROTT GUN. 




674 



TIIK NATION. 



[18GS. 



to mask the real intentions of llie Nationals, when General Strong, with two 
thousand men, wi'nt in boats to JNIorris Island, landed suddenly [July 10, 
1S()3], and, with the help of the Latteries on Folly Island, drove the Confed- 
erates to Fort Wagner. Strong allowed his troops to rest until the next morn- 
ing, when lie assailed Fort Wagner, hnt was repulsed. These movements 
greatly alarmed the Confederates, and Beauregard and tlie flavor of Charles- 
ton advised all non-eomhatants to leave the eity. 

Fort Wagner was stronger than Gillmore suspected it to be, and he deter- 
mined to attempt to reduce it, first by a bombardment, and if that failed, then 
by a regular siege. A line of batteries were erected across the island within 
range of Fort Wagner, and Dahlgrcn's fleet took position to open fire on that 
work. This Avas done by the land and naval forces on the 18th [July], with a 
liundred great guns ; and while, at sunset, a heavy thunderstorm was sweeping 
by, arrangements were made for another assault on the fort. Terry had with- 
drawn from James's Island after a sharp fight, and now Gillinore's troops were 
concentrated for the important work. Two assaulting columns moved upon 
the fort. The first, under General Strong, was repulsed with great slaughter. 
The second, and smaller one, under Colonel II. S. Putnam, met a similar fate.' 
Gillmore now abandoned the plan of direct assault, and began a regular 
siege, approaching the fort by jiarallels. He also, with great labor, planted a 

battery in the midst of 
a marsh between Morris 
and James's Islands, on 
which was mounted a 
200-])ounder Parrott gun, 
called " The Swam]> An- 
gel," from which shells 
were hurled into Charles- 
ton, a distance of five 
miles.' Finally, Gill- 
more's jm'parations for 
attack on Fort Wagner 
were completed, and on 
the 17th of August fire 
fi-om twelve batteries, and from Dahlgrcn's fleet, was opened upon it and Fort 
Sumter. Before night the walls of the latter began to crumble, and its guns 

liiick to Savannah the captured iron-chuls. Sho first encountered the Weehawken. Four shots 
from the latter caused tlie Atlanta to liaul down licr colors; and instead of sweeping the block- 
ading squadron from the coast, and opening soutliern ports to the commerce of tlie world, as was 
expected by the Confederates, she was sent to Philadelphia, and exhibited for the benefit of the 
Union Vohmtecr Refreshment Saloon of that city. 

' Strong was mortally wounded, and Putnam was killed. In this assault a regiment of col- 
ored troops from Massachusetts, \mder Colonel Shaw, performed gallant deeds. Shnw was killed, 
and the flonfederates, stipposing they were disgracing the young hero, biu-ied him in a pit in the 
saud under a largo number of his slain negro troops. 

'■■ The mud on which this battery was constructed was about sixteen feet in depth. Piles 
were driven tlirough it to the solid earth, and on these, timbers were laid. Colonel Serrell. of 
New York, had the matter in charge, and he assigned to a lieutenant the superintendence of the 
work. When the spot chosen for building the battery was shown to the latter, he said the tiling 
was impossible. "There is no such word as 'impossible' in the matter," the colonel answered, 




THE SWAMP ANOBL. 



1863.] LINCOLN'S A D M I N I ST R AT I Ox^T . gY5 

M'ere silenced, uiuler tho pounding of Dahlgren's cannon. Tlio lanil troops 
pushed the parallels closer lo Fort Wagner, and at near midnight, of September 
Cth, Terry was prepared to storm the works. It was soon ascertained that the 
Confederates had abandoned them. Gillmore immediately took possession of 
Fort Wagner and Battery Gregg, turned their guns iipon Fort Sumter and 
Cliarleston, and made the "Cradle of Secession" a desolation in the world of 
business. Fort Sumter was made apparently harmless, yet a garrison remained 
there, and when one night [Sept. S] a party from the fleet attempted to sur- 
prise and capture the fort, they were repulsed with terrible loss. Finally, late 
in October, Gillmore opened heavy guns upon it, and made it a sloping heap 
of rubbish from the parapet to the water.' 

Let us now change our field of observations, in the extended theater of the 
war, from the sea-coast to the region beyond the Mississippi River, a thousand 
miles farther westward, and see what of importance occurred there since the 
battle of Prairie Grove,- the re-occupation of all Texas by the Confederates,' 
Banks's march to the Red River,^ and the battle at Helena,' in July, 1863. 
3rissouri and Arkansas, after brief repose, were convulsed by the machinations 
of disloyal citizens and the contests of hostile troops. ]\Iarm.aduke, a noted 
leader, suddenly burst out of Arkansas, and fell upon Springfield, in Missouri, 
early in 1803, when he was repulsed with a loss of two hundred men. After 
reverses at other jwints, he fled back into Arkansas early in February. There 
were some stirring movements in Noi'thwestern Arkansas at about the same 
time. Two thousand Confederates attacked a Union force under Colonel Har- 
rison, at Fayetteville [April 18, 1863], when the assailants were repulsed, and 
fled over the Ozark mountains. 

Marmaduke, meanwhile, had gone to Little Rock, the capital of Arkansas, 
and there, with the chief leaders in that region, planned a raid into Missouri, 
chiefly for the pur])ose of capturing National stores at Cape Girardeau, on the 
Mississippi River. With about eight thousand men, he pushed rapidly into 
that State, .and following tlie general line of the St. Francis River to Freder- 
icton, turned eastward, and moved on Cape Girardeau. General McNeil was 
there to receive him, and after a severe engagement [April 26, 1863], drove 
]\Larmaduke out of the State. 

In May, three thousand Confederates, under Colonel Coftey, menaced Fort 
Blunt [May 20] in the Indian country just west of Arkansas, but did not ven- 

Biid directed the lieiiteuant to build the battery, and to call for every thiug required for the work. 
The next day tho lieutenant, who was something of a wafc, made a requisition on the quarter- 
master for one hunch'ed men, eighteen feet in height, to wade througli mud sixteen feet deep, 
and then went to the surgeon to inquire if lie could splice the eighteen-feet men, if they wero 
furnished him. This pleasantry caused the lieutenant's arrest, but he was soon released, and 
constructed the work with men of usual height. — Davis's History of the One Hundred and Fourth 
Pennsylvania Regiment, page 253. 

' In his annual report to Congress, in December, 1863, tho Secretary of tlie Navy, in summing 
up the operations of that arm of the service on the Southern coast, said : " Not a blockade runner 
has succeeded in reacliing the city for months, and tlie traffic wliich had been to some extent, 
and with large profits, previously carried on, is extinguished. .-Vs a commercial mart, Charleston 
has no existence; her wealth, her trade, has departed. In a military or strategic view, the place 
is of little consequence ; and whether the rebels are able, by great sacrifice and exhaustion, to 
hold out a few weeks, more or less, is of no importance." 

' See page 637. ' See page 644. * See page 644. ' See note 2, page 666. 



(©76 ^HE NATION. [1863. 

■xure to attack. So they moved off, with a large drove of cattle, for some 
weaker prey. A little more than a month later, a wagon-train for Fort Blunt 
■was attacked [July 1] by Texans and Creek Indians. These were repulsed, 
and the train reached the fort in safety. Just then a great peril threatened 
ihat post. Six thousand Confederates were approaching to assail it. General 
Jihmt had just arrived. He at once led three thousand troops, with twelve 
light cannon, to attack the Confederates. He found them at Honey Springs, 
umder General Cooper, where he fell upon them suddenly. After two hours' 
liard fighting [July 17], the Confederates gave way. Only an hour afterward, 
'Genoi-al Cabell, whom Cooper was expecting, came up with three thousand 
Texan cavalry. It was too late. Cabell did not think it prudent to attack 
Jjlunt, and so lie moved across the Canadian River into Texas. 

Guerrilla bands were now active in Blunt's rear. Early in August, about 
three hundred of these, composed chiefly of despernte characters of Missouri, 
and led by a white savage, who had assumed the name of Quantrell, crossed 
into Kansas, and attacked the town of Lawrence [^Vugust 10], inliabited chiefly 
"hj Unionists. The town was wholly without defenders, and the guerrillas 
miurdered people and destroyed property without hinderance. In the course 
■of a few hours, one hundred and forty persons were murdered, and one hun- 
■dred and eighty-five buildings were in flames. This crime produced horror 
and indignation ; and when, ten days afterward, the guerrilla chief, M. Jeff. 
Thompson, was captured, it was very diflicult to shield him from personal 
injury. 

Soon after the capture of Vicksburg, General Steele organized an expedi- 
tion at Helena for the capture of Little Rock. He moved, on the 10th of 
August, with about twelve thousand men and forty cannon. He crossed the 
White River at Clarendon, and pushing back the Confederates under Marma- 
■ duke, reached the Arkansas, below Little Rock, on the 7th of September. A 
part of his forces, under General Davidson, crossed to the south bank, and 
upon opjjosite sides of the river the two columns moved on Little Rock. Mar- 
anaduke made some opposition, but with General Price and others, and all the 
iix>0])s in that vicinity, he abandoned the Arkansas capital, leaving several 
steamers on fire. On the evening of the 10th [Sept., 1*^63], Steele's forces 
occupied the city and the fortifications. The Confederates retreated rapidly 
to Arkadelphia, on the Washita River. This successful campaign occupied 
forty days. 

Bluut, meanwhile, was trying to bring the Confederates and Indians in the 
region west of Arkansas to battle, but failed to do so ; and Cabell, with a large 
force, liastened to the aid of Price at Little Rock. He did not reach there in 
time, but joined Price in his retreat to Ark.adclphi.a. Blunt took possession of 
Fort Smith, and garrisoned it ; and early in October, when on his way from 
Kansas to that post, with an escort of a hundred cavalry, he was attacked 
JOctober 4], near Baxter's Springs, by Quantrell and six hundred guerrillas. 
Tlie escort was demolished ; an accompanying train was jilundered and burned, 
•and Blunt, with about a dozen followers, barely escaped with their lives to 
little Fort Blair. The Confederates in that region, now finding their supplies 



1863.' 



LINCOLN'S ADMINISTRATION. 



G7T 



to be nearly exhausted, a part of Cabell's command, under Colonel Shelby, 
undertook a raid into Missouri, to procure some. In the southwestern part of 
that State they were joined by a considerable force under Coftey, when the 
combined army was twenty-five hundred strong. They penetrated the State 
to Booneville [October 1, 186-3], on tho Missouri River, but were quickly 
driven liaok into Arkansas by Generals Brown and ISIciSreil, when the latter 
was placed in command of the Army of the Frontier. Comparative quiet 
[irevailed in Missouri and Arkansas after that for some time, the only hostile 
movement of note being an attack [Oct. 2.5] by Marmaduke upon Pine Blufi^. 
on the Arkansas River, with two thousand men and twelve guns. The little 
garrison, under Colonel Clayton, with the help of two hundred negroes irt 
making barricades, drove otf the assailants, after a contest of several hours. 

Let us now see what was occurring west of the Mississippi, in the Gulf 
Department, commanded by General N. P. Banks. When that commander 
withdrew from Alexan- 
dria, on the Red River, 
to invest Port Hudson,' 
General Dick Taylor, 
whom he had driven int" 
the wilds of Western 
Louisiana, returned, took 
possession of the aban- 
doned towns of Alexan- 
dria and Opelousas, and 
garrisoned Fort de Rus- 
sy, early in June [186.3]. 
Then he swept rapidly 
through the State toward 
the Mississippi, and in 
the direction of New Orleans, causing Banks to draw in his outposts to* 
Brashear City. But this post was soon captured [June 24, 1S63], with am 
immense amount of public property, and a thousand prisoners.'' A few days-- 
later, a Confederate f^rce, under General Green, attempted to seize Fort- 
Butler [June 20], at Donaldsonville, on the Mississippi, but were repulsed^ 
with a loss of over three hundred men; and, on the 12th of July, the same 
leader attacked some troops under General Dudley, in the rear of Donaldson- 
ville, when, after a partial success, the Confederates were driven, and retreated: 
out of that district. This was about the last struggle of Taylor's troops to 
gain a foothold on the Mississippi, for Banks's force, released by the fall of 
Port Hudson,' quickly expelled the Confederates from the region eastward of" 
the Atchafalaya. 




FORT DE RUSSY. 



' See page 644. 

' The Confederates took possession of the fort there, with its ten guns : also, a large -imotint; 
of small-anns, munitions of war, provisions. &c., the whole valued at full $2,000,000. A thousand! 
refugee negroes were also seized there, and remanded into slavery worse than they had endured 
before. ' See page 646. 



QtjQ THK NATION. [1863. 

Banks now turned his thoughts to aggressive movements. Grant visited 
him early in September, when the two leaders united in an earnest expression 
of a desire to move, with their conibiiuHl forces, on Mobile. But the represent- 
ations of Te.xan loyalists, then in ^^'ashington City, caused the government 
to order an expedition for the recovery of Texas. Banks fitted out one, to 
make a lodgment in that State at Sabine Pass, on the boundary-line between 
Louisiana and Texas. He sent four thousand veteran troops for the purpose, 
under General Franklin ; and Admiral Farragut detailed, as a co-operative 
naval force, four gun-boats, under Lieutenant Crocker. The expedition crossed 
the bar at Sabine Pass on the 8th of September [1803], when, instead of the 
troops landing, according to instructions, and taking the Confederate works in 
reverse, the gun-boats proceeded to make a direct attack. They were repulsed 
by a handful of men behind a small work, armed with eight guns,' and the 
expedition returned to New Orleans, leaving behind two steamers, with fifteen 
rifled-guns, two hundred men as prisoners, and fifty men killed and wounded. 
The notice given to the Confederates by this unfortunate expedition, of a 
design to invade Texas coastwise, caused an abandonment of tht scheme at that 
time, and Banks concentrated his forces on the Atchafalaya, for the purpose 
of penetrating that State by way of Shreveport, on the Red River. There 
appeared insujierable obstacles to an expedition over that route. Banks deter- 
mined to make an attempt to seize and hold the harbors of that commonwealth 
. on tlie coast. General C. C. Washburn was ordered to mask the movement 
by marching from Brashear toward Alexandria, and, on the 2Gth of October, 
an cx]iedition, consisting of about six thousand troops and some war-vessels, 
sa'ikd I'lDiii New Orleans directly for the Rio Grande. The troops, under the 
immediate command of (general Dana, landed at Brazos Santiago, drove some 
Confederate cavalry toward Brownsville, thirty miles up the river, and, fol- 
lowing them, reached thai ]iost on the 0th of Xovember. Detachments were 
sent to other points, and in the S])ace of a month National troo]>s took )iosses- 
sion of Texan seaports and fortified posts on the coast, from the Rio Grande 
eastward, to near the month of the Brazos. Only the latter place, and Galves- 
ton Island, were now held by the foe. There they had formidable works. At 
the close of the year all Texas west of the Colorado was abandoned by them.' 



' Tills fort had a garrison of 200 men ; but, at the tirno of tlie attack, all but forty-two were 
absent. Those present wore diiolly Irishmen, imA ho'.onged to an organization Itnown as the 
"Davis Guards." For their gallantry on tliis occasio:i, Jollerson Davis presenied each man with 
a small silver medal, a representation of wliidi may be found in Lossing's Pictorial Field-Book of 
tlie Viril War, iii., 222. 

" Wliilo the events wo have jiist noticed were occurring in tlie region westward of the 
Lower Mississippi, others, liaving a sliglit bearing upon the war, occurred on the same side of tho 
great river, in tho region of its upper waters. Tliis was a w;ir with tlie Sioux tribe of Indians, in 
the State of Minnesota. It brol<o out in tlie summer of ISG2, wli'.'n Little Crow, a saintly-looking 
savage in civilized costiuno, led his fellow-savages in the butchery of tho white inhabitants at 
different places along tho frontier settlements. These warriors besieged Forts Riploy and Aber- 
crombio in the autiunn, and in that region they massacred about five hundred white people — men, 
women, and children. Finally, troops under General Sibley captured about live himdred of tho 
savages, and thirty-seven of the worst offenders were hanged. Little Crow was shot by a pr'vato 
citizen while tho savage was )iicking blackberries. His skeleton is picscrvod in '.he Minnesota 
Historical Society. The war was not ended until tlio summer of 13C3, when Geucral Pope «>«« 
in command of that Department. 



1S63.] LINCOLN'S ADMINISTRATION. 679 

Before proceeiliug to a consideration of military aifairs in 1864, let us take 
a brief glance at the aspect of civil affairs at the beginning of that year. The 
management of the finances of the nation were yet in the hands of Mr. Chase.' 
The public debt had then reached the appalling sura of considerably over 
■§1,000,000,000;' the great war was in full career, and the debt was increasing 
every day ; and yet the public credit, among American citizens, never stood 
higher. " The history of the world," said the Secretary of the Treasury, a 
year later, when he had been fully sustained by the people, " may be searched 
in vain for a .parallel case of popular financial support to a National move- 
ment." The Secretary, in his report to Congress in 1862, had shown that, to 
nieet all demands to the close of the fiscal year, at the end of June, 1864 
(eighteen months), provision must be made for raising over $900,000,000 more. 
Such a demand would have appalled the representatives of a less hopeful 
people. But they met the matter firmly, and took measures for raising the 
money. The people manifested their confidence in the government, by lending 
it, within the space of two mouths after the adjournment of Congress [March 
3, 1863], $169,000,000. 

The finances of the Confederates were in a deplorable condition at the 
beginning of 1864. Their public debt, in round numbers, was §1,000,000,000, 
with a prospective increase at the end of the year to full 12,000,000,000. The 
currency in circulation amounted to §600,000,000, and was so depreciated that 
the "government" could see nothing but ruin ahead. Few persons, besides 
jl-leceived and sympathizing Europeans, particularly Englishmen,' could be in- 
duced to take the " governmeut " bonds willingly. The producers of tlie 
Confederacy were unwilling to take the promises of the " government " to 
pay for their products, and want had threatened their army with destruction. 
So the authorities at Eichmond had boldly adopted the measure of seizing 
supplies for their armies ; and, for the purpose of keeping their ranks full, 
had passed a law declaring, in substance, every white man in the Confederacy, 
liable to bear arms, to be in the military service, and that upon failure to re- 
port for duty at a military dation within a certain time, he was liable to the 
penally of death as a deserter.* 

Xotwithstanding these disabilities and the fading away of every hope of 
recognition by foreign governments, or the moral support of an}' civilized 
people,' the Conspirators at Richmond, holding the reins of despotic power 

' See page 5G0. 

" The National debt on the first of July, 1SG3, was 31,098,193,181. It was estimated that at 
the same period in 18G4 it would bo $1,686,950,190. The average rate of interest on the whole 
<ieht, without regard to the varying margin between coin and notes, had been reduced from 4-3S 
per cent, on the" first of July, 1862, to 3-77 per cent, on the lirst of July, 1863. 

^ The Confederates negotiated a loan in Europe of §15,000,000, on the security of cottan to 
Ije sent abroad and sold. Members of the Southern Indejiendence Association, in England, com- 
posed of persons of the ruling class, were heavy losers by the transaction. 

•• The history of civilized nations has no imrallel to this act. Mr. Davis and his " cabinet " 
had then reached a critical point in their career. They well knew that failm-e in their tre- 
mendous undertaking would be ruin to themselves, and they seemed willing to sacrifice eveiy 
man, ruin every faniilv, waste aU the property in the Confederacy, and see their fair section 
of the Republic converted into a wilderness in a desperate effort to win success. They seemed 
to regard the " common people" as of no account. 

' On the 1st of April. 1864. Lord Lvons. the British minister at Washington, forwarded to 
Jefferson Davis, by permission of ourgovernment, a letter from Earl Russell, the British Foreign 
Secretary, iu which, in the name of "her Majesty's government," he protested against the fiu:ther 



680 THE NATION. [186i 

with firm grasp, resolved to (.-arrj- on the war regardless of consequences to 
their wearied and oppressed people. They employed the President's Proclama- 
tion of Emancipation ' as a means for '• firing the Southern heart,"' and thcv 
put forth tlie grossi'St misri'prosontations to deceive the people. They devised 
schemes for retaliation, and the most cruel measures toward negro troops and 
their white commanders ^\•ere proposed. They refused to recognize cajitive 
negro soldiers as prisoners of war, and sought, by threats of vengeance, tu 
deter negroes from enlisting. But more prudent counsels prevailed, for it was 
seen that such measures might be retorted with fearful effect. The President 
stood firm concerning emancipation. Ilis proclamation was the exponent of 
the future policy of the government. Congress passed laws in consonance 
with it. The organization of negro troops for military service was authorized 
and carried out, and the government took the just ground that all its soldiers 
should have equal jirotection. The slave-holders were exasperated. The 
Peace Faction protested. The loyal people said to the government, Ho firm. 
"The signs," the President said, "look better." More than fifty thousand 
square miles had been recovered from the Confederates in the West. Tiie 
autumn elections [1863] showed that the friends of the government, who had 
spoken at the ballot-box, were overwhelming in numbers and moral strength. 
The government took fresh courage, and adopted measures for a vigorous 
military campaign in 1804. The President, with tlie hope of weakening the 
moral strength of the Confederates issued a generous Amnesty Proclamation,' 

prociirinp: of pirate vessels within tlie British dominions hy the Confederates. After courteously 
reciting facts connected with the matter, KusselJ said : " Under these circumstances, her M.ijesty's 
government jirotests and remonstrates against any further elVorts being made on the part of tlie 
so-called Confederate States, or the authorities or agents thereof, to Iniild, or cause to be built, or 
to purchase, or cause to be purchased, an.v such vessels as tliose styled ' rams,' or any other ves- 
sels to bo used for war purposes against the United States, or against any country with wliich 
the United Kingdom is at peace and on terms of amity ; and her M.ijesty's government further 
protest and remonstrates against all acts in violation of the neutrality laws of the realm." 

These words from one who, personally and as the representative of the British povernmeut, 
had given tlie insurgents all the " aid and comfort " &. wise business prudence would allow, kindled 
the hottest indignation of the chief leaders, and Jefferson Davis instructed one of his assistants 
(Burton N. Harrison) to reply that it "would be inconsistent with the dignity of the position he 
[J. Davis] tills as Chief Magistrate of a nation comprising a popul.ation of more than twelve mil- 
lions, occupying a territory many times larger than the United Kingdom, and possessing resources 
unsurpassed by those of any other country on the face of the globe, to allow the attempt of Earl 
Russell to ignore the actual existence of the Confederate States, and to contemptuously style them 
'so-called,' to pass without a protest and a remonstrance. 'The President, therefore, does pro- 
test and remonstrate against this studied insult; and ho instructs me to say that in future any 
document in which it may be repeated will be returned unanswered and vuuioticed." The scribe 
of the irate "President" added: "Were, indeed, her Majesty's government sincere in a desire 
and a determin.ation to maintain neutrality, the President would not b\it feel that they would 
neither be just nor gallant to allow the subjugation of a nation like the Confederate States, by 
such a barbarous, despotic race as are now attempting it." 

' See page G40. 

' The Pre.'sidcnt offered full pardon, and restoration of all rights of property, excepting as to 
slaves, to all persons (with specilied exceptions), who had participated in the rebellion, who shoiild 
take a prescribed oath of allegiance to the government. The persons excepted were all who were 
or had been civil or diplomatic agents of the so-called Confederate government ; all who had left 
judicial stations under the Uniteil States to aid the rebellion; all who were or had lieen military 
or naval officers of the so-called Confederate government above the rank of colonel in the army 
and lieutenant in the navy; all who left seats in the National (^ongress to aid the rebellion; all 
who resigned commissions in the National Army or Navy, and afterward aided the rebellion; and 
all who had engaged in any way in treating colored persons, or white persons in charge of such, 
otherwise than lawfully as prisoners of war. 



1864.] LINCOLN'S ADMINISTRATION. Cgl 

anil a prescription for tlie reorganization of States wlierein rebellion existed. 
The new Congress (XXXVIIIth) had heavy majorities of loyal members ia 
both Houses. 

The National forces in the field at the opening of 1SG4 numbered about 
800,000. Those of the Confederates were about half tliat number. The former 
were ready and disposed to act on the offensive ; the latter, generally, stood 
on the defensive. The government and people were tired of delays and the 
almost indecisive warfare of posts, as the struggle had been up to this time. 
It was evident that proper vigor in the control of tlio armies could only be 
obtained by placing that control in the hands of one competent man in the 
field. For this purpose Congress created the office of Lieutenant-General. 
The President nominated Ulysses S. Grant to fill it. The Senate confirmed 
the nomination [March 2, 1864], and that successful leader was commissioned 
[March S] General-in-Cliief of the Armies of the United States, and made Lis. 
head-quarters in the field, witli the Army of the Potomac. 

Grant had no sympathy with a system of warfare half coercive and half 
persuasive. That had been tried too long for the public good. He believed 
his government to be right and the Confederates wi'ong. He regarded sharp 
and decisive blows as the most merciful in the end, and calculated to save life 
and treasure, and so he resolved to make war with all tlie terrible intentions of 
war, and end it. He at once organized two grand expeditions, having for 
their geographical objectives the capture of Richmond in Virginia and Atlanta, 
in Georgia ; and tlieir prime object was the destruction of the two great 
armies of the Conspirators, commanded by Lee and Johnston. The Army of 
the Potomac, destined to conquer Lee, was placed under the command of 
General George G. Meade ; that intended to fight Johnston was intrusted to 
General W. T. Slierman. Events proved the wisdom of Grant's choice. 

Before considering these great campaigns, let us notice, briefly, other 
important movements in the country between the mountains and the Missis- 
sijjpi River, and the region beyond that stream. 

When Sherman went to the assistance of Rosecrans,' he left General J. B. 
McPherson in command at Yicksburg. Late in October [1863] that oiBcer 
went out witli about eight thousand men, to drive the Confederates from the 
line of the railway between Jackson and Canton, but was met by a superior 
force [October 21], and returned without fighting. Meanwhile, the Confed- 
erate guerrilla chief, Forrest, with about four thousand men, broke into West 
Tennessee from Nortliern Mississippi, and making Jackson, in tliat State, his 
head-quarters [December], sent out foraging parties in various directions. 
Troops were sent by Hurlbut, at Memphis, to catch him, but he m.inaged to 
escape with much plunder. Sherman soon afterward reappeared in Mississipjji, 
and on the 3d of February he left Yicksburg with about twenty-three thou- 
sand effective men, for a grand raid through that State, in the direction of 
Montgomery, in Alabama, and to march on Mobile, if circumstances should 
warrant the movement. General (Bishop) Polk was then in command in that 

' See page 668. 



682 



TIIK NATION. 



ri861. 



region, with a large force of infaulry ami cavalry, lie maile but a feeble 
resistance, and fell back as Sherman moved victoriously to Meridian, at the 
intersection of important railways. There the latter halted, and waited for 
a division, chietly of cavalry, under General W. S. Smith, expected from 
Tennessee. Sherman's path fi-ora Jackson to Meridian, was marked by the 
destruction of the railway, its station-houses and rolling stock, besides stores 
and other public proj)erty ; and during a week that he staid at Meridian he 
jnade the most complete destruction of railroads each way from that point. 
In the mean time Smith failed to join him. He stai'tcd late, and was driven 
back by a Confederate force under Forrest and others. Shermau, at the end 
of a week, laid Meridian in ashes, and returned to Vicksburg with four hun- 
dred prisoners, a thousand white Union refugees, and about five thousand 
negroes. His raid spread dismay throughout the Confederacy, from the Mis- 
sissippi to the Savannah, and inflicted a heavy loss on the foe.' 

Sherman's raid caused Johnston, at Dalton, in Northern Georgia, to send 
troops to the aid of Polk. Informed of this, Grant, at Chattanooga, sent the 
Fourteenth Army Corps, under General Palmer, to menace Johnston and 
compel him to recall his detachments. The retrograde movement of Sherman 
caused these detachments to fall back, when Palmer, confronted by a superior 
force, after some severe fighting [February, 1864], between Ringgold and 
Dalton, returned to Chattanooga. 

Forrest, whose sphere of duty had been enlarged, was now charged with 
that of preventing rc-enforoements from reaching Johnston's opponent, from 
the region of the Mississippi, by keeping them employed there. Late in 
March he made a rapid raid through Tennessee and Kentucky, to the Ohio at 
Paduoah, with about five thousand men, capturing Union City and Hickman 
by the way. Ho assailed the fort and garrison at Paducah, uiulcr Colonel 

Hicks, and was repulsed, 
when he hurried to attack 
P^ort Pillow, on (lie Miss- 
issippi, above Memphis, 
commanded by Major L. 
F. Booth, with a garrison 
composed largely of col- 
ored troops. This post 
Forrest besieged on tBe 
13th of April. Booth was 
assisted in the defense by 
the gun-boat New Era, 
Captain Marshall, but was 
overcome by a trick rather 
than by arms, torrest 
sent in a flag of truce, demanding a surrender of the fort, and while it was 




' The sum of injury done to the Confederates during Sherman's raid, including that of Smith, 
and an expedition which Porter sent simultaneously to attack Yazoo City and di.stract the Con- 



1S64.] LINCOLN'S ADMINISTRATION. gg3 

thero, and the summons was under consideration, he secretly placed large 
numbers of his troops in ravines near, where they might effectually fall upon 
the fort from points where their presence was least expected. This was done, 
with the cry of " No quarter," when a large number of the garrison, who 
threw down their arms, were slaughtered by methods most cruel. The poor 
negro troops were objects of the direst vengeance of the assailant.' " Forrest's 
motto," said Major C. W. Gibson, one of his men, to the writer, " was, ' War 
moans fight, and fight means kill — we want but few prisoners.' " This principle 
was fully illustrated by Forrest by his cruel deed at Fort Pillow.' 

An attempt was made to intercept Forrest in his retreat southward from 
Fort Pillow. It failed. Some weeks later General Sturgis was sent out 
from Memphis with a large force into 3Iississippi, to hunt up and beat him, 
when the former was attacked near Gun Town, on the Mobile and Ohio rail' 
way, by Forrest, and, after a severe battle [June 10], was compelled to fly 

federates, may be stated in general terms as follows : The destriictioa of 150 mUes of railway, 67 
bridges, 700 trestles, 20 locomotives, 28 cars, several thousand bales of cotton, several steam 
mills, and over 2,000,000 bushels of corn. About 500 prisoners were taken, and over 8,000 
negroes and refugees followed the various columns back to Vicksburg. 

The expedition sent to Yazoo City consisted of some gun-boats, under Lieutenant Owen, and 
a detachment of troops under Colonel Osljand. They did not then capture the place, but inflicted 
considerable damage, and returned with a loss of not more than 50 men. Yazoo City was soon 
afterward occupied by a Union force, composed of the 8th Louisiana and 200 of the Seventh Mis- 
sissippi colored troops, and the 1 Itli Illinois. They were attacked by a superior force on the 5th 
of March. A desperate fight ensued. The assailants were finally driven away by some re-en- 
forcements from below, and soon afterward the town was evacuated. The Union loss in this 
struggle was 130. That of the Confederates -was about the same. 

' There was much opposition to the employment of negroes as soldiers, until quite a late 
period of the war. At the breaking out of the rebellion, colored men in the Free-labor States 
offered their services as soldiers, but they were not accepted. "When General Hunter took com- 
mand in the Department of the South, he proclaimed the freedom of the slaves, and was about to 
organize regiments of colored men. The government would not sanction his proceedings. When 
General Phelps, commanding a short distance from New Orleans, proposed to make fighters of 
those colored men who fled into his camp from their masters, and was ordered by General Butler 
to employ them only as servants, he declared that he was not " willing to become a mere slave- 
driver," and threw up his commission and returned to Vermont. But, as the war went on, and 
prejudice gave way to necessity, the enlistment of colored men into the army was authorized. 
Their usefulness was proven at Milliken's Bend, Port Hudson, Fort Wagner, and other plfices. 
In March, 1863, the Adjutant-General of the armies was sent to the Mississippi yallej' for the 
purpose of promoting the enlistment of colored troops. During the war full 200.000 of these 
dusky soldiers were seen in the uniform of the armies of the Rep\ibUc. For awhile the Confed- 
erates refused to consider them as prisoners of war and subjects of equal exchange with white 
captives. But they were finally compelled to acknowledge their equality as soldiers, and accept 
the conditions imposed by necessity. 

' In a report of a sub-committee of the Congressional Committee on tlie Conduct of Vie War, 
made shortly after the deed, the perpetration of the most horrible cruelties were proven. One or 
two illustrative instances will suffice: ''All around were heard cries of 'No quarter! Kill the 
damned niggers! Shoot 'em down I' and all who asked for mercy were answered by the most 
cruel taunts and sneers. Some were spared for a time, to be murdered under circumstances of 

tlie greatest cruelty Orte negro, who had been ordered by a rebel officer to hold his 

horse, was killed by him when he remounted ; another, a mere child, whom an oEBcer had taken 
up behind him, was seen by Chalmers [General Chalmers, one of Forrest's leaders], who at once 
ordered the officer to put him down and shoot him, which was done." They burned huts and 
tents in which the wounded had sought shelter, and were still in them. "One man was deliber- 
ately fastened down to the floor of a tent, face upward, by means of nails driven through his 
clothing and into the boards under him, so that he could not possibly escape, aud then the tent 
set on fire. Another was nailed to the side of a building outside of the fort, and then the build- 
ing set on fire and burned These deeds of murder and cruelty ceased when night 

came on, only to bo renewed the next morning, when the demons carefully sought among the 
dead, lying about in all directions, for any of the wounded yet alii-e, and those they found wera 
deliberately shot." 



gg4. THE NATION. [1SG4. 

back to ^leiupliis as rapidly as possible, with very heavy loss. Another expe- 
dition, under General A. J. Smith, composed of about twelve thousand men, 
was sent on a similar errand. He fought and defeated Forrest near Tupelo 
[July 14], and then returned to Memphis. Three weeks afterward Smitli 
returned to Mississipjii, with ten thousan<l men, in seareli of Forrest, but while 
he was there, that bold leader, with three thousand picked men, flanked him, 
dashed into Memphis in broad daylight, hoping to capture some Union generals 
at the Gayosa House, and then fled back to Mississippi. 

Let us now look across the F'ather of "Waters, and see what was occurring 
there in 1S04. 

Early in .Tanu.ary, General Banks received orders from Halleck, the General- 
in-Chief of the armies, to organize an e-vjiedition for the recovery of Texas, to 
go by way of tlie lied River, to Sln-eveport, in the vicinity of which was a 
considerable Confederate force, under General E. Kirby Smith and other 
leaders. It was jiroposed to have troops from Sherman's command, and a fleet 
of gun-boats under Admiral Porter, to co-operate directly with Banks, while 
Steele, at Little lloek,' should more remotely aid the expedition. Accordingly, 
early in March, Porter was at the mouth of the Ued River [3Iarch 7], with 
his fleet, and transports with Sherman''s troops under General A. J. Smith. 
The l.ntter were landed at Simms's Port on the Atchafalaya. They marched to 
Fort de Rnssy^ and captured it [March 14, 1804], and then, on transports, 
went up the river to Alexandriii, and took possession of tlic town [March lli]. 
Banks's column had marched, meanwhile, from the vicinity of Brashear C'ity, 
under General Fraidvlin, and mo\ ing by way of Opelousas, arrived at Alex- 
andria on the '-'Gth. Banks had arrived there two days before. Smith's troops 
went forward, driving the Confederates who Mere gathering on their front, and 
took post twentj' miles farther up the river, in the direction of Shrevej)ort. 

The water in the Red River was low, and falling, and it was with much 
ditticulty tliat the fleet and transports got above the rapids at Alexandria. 
They did so after a few days of hard labor. Banks's column, meanwhile, had 
advanced to Natchitoches, eighty miles above Alexandria [April 3], the Con- 
federates, in increasing numbers, falling back as they advanced. Smith's 
troops on transports, and the fleet, advanced to Grand Ecore, near Natchi- 
toches, and from that jioint the great body of the ex])edition moved toward 
Shrcveport. The larger gun-boats could go no further, so a detachment of 
Smith's command, under General T. KilVjy Smith, accompanied the transjwrts- 
and lighter gun-boats, with supplies for the army. 

The expedition encomitered the Confederates on the way, now and then, 
but they invariably fell back, until tliey reached Sabine Cross Roads, not far 
from ^Mansfield, where they made a stand in heavy force. There Banks's 
cavalry, and part of his infantry and artillery, engaged in a sharp struggle 
[April 8], when they were forced to retreat a short distance by overwhelming 
mimbers. Franklin eame u]) with re-enforcements late in the afternoon, when 
the whole body of National troops were routeil with heavy loss of men and 

' See page 676. ' See page 6T1. 



1864.] LINCOLN'S ADMINISTRATION. 685 

■materials of war. Fortunately the fine division of General Emory was near, 
and took a stand at Pleasant Grove to receive the fugitives and resist the 
Confederates. Anotlier heavy battle ensued, when the Nationals were again 
victorious. They thought it prudent, liowever, after the battle, to fall back to 
Pleasant Hill, fifteen miles in the rear, fi)r it was not certain that General 
Smith would come up in time to aid the wearied troops on the field of victory. 
There the united forces took a strong position. The Confederates had fol- 
lowed closely, and there another severe battle was fought [April 9, 1804], 
wiiieli resulted in another victory for the Nationals. Banks jiroposed to move 
again toward Shreveport, in the morning, Tmt the unanimous opinion of the 
■officers of his and Smith's command, was that it would be V)est for the expedi- 
tion to fall back to the Red River, at Grand Ecore.' The transports and 
guarding troops, and the lighter gun-boats, which had gone up to Loggy 
Bayou, after some fighting on the way with Confederates on the banks of the 
river, joined the army at Grand Ecore. 

The troubles of the expedition were not at an end. It was determined to 
fall back to Alexandria, and it was an easy matter for the army to do so, but 
the water in the Red River was so low, and still falling, that it was difticult to 
get the fleet over the bar at Grand Ecore. This was accomplished, however, 
and on the IVth of April the fleet started down the river, when one of the 
vessels was sunk by a torpedo. The army moved on the 21st [April, 1864], 
l:)ut was met at the passage of the Cane River, where the Confederates, on 
Monet's Bluft', confronted them. These were dislodged by skillful maneuvers 
and sharp fighting, and the National forces entered Alexandria on the 27th, 
after an alisence of twenty-four days. Some of the fleet had a severe struggle 
with a battery at the mouth of Cane River, but the vessels ran by it in the 
darkness, excepting a pump-boat. The expedition against Shreveport was now 
abandoned, and it was determined to return to the Mississippi. 

The fleet encountered a most serious obstacle at Alexamlria. The water 
was so low that it was impossible for the vessels to pass over the rapids. A 
means had been suggested, by Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Bailey, Engineer of 
the Nineteenth Corps, so early as the day of the battle at Pleasant Hill, 
when a retreat was thought of. It was to dam the river at the foot of the 
rapids, so as to deepen the water on them, and thus, when the vessels were 
there, open a sluice and allow them to go down with the deep current.* This 

' The chief reasons offered were: (1.) The diffieulty in bringing }ii3 trains which had been 
flent forward ou the road toward Grand Kcore, in time to move quickly .ifter the flying Confede- 
rates; (2.) A lack of water for man or beast in that region, excepting such, as the wells afforded; 
(3.) Tlio fact that all surplus ammunition and supplies of the army were on board the transports 
sent up the river, and the impossibility of knowing whether these had readied their destination ; 
(4.) The falling of the river, which imperiled the naval part of the expedition ; and (5.) The report 
of a scouting ]iarty. on tlie day of the battle, tliat no tidings could be heard of the fleet. " These 
considerations," said Banks, " the absolute deprivation of water for man or beast, tlio exhaustion 
of rations, and the failure to effect a connection with the fleet on tlio river, made it necessary for 
the army, although victorious in the struggle through which it had just passed, to retreat to a 
point where it would be certain of communicating with the fleet, and where it wotdd have an 
opportunity for reorganization." 

" .\dmiral Porter, in his dispatch to tho Secretary of tho Navy, said: "The work was com- 
menced by running out from tho left bank of the rivor a tree-dam, made of the bodies of very 



GS6 



TlIK NATION. 



[I8G4. 



was (lone successfully. All of llio vessels jjasscil the rajjuls safely into the 
tloep water below, made so by an upward current of tlie brinifid ^lississippi, 
one hundred and fifty miles distant. With very little furtlier trouble tiio 
whole expedition moved down to the Mississippi. At Siumis's Port on the 




BAILET'S red BIVER DAM. 

Atchafiilaya, General Canby appeared, and took command of R.anks's troops, 
and the latter returned to Xew Orleans. General Smith returned to Missis- 
sippi, and Porter resumed the service of patrolling the Mississippi River. 

General Steele liad not been able to co-operate witli the expedition, as va* 
expected. He started southward from Little Rock late in March with about 
eight thousand troops, and was soon joined by General Thayer, commander of 
the ArTuy of the Frontier. They pushed back Price, Marniaduke, and others, 
who opposed them in considerable force, and captured tlie important post of 
Camden [April 15, 1864], on the Wasliita River. It was a difficult one to 
hold, and Steele soon abandoned it, and i'etunic<l to Little Rock, after a severe 
battle at Jenkinson's Ferry on the Sabine River. So ended, in all its parts, 
the disastrous campaign against Shreveport for the repossession of Texas. It 
failure was owing to a radically defective plan, over wliich the leaders had no 
control.' 



large trees, brush, brick, niid stone, cross-tied witli other heavy timber, and strengtliened in every 
way ingenuity could devise. This was run about tliree hundred feet into the river. Four large 
coal-barges were then filled with brick, and sunk at the end of it. From the right bank of Iho 
river cribs filled with sioue were built out to meet the barges." 

' Gencml Banks Imd so often objected to taking tlie route of the Red River, for Texas, that 
when Halleck again urged it, he did not feel at liberty to demur. He laid before the General-in- 
Chief a memorial, in which were e.xijlieitly stated the obstructions to be encountered, and tho 
measures necessary to accomplish the object in view. It recommended as indispensable to 
success: (1.) Such complete preliminary organization as would avoid the least delay in move- 
ments after the campaign had opened; (2.) That a lino of supply be established from the Missis- 
sippi, independent of water-courses, because these woidd become unmanageable at ccrtaiu seasons- 
of the year; (3.) The concentration of the forces west of the Mississippi, and such other force as 
should be assigned to this duty from General Sherman's command, in such a uuanner as to expel 
the enemy from Northern Louisiana and Arkansas : (4.) Such preparation and concert of action 
among the different corps engaged as to prevent the enemy, by keeping liim constantly employed, 
from operating against our positions or forces elsewhere; and (5.) That the entire ibrce should 
be placed under the command of a single general. Preparations for a long campaign was also 
advised, and the month of May was indicated as the point of time when the occupation of 



1864.] LINCOLN'S ADMINISTRATION. gS7 

The failure of the Red River expedition, and the expulsion of Steele from 
the region below the Arkansas River, emboldened the Confederates, and they 
soon had almost absolute control of the State. Raiding parties roamed at 
will ; and very soon the Unionists were awed into silence, and the civil power, 
in a great degree, passed into the hands of the enemies of the Republic."^ 
This condition of aflairs was favorable to a long-contemplated invasion of 
Missouri by Price, which had both a military and political object in view. 
In tlie Western States, and particularly in Missouri, were secret associations in 
sympathy with the Confederates, known as Knights of the Golden Circle'' and 
" Sons of Liberty." An arrangement appears to have been made for au 
armed uprising of the members of these associations, when Price should 
enter the State, and he was induced to do so by promises of being joined by 
over twenty thousand of these disloyal men. The vigilant Rosecrans, then 
comm.andcr of the Department of Missouri,^ discovered their plans, made 
some arrests, and so frightened the great mass of tliese secret enemies of the 
government, that when Price appeared, lie found very few recruits. 

Price, and Shelby, with nearly twenty thousand followers, entered South- 
eastern Missouri, late in September, and pushed on to Pilot Knob, half way to 
St. Louis from the Arkansas line. There General Ewing, with a single brigade, 
struck him an astounding blow that made him verj^ circumspect. Fortunately 
Rosecrans had just been re-enforced by volunteers from the surrounding region, 
and by troops under General A. J. Smith, which liad been stopped at Cairo on 
their way to join Sherman in Northern Georgia, with others under General 
Mower, which speedily ari-ived. Price saw that a web of peril was rapidly 
weaving around him, so he abandoned his design of marching upon St. Louis. 
He hastened toward Jefterson City, but passed on without touching it, and 
fled toward Kansas, closely pursued. It was an exciting chase, and was made 
lively, at times, by sharp encounters. Finally, early in November, Price was 
driven into "Western Arkansas with a broken and dispirited army. It was the 
last invasion of Missouri. 

Turning our attention eastward, at about this time, we observe some 
stirring events in East Tennessee. After Longstreet's retirement from Knox- 
ville'' he lingered some time between there and the Virginia border. General 
Foster took Burnside's place as the commander of the Union troops there. 
Some severe skirmishing occurred at diflerent places, but no pitched battle ; 
and, finally, Longstreet withdrew into Virginia, to re-enforce the menaced army 
of General Lee. The notorious Morgan and his guerrilla band lingered in 

Shreveport might be anticipated. "Not one of these suggestions," said General Banlss in his 
report, " so necessary in conquering the inherent difficulties of the expedition, was carried into 
execution, nor was ic in my power to establisli tliem." There existed that bane of success, a 
divided command Banlis, Porter, and Smitli, acted independently of eacli other, as far as they 
pleased, tliere being no supreme authority to compel unity or co-operation in action. 

' After Steele took possession of Little Rock in tlie autum of 1863, ihe Unionists of Arkansas 
held a Convention there, and proceeded to re-establish civil government according to the prescrip- 
tion contained in the President's Amnesty Proclamation. Now the State was so absolutely under 
the control of the Confederates, that the disloyal government called a session of the old Legis- 
lature [September 22, 1864], and elected a representative in the so-caUed "Senate" of the Con- 
federates, at Richmond. 

■■' See page 520. ' See note 2, page 666. ■* See page 611. 



688 



THE NATION. 



X1864. 



East TenncssL'O a few montlis longer. At the close of May lie went over the 
mountains into Kentucky, and raided through the richest portions of that 
State, well up toward the Ohio, for the purpose of drawing Union troo])s, 
then threatening Southeastern Virginia, in that direction. General Eurbridgo 
liastened after him, and struck him such blows that his shattered column 
went reeling hack into East Tennessee. At Greenville, early in September, 
]\[organ was surprised, and was shot dead while trying to escape. Soon after 
this, Breckinridge moved into East Tennessee with a considerable force ; and 
from Knoxville to the Virginia line, was a theater of stirring minor events of 
the war. 

?^arly in 1804, there were some movements having in view the capture of 
TJichinond, and the release of Union prisoners in the Libby, and on more hor- 
rible Ih'IU' Isle in the James River. The first of these which attracted much 
attention, occurred in February, when General 1>. F. Butler, then in command 
of the Department of Virginia and North Cai-olina, sent about fifteen hundred 
troops against Richmond. The c.vpcdition, owing to treachery, was fruitless. 
Later, General Kilpatrick, with five thousand cavalry, swept around Lee's 

right flank, down to Rich- 
mond, and into its out- 
er line of fortifications 
[INIarch 1, 1864], but was 
inmpellcd to retire. At 
about the same time 
Colonel Dahlgren, with a 
part of Kilpatrick's com- 
mand, appeared before 
Richmond [March 2, 
1864], at another point, 
but was repulsed, and 
while retiring, was killetV 
The Confederate authori- 
ties were so exasperated by the audacity of Kilpatrick, that they contemplated 
the summary execution of ninety of Dablgrcn's command, who Avere captured ;' 
and they actually placed gunpowder under Libby Prison for the purpose of 
blowing it up with its hundreds of captive Union soldiers, should they attempt 
to escape!' A few days later. General Custer, with a considerable force, 

' A Rfbil War Clerk's \J. B. Jones] Diary. March 5, 18G4. The Richmond press, in tlie 
interest ol" the Coiilederales, strongly lecoinineniietl the measure. "Let them die," s.nid tlie 
Hiehmond Whiij, iiui by eoiirl-martial, not as prisoners, b\U as husks humani generis by general 
order from the President, Coinmander-iii-Cliief." 

" ,1 Rebel War Clerk's Diary, March 2. 1804. "Last night." says the Diary, "when it was 
supposed |)robablo that the prisoners of war at the Libby might attempt to break out, General 
■Winder ordered that a larire amoinit of powder be placed imder Ihc building, with instructions to 
blow them up if the attempt were made." Seddon would not give a written order for the diaboli- 
ral work to bo done, but he said, significantly. '• the prisoners must not be allowed to esc.ipe, 
xttuler any circumstances." •■which." says tl-.e diarist, "was considereil sanction enough. Captain 

obtained an order for and procured several liundred po\inds of gunpowder, whiih was 

placed in readiness. Whether the prisoners were advised of tliis I know not : but I told Captain 
it would not be justifiable to spring such a mine in the absence of their knowledge of th« 







BELLE ISLE. 



1864.] LINCOLN'S ADMINISTRATION. f,89 

threatened Lee's conimunicjitions iu the dh-ectiou of Charlottesville and the 
Shenandoah Valley. 

We now come to the consideration of one of the great campaigns, planned 
by General Grant, namely, that of the Army of the Potomac under General 
Meade, against the Army of Northern Virginia under General Lee, and Rich- 
mond, the head-quarters of the Conspirators. Grant, as we have seen,' made 
Ills head-quarters with the Array of the Potomac, which was re-organized, and 
divided into three corps, commanded, respectively, by Generals Hancock, 
"Warren, and Sedgwick, and known in the order of the commanders named, as 
the Second, Fifth, and Sixth. General Burnside, who, since his retirement 
from East Tennessee, had been re-organizing his old Ninth Corps, was ordered 
forward, and joined the Army of the Potomac, on the Rapid Anna. Re-enforce- 
ments rapidly filled the armies, and at the close of April [1864], Grant gave 
orders for Meade in Virginia, and Sherman iii Northern Georgia, to advance. 

The Army of the Potomac crossed the Rapid Anna, into the tangled region 
known as The Wilderness, on the morning of the 4th of May. At that time 
Lee's army lay strongly intrenched behind Mine Run,' and extending from the 
Rapid Anna almost to Gordonsville. It was also divided into three corps, 
under Ewell, Hill, and Longstreet. Grant intended to move swiflly by Lee's 
flank, masked by The Wilderness, and j'l^'it the L'niou army between that of 
the Confederates and Richmond; but the latter was vigilant, and boldly 
leaving his intrenchments, attacked the Nationals in The Wilderness. A very 
sanguinary battle ensued [May 5 and C], on that strange battle-field,' by which 
both armies were shattered, but without any decided advantage gained bj^ 
either. It continued two days, when Lee withdrew behind his intrenchments, 
and Meade prepared to get out of The Wilderness, into the open country near 
Spottsylvania Court-House, as soon as possible. In this sanguinary battle, 
the gallant LTnion General Wadsworth was killed, and the Confederate General 
Longstreet was wounded. 

General Warren led the movement out of The Wilderness, and Grant's plan 
of flanking Lee would doubtless have been successful, but for delays. When, 
on the morning of tlie 8th [May, 1864], Warren emerged into the open country 
two or three miles from Spottsylvania Court-House, he found a pai't of Lee's 
army across his path, in strong position behind intrenchments previously cast 
up, and the remainder rapidly arriving. Before the whole of the Army of the 
Potomac could arrive, that of Northern Virginia was there and ready to 
oppose Grant in flanking movement. Dispositions were made for battle, 

fate awaiting them in the event of tlieir attempting to break out. because such prisoners are not 
to be condemned for striving to regain their liberty. Indeed it is the duty of a prisoner of war to 
escape if lie can." 

' See page 681. ' See page 6G0. 

' Covered with a thick growth of pine, cedars, and shrub-oaks, and tangled under-brush, it 
w.as a country in wliich maneuvering, in the military sense, was almost impossible, and where by 
the compass alone, like mariners at m\irky midnight, the movements of troops were directed. 
The three hundred guns of the combatants had no avocation there, and the few horsemen not 
away on outward duty were compelled to be almost idle spectators. Of the two hundred thou- 
sand men there ready to fall upon and slay each other, probably no man's eyes saw more tlian a 
thousand at one time, so absolute was the concealments of the thickets. Never in the liiatory of 
war was such a spectacle exhibited. 



690 



THE NATION. 



[1864 



arti'i- some skinuishing on the morning of the 9lh, and that day was spent 
in preparations. . The gallant Sedgwick was killed while superintending the 
arrangement of a battery. Every thing was in readiness for battle on the 
morning of the 10th. It opened vigorously, and raged furiously all day, with 
dreadful losses on both sides. On the following morning [May 11, 1864], 
General Grant sent to the government that famous dispatch in which occurred 
his declaration, "Zjuro^jose toJiyJit it out on this line, if it takes all summer." 

Early on the 12th, another and equally sanguinary contest ensued, when 
Hancock broke through the Confederate lines, gained a great advantage, and 
held it. Another day of terrible fighting ensued, and did not wholly cease 
luitil midnight, wlien Lee suddenly withdrew behind his second line of intrench- 
ments, and was apparently as strong as ever. In tlie space of eight days, the 
Army of the Potomac had lost nearly thirty thousand men. Yet Grant, sent a 
cheering ■ dispatch to the government; and the whole country was listening 
with the deepest anxiety for tidings from the two great armies. Finally, 
Grant determined to turn Lee's present position, and made dispositions accord- 
ingly. Lee proceeded to thwart him, and a severe battle occurred on the 19th 
of May, in wliieh the Nationals were successful in refjulsing Lee, but with 
fearful loss to themselves. About forty thousand of the army that crossed the 
Rapid Anna was now disabled. Lee had lost about thirty thousand. 




THE PLACE WHERE SEDGWICK WAS KILLED.' 

When the Army of the Potomac emerged from The Wilderness, General 
Philip 11. Sheridan, with a greater portion of the National cavalry, went upon 
a raid on Lee's rear. lie swept down into the outer line of works before 
Richmond, fighting and killing on the way, a few miles north of the city, the 
eminent cavalry officer, General J. E. B. Stuart, and destroying the railways 
and a vast amount of j)ublic property. lie pushed on to the James River below, 
and then returned to the army. In the mean time a co-operating force, under 
General Sigel, in the Shenandoah and Kanawha Valleys, was active. A part of 

' This is from a sketch made by the author in June, 1 S60, taken from the breastworks in front 
of the Union line. Toward the right is seen the logs of the battery, the construction of which 
Sedgwick was superintending, and near wliich lie fell. The bullet came from the clump of tree* 
on the knoll seen more to the right, on rising ground. 



I8G4.] LINCOLN'S ADMINISTRATION. QCfl 

it under Sigei in person, fought Confederates under Breckinridge, at Xeir 
Market [May 15], wlien the Nationals were routed. Another part, under 
Generals Crooke and ^Vverill, moved out of the Kanawha Valley, and pro- 
ceeded toward the Virginia Central railway, to destroy it, and also some lead 
mines near Wytheville. But little was accomplished. Later than this. General 
Hunter, who had succeeded Sigcl in command, fought [June 5] the Confeder- 
ates at Piedmont, not far from Staunton, where he was joined by Crook and. 
Averill. Then the whole body, twenty thousand strong, went over the mount- 
ains to capture Lynchburg. It was too strong ; and Hunter, after destroying a 
vast amount of property in that region, withdrew into West Virginia, and was 
not able to join in the campaign for several weeks aftei^ward. 

While the Army of the Potomac was struggling with Lee, General Butler,, 
who had been joined by troops, imder General Gillmore, whicli had been called, 
up from Charleston, made effective co-operative movements. He went up 
he James River [May 4, 186-t], in armed transports, with about twenty-five^ 
;housand men, followed by a squadron of gun-boats under Admiral Lee, and 
unarmed transports. Fort Powhatan, Wilson's Landing, and City Point, at 
the mouth of the Appomattox River, were seized, and Butler proceeded at 
Duce to take possession of and hold the peninsula of Bermuda Hundred between. 
the rivers James, and Appomattox. Simultaneously with this movement up- 
the James, General Kautz, with five thousand cavalry, went out from Suffolk^, 
to break up the railways south and west of Petersburg ; while Colonel West,,, 
with fifteen hundred mounted men went up the Peninsula, forded the Chick- 
ahominy, and took post on the James River, opposite City Point. All this wa» 
done with scarcely any opposition, for Confederate troops were then few im 
that region. 

General Butler proceeded to cast uj) a strong line of intrenchments across- 
the peninsula of Bermuda Hundred, and to destroy the railway between Peters- 
burg and Richmond. The former place was then at his mercy, and roiglit:. 
have been easily taken, but misinformation from Washington made Birtler 
move cautiously. Meanwhile, the withdrawal of Gillmore's troops haviugr 
relieved Charleston of immediate danger, left the Confederate forces there free- 
to act elsewhere. So, when Butler moved ujj the James, Beauregard was- 
summoned to Richmond with all the troops he could collect. He passed over 
the Weldon road before Kautz struck it, and filled Petersburg with defenders- 
before Butler could move upon it in force. His columns were receiving aeees- 
sions of strength every hotir, and while Butler was intrenching, Beauregard 
was massing a heavy force on his front along the line of the railway. Finally, 
on the morning of the 16th [May], while a dense fog shrouded the country, he 
attempted to turn Butler's right flank, which was connected with the Jame» by 
a thin line. A National brigade was utterly ovenvhelmed by the first heavy- 
blow, when two regiments, standing firmly at the junction of roads, cheeked 
the victors. At the same time a force that had fallen on Butler's front, was 
repulsed. The assault was renewed, on the National right, when the Union 
troops all fell back to their intrenchments. In this collision the Nationals lost 
about four thousand of their number, and the Confederates, about three thoa- 



691 



THE NATION. 



[1864. 



caiul. For several days afterward there was some sharp figlitiiig in front of 
Butler's line. Kautz, meanwhile, had been on the railway communications in 
the rear of Petersburg, inflicted considerable but not very serious damage, and 
returned to head-quarters. 

And now Grant's flanking column was moving grandly forward. Lee had 
the advantage of higher ground, and a more direct road to Tkichmond, and 
when the Army of the Potomac ajjproaehed the North -\nna Itiver, near the 
rrederlcksburg railway crossing, it found its antagonist strongly posted on the 
opposite side, to dispute its passage. A heavy battle ensued [May 23], when 
Lee withdrew a little to a stronger position. Grant became satisfied, after 
oaret'ul examinatiiMi of that j)osition, that he could not carry it. So lie with- 
drew [May 2G],aii<l resumed his march on IJichmond, well eastward of his foe, 
Sheridan, with the cavalry, in the advance; and on the 2Sth the entire Army 
of the Potomac was south of the Pamunkey River, with ah unobstructed com- 
munication with its new base of supplies at White House, near the mouth of 
that stream. But Lee, moving by a shorter road, was again in a strongly 
intrenched position on the National front, covering the turnpike and the two 
railways to Kiclinioml. There heavy battles were fought [May 2.*, 29], when 
Grant, again finding Lee's position too strong to be carried, began another 

flanking movement, with the intention 
of crossing the Chickahominy near 
Cool Arbor. Sheridan had seized an 
eligible ]>osition at Cool ArV)or, and 
there, on the following day, the Army 
of the Potomac was re-enforced [May 
31] by ten thousand men under Gen- 
eral W. F. Smitli, sent up by Butler 
from the .\rmy of llic James at Ber- 
muda Hundred. 

ileade now gave orders for an 
advance upon the foe, and the forcing 
of a passage of the Chick.ahominy. 
Here was the old battle-ground where 
McClellan and Lee fought two years 
before, and here M-ere now some san- 
guinary engagements preparatory to the final struggle which occurred on the 
3d of June, when the Army of the Potomac attempted to break throivgh the 
lines of the Army of Xoithcrn Virginia, and cross the Chickahominy. The 
struggle was fearful and bloody, but brief. Twenty minutes after the first shot 
was fired, fidl ten thousand Union men were killed or wounded. The Nationals 
lost no ground, but did not attempt to advance fitrther. They were attacked 
that night, but repulsed their assailants. Another attack the ne.vt day, and 
also at night, had a similar result, but with heavy losses on both sides.' Mean- 




PHILIP H. SnERIDAN. 



' The total loss of the Duionists in the struggle nround Cool Arbor, «-ae 13, "."iS, of wliom 
1,705 were killed. 0.fl42 woundeil, and 2.405 missing. 



181U.] LINCOLN'S ADMISISTRATION. (393 

while the Nationals -were grailuall}' moving to tbe left, and on the 7th [June] 
that wing touched the Chickahominy. Then Sheridan was dispatched with 
two divisions of cavalry around Lee's left. He tore up the railways in that 
direction, and scattered all Confederate forces that opposed him until he reached 
Gordonsville, where he found them so numerous that he retraced his steps. 

Grant now formed the bold resolution to cross the Chickahominy far to 
Lee's right, and then pass the James River and attack Richmond from the 
soulli. This resolution startled the authorities at Washington with fears that 
Lee might turn back and seize that city. Grant had considered all the contin- 
gencies incident to such a bold movement, and feared no evil from it.' To 
this end the whole army was put in motion [June 12, 13]. The most of the 
troops crossed the Chickahominy at Long Bridge, and moved toward the 
James by way of Charles City Court-House, carrying with them the iron work 
of the railway between the Chickahominy and White House. The passage of 
the ri\er was safely made by the army on ferry-boats and pontoon bridges on 
the 14th and 15th of June. At the same time unsuccessful efforts were made 
by a portion of the Army of the James to seize Petersburg before aid should 
come do\^'n to Beauregard from Lee. The failure to do so was a sad misfor- 
tune, and from that time, for about ten months, Petersburg and Richmond sus- 
tained a most pressing siege. 

General Grant established his head-quarters at City Point, and thither 
Meade hastened, after posting his army [June 16], to consult him, when it was 
determined to make a general assault that evening on Petersburg. It was done 
by the combined corps of Warren, Hancock, and Burnside, at a heavy cost of 
life, but with the gain of a slight advance of the National line. It was evident 
that a greater portion of Lee's army ^^■as now south of the James River. A 
force under Terry, sent out by Butler to seize and hold the railway, was driven 
by Longstreet and Pickett. Another general assault was ordered on the morn- 
ing of the ISth, wlien it was found that the Confederates had withdrawn to a 
stronger line of works nearer Petersburg. The attack was made in tlie after- 
noon, and resulted in no gain to the Nationals, but in a heavy loss of men. 

It was now evident that Petersburg could not be carried by a direct assault, 
so a tlanking movement was made for the purpose of seizing and cutting the 
Weldon road, and turning the Confederate right. The turning colunni was 
heavily attacked [June 22, 1804] by General A. P. Hill, and were falling back, 
when ^Icade arrived. Then the line was restored, and, by an advance at 
nightfall, nearly all of the lost ground was recovered. The Weldon road was 
reached the next morning, but just as destructive operations upon it were com- 
menced. Hill struck the Nationals a stunning blow, which made them recoil. 
In this unsuccessful flank movement, the Unionists lost about four thousand 
men, mostly by capture. At the same time General Wilson, with his own and 
Kautz's cavalry, struck the Weldon railw.ay at Reams's Station, destroyed the 

' The country between Lee's shattered army and 'R'ashiugton. was thoroughly exhausted by 
the troops that had passed over it, and liad Lee attempted s\ich a movement, Grant cotUd have 
seut troops from the James Ijy way of the Potomac for the protection of the capital much sooner 
than Lee could have marched to the attack. 



€94 



TUE NATION. 



flSG4. 



buildings ami track, ami tlu'ii jmshctl on to the Lynchburg road. This was 
also destroyctl over a distance of twenty-two niik's. In the prosecution of this 
destructive business, the cavalry went on to the Staunton River, when they 
turned, and found themselves coin})elled to fight their way back. AVearied 
and worn, the shattered cohunn reached the army, with a loss of their guns, 
train, and ni'arly a thousand men made captive. 

Butler now threw a pontoon bridge across the James Kiverat Deep Bottom, 
over which troops passed and menaced Richmond. Lee sent a force to con- 




^0^ 

^4^ 



PONTOOS BRIDGE AT DEEP BOTTOM. 

front them, when lI;incoek crossed oxer, H.-mkcil llie Confederate outpost, and 
drove tliem back to the shelter of strong works at Cha])in's Blutf, not i'ni 
below Fort Darling, on Drewry's Bbitf. Tliese Slieriilau attempted to flank. 
Lee was so alarmed by these movements within a lew miles nf Uichmonil, that 
lie withdrew a large portion of his ai'my from the sontii side of the ri\er to 
meet the menace, when Grant took tlie opportunity to make a vigorous attempt 
to carry the Confeileratc lines before Petersburg, lie had secretly run a mine 
under one of their jirincipal forts, in front of Burnside's position, and this was 
sprung on the morning of the ."Oth of Jidy. The cxjilosion ]>rodueed a large 
crater wliere the fort stood, and by it alinut three hundreil inmates of the work 
perished. At the same moment the National Artillery was opened along the 
whole line, but a simultaneous assault that was to have been made at the point 
of the explosion for the purpose of penetrating the Confederate works, was 
aiot undertaken in time, and the scheme failed.' 



' Owing to a lack of readiness on the part of tlio attacking column, the assault was not made 
■until the Confederates had recovered from the shock, and massed troops at the broach. These 



1864.] LINCOLN'S ADMINISTRATION. 695 

There was now a brief lull in operations before Petersburg and Riclimond, 
during which there were some stirring events in Maryland. When Hunter 
disappeared beyond the mountains,' General Early, who had been sent by Lee 
to drive the former from Lynchburg, hastened to the Shenandoah Valley, and, 
ivith about fifteen thousand men, swept down to and across the Potomac, driv- 
ing General Sigel into Maryland. Early did not stop to molest some of Sigel's 
command on Maryland Heights at Harper's Ferry, but pushed on to Hagers- 
town and Frederick. His was a powerful raid, for the purposes of plunder 
and a possible seizure of Baltimore and Washington, but chiefly to cause 
Grant to send heavy bodies of troops for the defense of the latter city, and so 
compel him to raise tlie siege of Petersburg. 

At that time the only force at hand to confront Early were a few troopa 
commanded by General Lewis Wallace, whose head-quarters were at Baltimore. 
That energetic officer proceeded at once to a judicious use of the small force 
under his control, in which he was ably seconded by the gallant General E. B. 
Tyler. On hearing of Early's movement. General Grant had sent the Si.xth 
Corps, under General Wright, to Washington, and, fortunately, the Nineteenth • 
Corps, under General Emory,' arrived at this juncture at Foj-tress Monroe, fi-om 
New Orleans. The division of General Ricketts, of that corps, was imme- 
diately sent to Baltimore, and with these, and such troops as lie could gather 
in his department, Wallace made a stand behind the Monocacy River, not far 
from Frederick. There, with his handful of men, ho fought Early [July 9, 
1864], whose cavalry were making demonstrations on his flanks. Wallace was 
compelled to fall back on Baltimore after heavy loss.^ Then Eariy pushed on 
toward Washington, but the check and lesson given him by Wallace so 
retarded his movements that the Sixth and Nineteenth Corps arrived there in 
time to save the city from capture. Early withdrew from in front of Wash- 
ington on the night of the 12th, and with much booty crossed the Potomac 
into Virginia at Edwards's Ferry. General Wright pursued him through 
Snicker's Gap to the Shenandoah River, where, after a sharp conflict [July 19], 
Early began a retreat up the Valley, and Wright returned to Washington. 
Threatenings in that valley caused both the Sixth and Nineteenth Corps to be 
quickly sent there, and soon afterward occurred Sheridan's brilliant campaign 
in that region, which will be noticed presently. 

A fortnight after the failure of the mining operations at Petersburg, Grant 
sent another expedition to the north side of the James, at Deep Bottom, com- 
posed of the divisions of Birnoy and Hancock, and cavalry under Gregg. As 
before, Richmond was seriously threatened, but in engagements on the 13th 
and 16th of August, no decided advantage to the Unionists was gained, except- 
ing the incidental one of assisting similar demonstrations on the right of the 
Confederates, against which Warren was impelled, for the purpose of seizing 

repulsed the assaulting column when it moved forward, and inflicted a loss on the Unionists of 
about 4,400 men. 

' See page 691. ' See page 684. 

' He lost nearly tn-o thousand men, including 1,282 who were made prisoners, or were other* 
•riae missing. His killed numbered 98, and his wounded 573 



696 



THE XATIOK. 



[18G4. 



the WeUlou road. This ho effected [August 18], with a loss of a thousand 
men. There ho conuneneod intreneliing, when a stronger force than he liad 
encountered endeavored to regain the road. In so doing they temporarily 
broke [August 19] Warren's line, and captured twenty-five lumdred of his 
men, including General J. Hayes. But the Xationals hold the road in spite of 
all ertorts to dislodge tliem. They repulsed another heavy attack on the '.>lst, 
and on the same day Hancock, who liad returned from the north side of the 
James, struck the AYeldon road at Reams's Station, and destroyed the ti-ack 
for some distance. The ConlVderates attacked them in heavy force, when they 
were most gallantly o]>posed by Miles and others. The Katiouals were finally 
driven off atler a loss of 2,400 men out of 8,000 men ; also five guns. 

P^1r a month after this there was comparative quiet along the lines, when 
National troops moved simultaneously upon the right and left flanks of the Con- 
federates. That of "Warren, ou their right, was more for the i)urpose of mask- 
ing a more formidable one by Butler on their loft, on the north side of the 
James, with the Tenth Corps, under Birncy, and Eighteenth, under Ord. 
Warren gained some advantage by pushing forward the National lines, but 
that gained by Butler was of far more importance. He stormed and captured 

their strongest work [Sojttcmber 20, 1804] on 
that side of the river, known as Fort Harrison, 
with fifteen guns and a line of intrenchments. 
In an attack upon another fort near, immediate- 
ly afterward, the Xationals were repulsed, and 
General Burnham was killed. Tlie gallant 
behavior of colored trooj)s in this charge was 
such that General Butler, after the war, caused 
a number of silver medals to be struck and 
given to the most distinguished among thorn, 
in testimony of their v.alor on that occasion. 
Now there was another pause for a month, 
when an attempt was 
made to turn the Con- 
federate right, while 
Butler menaced their 
left on the north side 
of the James Kivcr. 
The bulk of the Army 
of the Potomac was 
massed on Lee's right, 
and moved [October 
2V] upon his works ou 
Hatcher's Bun, west 
of the Wcldon road. 
For that position there was a severe struggle, which resulted in a repnlse of 
the Nationals, and theii final wi.lulrawal [October 29] to their intrenchments. 
in front of I'etersburg P'rom that time until the opening of the spring cam- 





THE BCTLER MEBAL. 



ISGi.] 



LINCOLN'S ADMINISTRATION. 



6.97 



paigii, little was done by the Nationals immediately in front of Petersburg and 
Richmond, excepting an extension of their line to Hatcher's Run. Up to the 
first of Xovember, from the fifth of May, the losses of the Army of the Potomac 
had been fearful — a little more than 88,000 men. Probably the entire loss 
among troops engaged in the campaign against Richmond during that time 
Avas 100,000 men. 

In the mean time there had been stirring events in the Shenandoah Valley. 
On tlie day after Wright and Early fought,' Averill, moving up from Martins- 
burg, had a contest with and worsted a Confederate force near Winchester 
[July 20], taking prisoners and guns. Two gr three days afterward, Crook 
was driven back from that 'neighborhood by a strong attacking jjarty, and it 
was evident that Early had not, as was expected, hastened to rejoin Lee, but 
was in full force in the Talley, and ready to fight. His own estimate of his 
power was e^'inced by his sending General MeCausland and others on a raid 
into Maryland and Western Pennsylvania, at which time they burned-about 
two-thirds of the city of Chambersburg. When the raiders turned again 
toward the Potomac, Averill, who was in the vicinity of Chambersburg, fol- 
lowed, but they went back to Virginia with plunder, without much molesta- 
tion. 

When information of this daring raiil reached Washington, tlie Sixth aniZ 
Ninth Corps were sent first in cpiest of the invaders, and then into the Shenau- 




TIEW AT CEDAR CREEK. 



doah Valley, where they were joined by Hunter's troops. The whole force, 
about 30,000 strong, was placed under the command of General Sheridan early 
in August. After a month's preparation, he assumed the otfensive against 
Early, and by a series of brilliant movements and a sharp battle, he sent him 

' See page 695. 



()i)8 



THE NATION. 



[1864. 



*' wliirliiiL; up tin.' Valley," as lie cxjiri'ssed it. First there was a Bcvcre battlo 
iu';ir Wiiicliesler [Sejit. 1!>], when Eiirly retreated to tiie strong j^silioii of 
Fisher's Hill, not lar from Strasburg. He was driven from tliis vantage 
gfound on the 'Jlst, witli heavy loss, and fled to the mountains with not more 
tliMM iialf his army with whieh he had at tiisi met Sheridan. The latter fell 
l>:u'k lo a position behind Cedar Creek, near Strasbiirg, where, on the IDlh of 
Detober, Karly, who had been re-enforeed, and had eome down to Fisher's 
Hill, fell siuldenly and I'rushingly upon the Nationals, and came near over- 
whelming ihi'm wilii destruclion. They fell b.'ick to Middletown and beyond, 
where, under tlu' eliief direetion of tieneral AVright, they turned upon their 
pursuers. Sheridan had Just eome up from Winchester. A sharp eoiifliot 
ensued, when the tide was turni'd, and K;irly w.ms again sent in swill retreat up 
the Sluiiaiidciah \'alley, with heavy loss. Sheridan's short campaign in the 
Valley was a brilliant suceiss, and indeil hostilities in that region, for he nearly 
aimihilati'd Karly's army, and Ia'c eould sjiare no more men for warfare away 
from Kiehmond. 



CHAPTER XIX. 



THE Civil, WAR. I 1 SC. 1— 1 SfiC] 

Lkt us here turn iVom a consideration of the cMiupaign against Richmond, 
and its defenders, tor awhile, and observe the progress of that against Atlanta 
and the army that stood in the way of the National advance. General William 
T. Sherman was chosen liy tirant, to lead the troops in the cam])aign in 

Georgia, and he set out from the 
vicinity of Chattanooga, at the be- 
ginning of May, with nearly 100,000 
men.' His antagonist, Genei-al Jose])h 
E. .Tohnston, then at Dallon, had 
nViout ri5,000 men.' .Tohnston was in 
n strong position at Dalton, the ap- 
proaches to it, through gaps in a 
mountain range, being strongly forli- 
licd. Sherman, when he mo\ cd for- 
'\^0^'\ ^^ !>'''!. " ■>** satisfied that a direct 
'~ 'A attaik on .Tohnston's front, through 
l>n/./.ard's Koost I'ass in liocky Face 
Kiilge, would be disastrous to his 
men, so lie began that series of mas- 

' Sliormnn was the oomnianilor of tlio Militnrv Division oftlio Missisipjii. wliicli Grant liold nt 
the tinio of liis |irnni(ition. His I'mw I'or Iho oanipuiKU iMinprisi'd lliroo araiios. iiamoiv : .\rniy 
■el" llio CmnlxTlaiul, IimI liv OimumhI (u'oriro 11. Tlmmas. (iO."7:i ; .\rniv of tlio Tonnossoo. Ocnoral 
McPhprson, '.M.-lii.''): ami Annv ol" llio Oiiio, Ucnoral Soliollol.l. i:t,f)!i9: total. ftS,"!t7. 

' .Tdluision's army was dividid iulo tlireo corps, coiuiuaudcd rospvoiivcly by GeucraU Hiirdee^ 
Hood, uud lV>lk. 




18G4.] LINCOLN'S ADMINISTRATION. (399 

tei'ly Hank iiKivi'iiU'iits liy wliicli he coiiii)t'lk'il his adversary (who was Jcter- 
iiiiiKHl to save his army), to ahaiiilou ono sli-oiin' jiosiliou after another. 

Slieniiaii nienaeed .lohiistoii on ironl ami Hank, on the Tth of May, wlieii 
lliu hitter abandoned his position at l)aU,t>n, and fell baek behind strong works 
at llesaca, wliich e.vtended from the Oostcnaula Itivcr, northward. When 
Sherman approached, Johnston sent out troops to attack a portion of his com- 
mand. A sliarp light occurred [IMay 15], about two miles from IJesaca Station, 
in which the Confederates were driven, and retreated, across the Oostcnaula 
covered by the corps of Hardee. The Nationals closely pursued, Thomas 
following directly in the rear of the fugitives, while McPhersoii and Schofield 
took routes to their right and left, (leneral J. V. Davis and his division pushed 
on to Home, where they destroyed mills and founderies of great imporlMuee. 
Near Adairsville, Johnston made a brief stand against the central pursuing 
column, but on the near approach of the Nationals, he continued liis retreat to 
a strong and i'ortilieil position at Cassville. TJierc^ lie evidently iuteudt'd to 
give battle, but he tlioughl it. jHMuli'nt to niox'c on [May ]!•], wiien he crossed 
the Etowah liiver, burnt llic liridges behind him, and took another good 
position covering the Allatoona Pass, in a mountainous region. 

Sherman now rested liis army a little. Ho perceived that .bilinston's posi- 
tion was almost impregnal>le, so he determined to flank liim out of it, by 
moving well to the right, and concentrating his army at Dallas. Johnston 
attempted to thwart the movement, and in that vicinity a severe but indecisive 
battle was fought [May 25]. Johnston's army, meanwhile, had been very 
busy in casting up intrenehments between Dallas and Marietta, i)\er a bnikcn 
wooded region, in which it was very difficidt for troops to operate. In that 
region much skirmisiiing and lighting occurred, ami iinally, on tlie tirst of June, 
Johnston was compelled to evacuate the Allatoona Pass. He also, soon altci- 
ward, abandoned his intrenehments near New Hope ChiU'ch and Ackwoi'th. 
i^lierman now garrisoned .Mlaloona Pass, and made it a secondary base of suji- 
plies, he having caust'd tlic railway and its liridges Vietweeu \hvw and Chatta- 
nooga to be ]iut in order. He was now re-enforced by infantry, and cavalry, 
making his army lu'arly as strong as when it left Chattanooga; and he moved 
forwai'd f.luuc '.»| to l>ig Shanty, not far from the great Keni-saw Mountain, 
aromid and ujion wliich, as well as upon Lost Mountain and Pine I\Iountaiii, 
the Confederates had lines of intrenehments. 

In this region there was much maneuvering and fighting, for a few days, 
in the midst of almost incessant rain, during which General (JJishoj)) Polk was 
killed. By persistent assaults, Sherman compelled Johnston to abandon, first, 
Pini^ Mountain [Juno 15], then Lost Mountain [June I V | ; and finally, after 
some sanguinary engagements, in which both parties sutl'ercil terribly, lie was 
compelled to evacuate the great Kenesaw Mountain [July '-'], oveilooking 
Marietta. At dawn on the :id, the National banner was seen waving over that 
peak, and at eight o'clock in tlie morning Sherman rode into jNIarietta, close 
upon the rear guard of Johnston's army, then hastening to (lie Ciiattahoochee 
River, near Atlanta, closely ])ursued by the Nationals. Sherman hoped to 
strike Johnson a fatal blow while he was crossing tliat stream, but that skillful 



100 



TUB NATION. 



[186<. 



leader so ;]iuri:ly ooverod tho passage by strong intreiu'hmeiits, that his army 
was all across, excepting troops holding tlio works, early on the moruing of 
the iith, without having been molested. 




8fM.MIT OP QllEAT KENESAW MOU.VTAI.N'.' 



Sherman ])roniptly advanced to the ("hattahoocliee, wliere qniek and success- 
ful turning movements by Schofield and Howard, caused Johnston to abandon 
the line of the river, and retreat toward Atlanta [.Inly 10, 18G4]. He formed 
a new line, covering that town, with the Chatt.ahoochee on his left, and IVach- 
tree Creek on his right. Now the two armies rested a little; and at that time 

Johnston was relieved of command,, 
and General J. B. Hood, of Te.\as, was 
api>ointed to fill his jilace. The tornu'r 
Lad been careful to preserve his army. 
His force was every way inferior to 
that of his antagonist, and he knew 
that in iiitched battles he woidd doubt- 
less lose a large portion ot' his men 
and materials. The "governnicnt "' at 
llichnioiid were dissatistii^d with Ills 
wise caution, and committed his army 
to a dashing and brave soldier, who 
pri'ferred tlie (juick work of brute force 
to the slower achievements of mili- 
tary science. Hood received from 
Johnston full fifty tliousand ett'ective 
Willi these he resolved to fight, and not 




J. B. UOOD. 



men, of whom 10,000 were cavalry, 
retreat. 

On the IGth of July, General Rousseau joined Sherman with 2,000 cavalry; 



' This is from a sketch made by the author in May, 1806. The high peak in tlie distance i8 
Lost Moimtain. The onimeiioo on the extreme right is Pine Mountain, on which General Polk 
iras killed while watcliing the movements of troops. 



1864.] LINCOLN'S ADMINISTRATION. 701 

aiul on the 19th such of the National forces as had not crossed the Chatta- 
hoocliee, passed over it. Then the left, led by Schofield and McPlicrson, 
advanced with the intention of striking the railway east of Decatur, that 
connects Atlanta with Augusta. Thomas, at the same time, crossed Peach-tree 
Creek at several places, and heavy skirmishing occurred along tlic entire front 
of the advancing columns. McPherson struck and destroyed the railway for 
several miles, and Schofield reached Decatur. Hood had determined to give 
battle at an auspicious moment, and on the afternoon of the 20th he fell 
heavily upon the corps of Howard and Hooker, and a part of Palmer's, but 
•was repulsed after a most gallant struggle, in which both sides suft'ered 
severely.' 

On tlie morning of the 22d [July, 1864], Sherman discovered that the Con- 
federates had abandoned the heights along Peach-tree Creek, and it was con- 
cluded that Hood, iC„: ving the example of Johnston, was about to evacuate 
Atlanta. The army was at once moved rapidly toward that city, when, at an 
average of two miles from it, it encountered a very heavy line of intrench- 
raents, which had been cast up the previous year, with Hood and his army 
beliind them. General Blair, commanding the Seventeenth Corps, had carried 
an important point the night before, and was in full view of the city, and 
preparations were made for assailing the Confederate lines in heavy force, 
when they were compelled to perform loss acceptable service. Hood had 
been holding the Nationals in check with a small part of his army, and had 
made a long night march around with his main body, and now he fell with 
crushing force upon Sherman's rear. The first assault was made by Hardee ; 
and at about the same time, McPherson, who was riding about alone in the 
woods, and in foncied safety, making observations, was shot dead, when 
General Logan succeeded to the command of his troops. A terrible l)attle, 
that lasted for hours, succeeded Hardee's ass.ault, when, toward evening, the 
Coniederates, who had lost very heavily, unable to carry the coveted points, 
desisted. The assault was soon renewed, and after another desper.ate struggle, 
the Nationals were victorious, and the Confederates retired to their works.' 

Hood now seemed more disposed to be quiet, and Sherman dis])atched 
cavalry to make raids on the railways in the rear of his antagonist. Generals 
E. M. McCook and Stoneman were sent on this business, on different routes, 
but with the intention of co-operating. Failing in this, their operations, 
though important, foil short of Shcrm.an's expect.itions. Stoneman cfiected 
very little, and his force, divided and weakened, was captured or dispersed, 
and himself made prisoner. Meanwhile Sherman made dispositions for flanking 
Hood out of Atlanta, when the latter attacked the Nationals [July 28], and a 
sanguinary battle ensued. Hood was repulsed with heavy loss, and soon 
perceiving that Sherman was gradually getting possession of the railroads by 

' The Union loss, mostly of Howard's corps, was about 1,500 men. Sherman estimated the 
Confederate loss at 5,000. They left 500 dead, and 1,000 severely wounded, on the field, besides 
many prisoners. 

' The National loss in the .struggles of that day was 3,722, of whom about 1.000 were prisoners. 
Sherman estimated Hood's total loss at not less than 8,000. He left 2,200 de.ad on the field, 
within the Union lines, and 1,000 prisoners. 



702 



THE NATION. 



[1864. 



wliicli tiie Confederates in Atlanta received tlioir supplies, ho sent liis cavalry 
to retaliate in kind, Ijy striking Sherman's communications. This absence of 
Hood's cavalry gave Sherman a coveted opportunity to harm his antagonist 
seriously. He dispatched Kilpatrick at the middle of August with 5,000 
horsomen, to break up the railways leading, one toward Montgomery, in 
Alabama, and the other to jNIacon, in Georgia. This raid was successful, and 
was followed by a movement of nearly the whole arnn- from Atlanta to the 
railways in its rear, when Ilood, fatally dividing his army, sent a part under 
Hardee, to fight Howard at Jonesboro', twenty miles south, on the Macon 
road, while he, with the remainder, staid at Atlanta. There was a desperate 
battle at Jonesboro' [August 31], in which the Nationals were victorious. 
Howard lost about- 500 men, and Hardee 2,500. The Confederate works 
covering Jonesboro' were captured, and Hardee retreated. 

On hearing of the disaster at Jonesboro', Hood V .-/ up his magazines at 

Atlanta, and Hed to a point of junction 
M'ith Hardee. Sherman took possession 
of the city and fortifications, and found 
that Hood had not only left the place 
ilosolate by the destruction of factories, 
founderies, and other industrial establish- 
ments, but had left scarcely any food for 
I he inhal)itants. It was impossible for 
Sherman to subsist both them and his 
army, so he humanely ordered them to 
leave for the Xortli or the South, as their 
iuclin.ations might lead them.' 

While Sherman was resting his army 
at Atlanta, Hood flanked his right, 
crossed the Chattahoochee, and made a raid ujjon his communications. With 
a strong force he threatened Sherman's supplies at Allatoona Pass, then lightly 
guarded, but Ge^.dral Corse hastening up from Rome assisted in saving them. 
Not doubting it to be Hood's intention to push up into Tennessee, Sherman 
sent Thomas to Nashville, so soon as he heard of Hood's flank movements ^ 
and leaving Sloeum (who had succeeded Hooker) in command at Atlanta, he 
pushed the bulk of his army in the direction of Allatoona Pass, and from the 
top of Great Kenesaw, told Corse, by signal, that help was near, and to hold 
out imtil it should reach liim. The Confederates were repulsed, and then 
Hood moved northward, threatening posts along the line of the railway, under 
instructions, to entice his adversary out of Georgia. Slierman closely followed 
him, well up toward Chattanooga, when the route of the chase deflected 
westward. In Northern Alabama, Sherman relinquished it, and sending 
Schofield, and most of his cavalry, binder Wilson, to Thomas at Nashville, he 
returned to Atlanta, taking with him the garrisons of posts, dismantling the 

' In government wagons, and at the cost of the government, over 2,000 persons with much 
furniture and clothing were carried south as far as Rough and Ready, and those who detired to 
go north, were kindly taken to Chattanooga. 




SlIEIiMA.S S UEAD-QUAUTERS IN ATLAXTA. 



1864.] 



LINCOLN'S ADMIXISTRATION. 



Y03 



railway, ami burning founderies, &c. He cut loose from all his communi- 
cations on the north, and j^repared for a march to the sea. 

Sherman's great march to the sea was begun, with 65,000 men of all arms, 
on the 11th of November, 1864, on which day he cut his telegraphic communi- 
cations with the North, and was not heard from for some time, excepting 
through Confederate newsj^apers. His army moved in two grand divisions,, 
the right led by General O. O. Howatd, and the left by General H. W. Slocum. 
General Ivilpatrick led, with 5,000 cavalry. Much of Atlanta was destroyed 
before they left it, and the railways and public property were made desolate in 
the track of the two heavy columns. Wheeler''s cavalry afforded the chief 
annoyance to the army on its march. Feints were made here and there, ta 
distract the Confederates, and wore successful. The destination of the 
Nationals from the beginning, had been Savannah or its vicinitj', but the 
foe sometimes thought it was Augusta, and then Milledgeville. They passed 
on, and on the 13tli of Decembei-, [1864], General Hazen captured Fort 
McAllister, on the Ogeechee River, not far from Savannah. That city was 
immediately invested, and on the night 
of the 20th, Hardee, in command there 
with 15,000 troops, evacuated it, and 
fled to Charleston, after destroying much 
public property. On the following day 
the National troops took possession of 
Savannah,' and there rested. The army 
had marched two hundred and fifty-five 
miles in the space of six weeks, inflicting 
much injury on the Confederates, but 
receiving very little injury in return.' 
As Sherman approached the coast. Gen- 
eral Foster, commanding in that region, 
made valuable co-operative movements ; 
and when Hardee fled to Charleston, he occupied strong positions on the rail- 
way between the two cities, at Pocotaligo, and other jilaces. 

There were some stirring scenes in 1864, in the region of the Atlantic 
eoast between the Pamlico and St. John's rivers, which had passed into history 
when Sherman reached the estuaries of the sea at tjie close of that year. We 
left Gillmore easily holding Charleston with a tight grasp at the close of 1863.' 
Information had then reached him, and the government, that Florida was 
ready to step back into the Union, through the open door of amnesty, but 
needed a military escort, for there were some active Confederate troops, under 




SHERMAN S HEAD-QUARTERS IN SAVANNAH. 



' Sherman, in a dispatch to the President, said : "I beg to present you, as a Christmas gift, the 
city of Savannah, with 150 heavy guns, and plenty of ammunition, and" also about 25,000 bales of 
cotton. 

■' Sherman lost during the march, 567 men, whereof only 63 were killed. He captured 1,32S 
men, and 167 guns. He found and used ample subsistence on the route, amounting, in the 
aggregate, to 13,000 beeves. 160,000 bushels of corn, and over 5,000 tons of fodder; also 5,000 
horses, and 4,000 mules. He burned about 20,000 bales of cotton, and captured 25,000 bales, at 
Savannah. ' See page 676. 



704 



THE NATION. 



[1864. 



General Finncgan, yet witliin her bordiys. General Gillmore accordingly sent 
General Truman Seymour, with aljout stx thousand troops, hor.sc and foot, to 
assist in the restoration of Florida to the Union.' lie entered the St. John's 
River on a fleet of steamers and sailing vessels, with an imposing display, and 
on the Tth of February, took possession of the ruined city of Jacksonville, 
from which Finnegan had Hod on Seymour's approach. 

Finnegan was immediately pursued, Colonel Ilcnrj-, with cavalry, leading 
in the chase. He drove the Conffdoratcs from place to place, capturing their 
guns, their stores, and men, and was closely followed by Seymour with the 
residue of the army. Finally, Seymour concentrated his forces at Sanderson, 
and, with about five thousand men, moved toward the Suwannee River. At 
Olustec Station, where the railway that crosses the peninsula passes through a 
■cypress swamp, he encountered Finnegan [February 20, 1864], in a strong 
position, and in a severe battle that ensued, was repulsed. He retreated to 
Jacksonville in good order, burning, on the way, stores valued at ^1,000,000. 
In that unfortunate expedition Seymour lost about two thousand men. 

At about that time Rear-Admiral Bailey destroyed important salt-works, 
on the Florida coast, which were valued at $3,000,000. There were some 
raids in Florida in the course of the summer, but after the battle at Olustee, 
Tcry little was done toward the restoration of Florida to its place in the 
Union.' In Georgia, Sherman's invasion was absorbing all interest. In South 
Carolina, very little of importance, bearing upon the progress of the war, was 
accomplished. There were some imsuccessful oflensive movements in the 
vicinity of Charleston. Gillmore's guns kept watch and ward over the harbor 
and city, while he and some of his troops went up the J.ames, to assist in 
operations against Petersburg, and Richmond, as we have seen.' 

There were some events a little more stirring, in North Carolina, early in 
1864. On the first of February, a Confederate force under General Pickett, 
menaced New Berne, and destroyed a fine gun-boat lying there. A few weeks 
later, General Hoke marched seven thousand men against Plymouth [April 1 7, 

1864], near the mouth 
of the Roanoke River, 
where General Wessells 
was in command of a 
garrison of about twen- 
ty-four hundred men, 
with some fortifica- 
tions. A formidable 
"ram," called the Al- 
bemarle, lying in the 
Roanoke, assisted in the attack, and on the 20th, Wessells was compelled to 

' The President commissioned, John Hay, one of liis private secretaries, as major, and sent him 
[January 13], to Hilton Ilond, for the purpose of accompanying tlie expedition, to act in a civil 
oipacity, if ciroumstauces sliouUi reiiuire him to. 

' On the 20lli of Jlay there was a Cnion Convention, at Jacksonville, to take measures for the 
restoration of civil authority in Florida. No practical advantage resulted from the gathering. 

• See page 691. 




it- — 



THE AXBEMARLE. 



1864.] LINCOLN'S ADMINISTRATION. 705 

surrender the place, with sixteen hiuulred men, twenty-five guns, and a large 
quantity of small-arms and stores. After the fall of Plymouth, General Palmer 
abandoned [April 28] Washington, at the head of Pamlico Sound, and 
Hoke summoned New Berne to surrender, expecting the co-operation of the 
Albemarle in a siege. She was enticed from her safe anchorage under the 
guns at Plymouth, and after a severe fight with the Sassaciis, was compelled 
to flee for safety up the Roanoke. The siege of New Berne was abandoned, 
and Hoke was called to the James River. Several months later, the gallant 
Lieutenant Gushing, of the navy, destroyed [October 27], the dreaded Albe- 
marle with a torpedo, in the Roanoke. Four days afterward, the National 
troops re-entered Plymouth. After that the war in that region consisted 
chiefly of a series of encounters between Union raiders and detachments of 
Confederates. 

When Sherman sent Thomas to Nashville, he gave him the -vvidest dis- 
cretionary powers. These were used with great judgment, and Thomas pre- 
pared for the stirring events which soon followed, with wise skill. Hood, as 
Sherman had anticipated, pushed across the Tennessee River, Forrest's cavalry 
hei'alding his advance. That active leader went raiding up the railway that 
leads from Decatur to Nashville, when he was met at Pulaski by Rousseau, 
and compelled to turn eastward to tlie Chattanooga road. Rousseau again 
confronted him at TuUahoma. At the same time General Steedman was 
marching against him in considerable force from another direction. Forrest 
eluded them, and for awhile, in September and October [1864], there were 
stirring scenes between the Tennessee and Duck rivers, for several detach- 
ments of N.ational troops were vainly endeavoring to catch the bold raiders. 
At length, late in October, Hood appeared near Decatur, in Northern Alabama, 
then held by General Gordon Granger. He menaced that post, but only as a 
mask to the I3assage of his aiuny over the Tennessee, near Florence. Forrest 
Avas again on the war-path, co-operating with Hood, and caused the destruc- 
tion, at Johnsonville, on the Tennessee River, of National stores and other 
property, valued at $1,500,000. 

Hood had been re-enforced by a part of Dick Taylor's army, and he now 
pressed vigorously northward with more than 50,000 men, a large number of 
them natives of Tennessee and Kentucky. Thomas had about 30,000 imme- 
diately available troops, with nearly as many more scattered over Tennessee 
and Northern Alabama. He sent troops forward to imjiede rather than pre- 
vent Hood's march on Nashville, and was successful. Schofield, with a strong 
force at Pulaski, fell back, as Hood advanced, across Duck River, with his 
train ; and at Columbia he kept the Confederates on the south side of that 
stream until his wagons were well on toward Franklin, where he took a posi- 
tion on the 30th of November, and, casting up intrenchmeuts, prepared to 
fight, if necessary, until his trains should be safely on their way to Nashville. 
Hood came up in the afternoon, and attempted to crush his opj^onent by the 
mere weight of numbers. A most desperate struggle ensued. At the first 
onset the Confederates drove the whole National line, capturing the works and 
guns, and gaining, apparently, a complete victory. A counter charge was 

45 



706 



THE NATION. 



[1864. 



made, when the Confederates were driven out of llic captured works, the guns 
were recovered, ten flags and three Imndred men were captured from the 
assailants, and the National line was restored, chiefly through the skill and 




-^ 






VIEW ON THE BATTLE-QROUND AT FRANKLIN. 

bravery of General Opdyke, directing gallant soldiers. Hood made desperate 
but unavailing attempts to i-etake tlie works, and the battle raged until 
toward midnight. Hood's loss was terrible — at least one-sixth of liis eftective 
force.' 

Schofield now fell back to Nashville, carrying with him all of his guns, 
when Hood advanced and invested that post with about 40,000 men. Thomas 
liad been re-enforced by General A. J. Smith's troops, which had just come 
from assisting in chasing Price out of Missouri." Thomas's infantry Avas fully 
equal in numbers to those of his adversary, but he was deficient in cavalry. 
Rousseau was in Fort Roseerans, at Murfreesboro', to hold the railway to 
Chattanooga, and Thomas allowed Hood to remain in front of liim as long as 
possible, so as to give himself time to increase his own supply of horses and 
obtain means for transportation. Finally, on the 15th of December, Thomas 
moved out upon Hood. The battle was opened by the Fourth Corps, under 
General T. J. Wood. The Confederates were driven out of their works, and 
pressed back to the foot of the Harpeth hills with a loss of 1,200 prisoners and 
16 guns. Wood again advanced the next day [Dec. 16, 1864], and with other 
troops, after a severe battle, drove the Confederates through the Brentwood 
Pass. They left behind them most of their guns, and a hirge number of their 
companions as prisoners.' They were liotly pursued for several days. Hood 
turning occasionally to fight. Forrest joined liim at Columbia, and formed a 
covering party ; and at near the close of the month Hood escaped across the 
Tennessee River with liis shattered columns. So ended, in complete victory 



' The Confederate loss was reported by General Thomas at fi,252, of v.-hom 1,"50 were killed. 
Tlio National loss was 2,326, whereof 189 were killed. Nearly 1,000 were captured. 

' See page 687. 

' In tlio two days' battles, Thornaa captured 4,462 prisoners, of whom 287 were offlcers, on» 
of them a major-general ; also fifty-three guns and many small-arms. 



1864] LINCOLN'S ADMINISTRATION. Y'OT 

for the Nationals, Thomas's admirably managed campaign in Tennessee.' 
Hood's army had now ceased to be formidable in numbers or spirit, and at 
Tupelo, in Mississippi, that commander was relieved, at his OAvn request, on 
the 23d of January, 1865, and was succeeded by Beauregard. 

Let us now turn a moment from tlie consideration of the struggle on the 
land, to some events of the war on the ocean. We have already noticed the 
pii-ate ship Alabama,^ commanded by Raphael Semmcs. The same man had 
previously commanded the pirate ship Sumter, which, after a brief but destruct- 
ive career on the ocean, was blockaded by the ship-of-war Tuscarora at Gibral- 
tar, and there sold early in 1862. A superior cruiser, built for the Confederates, 
in England, called the Florida, afterward roamed the sea in charge of J. N, 
Maffit. Also the Georyia, built in Great Britain, and sailing under British 
colors. These freebooters captured and destroyed scores of ships, and cargoes 
valued at many millions of dollars ; and they drove at least two-thirds of the ' 
carrying trade between the United States and Europe into British bottoms. 
They were heartily welcomed into all British ports ; and the remonstrances of 
the American Minister in London against the building, fitting out, and encour- 
agement of these marauders, as we liave seen,' were of no avail. Three others- 
were added by British shipmasters in 1864 [Tallahassee, Olustee, and Chicka- 
■inauffa), whose ravages quickly swelled the sum total of damage inflicted 
upon American commerce by Anglo-Confederate jjirates.' 

The new cruisers were equally destructive, and great eflbrts were made to 
capture them. The Georgia was seized off the port of Lisbon in August 
[1864], by the Niagara, Captain Craven; and on the 7th of October, the 
'Wachusetts, Captain Collins, captured the Florida in a Brazilian port.' The 



' Thomas had sent Stonemau from his army, and Burbridg-e from Eastern Kentucky, in No- 
remher, to confront Breckinridge in East Tennessee. They drove him out of that region, audi 
captured Abingdon, in Virginia, where they destroyed a largo quantity of Confederate stares. In 
these movements there liad been severe skirmishes. These were continued. The Confe<terate> 
cavalry was commanded l)y General Vauglian, and these were repeatedly attacked by General 
Gillem in that mountain region. Stoneman, who had been followed in his advance on Wytbeville,. 
by Breckinridge, turned upon him at Marion, wlien the latter fled over the mountains into North 
Carohna. East Tennessee was now entirely cleared of Confederate troops. 

General Thomas reported that during his campaign, from September 7, 1864, to January 20^ 
1365. when all was quiet in the region of his command, he had captured, including officers^ 
11,537 prisoners, besides 1,332, who had been exchanged. He had also administered the oath 
of allegiance to 2,207 deserters from the Confederate armies, and captured 72 servioeaMe guns 
and 3,079 small-arms. His total loss during the campaign was about ten thousand men, which 
he estimated to be less than half that of tlie enemy. 

' See page 641, and note 5, same page. 

' See note 4, page 641. 

* At the beginning of 1864 the pirates then on tlie ocean had captured 193 American merchant 
ships, whereof all but 17 were burnt. The value of their cargoes, in the aggregate, was esti- 
mated at 813,445,000. So dangerous became the navigation of the ocean for American vessels, 
that about 1,000 of them were sold to foreign mercliants, chiefly British. 

' This act the Secretary of Stale disavowed in behalf of our government, on the ground of the 
unlawfulness of any unauthorized exercise of force by tliis country withiu a Brazilian harbor. 
At the same time, while making this reparation, he declared that Brazil justly owed reparation 
to the United States for liarboring the pirate. On that point he said that the government main- 
tained that the Florida, "like the Alniama, was a pirate, belonging to no nation or lawful belligerent. 
and, therefore, tlie harboring and supplying of these piratical ships and their crews, in belligerent 
ports, were wrongs and injuries for which Brazil justly owes reparation to the United States, as 
ample as the reparation she now receives from them." 



708 



Tiiii: XATioy. 



[1S64. 




JOHN A. WINSLOW. 



Alabama had already been sent to llie bottom of the soa by tlie JCearsarge, 
Captain Winslow, off the French port of Cherbourg, where the two vessels 

had a combat on Sunday, the 1 9th of 
June. After a mutual cannonade for 
an hour, the Al(i//ama was disabled 
and in a sinking condition, when she 
struck her flag, and in twenty minutes 
went down. The Aluhama had a 
]>ritish tender near, named the fjt^cr- 
hound, which was active in rescuing 
Semmes and his officers, so that they 
might not be captured and become 
prisoners of war." The "common 
]>oople " of the sliip A\-ere rescued by 
the JCearsart/c and a French vessel. 

Soon after the destruction of the Ala- 
bama, measures were taken for further 
tlin;inishing the aid continually given to the Confederates by British \cssels, 
by closing, against the blockade-runners, the ports of MobiU- and Wilmliioloii, 
the only ones now remain- 
ing open lo tlicni. These 
liaving double entrances, 
made it diflicult for block- 
ading squadrons to pre- 
vent the swift, light-draft 
blockade-runners, from 
slipping in with valuable 
<'argoes of supplies, and 
t^lipping out with cargoes 
of cotton.' It was re- 
solved to seal up Blobile 
first, and for that purpose 
Admii'al Farragut appeared [August 5, 1804] off the entrance of Mobile Bay, 
with a fleet of eighteen vessels, four of them iron-clad, while a Land force, sent 
from New Orleans, under Genefkl Gordon Granger, was planted upon Dauphin 




BLOOKADE-RUNNER. 



' Tlie Dei^hmnd was a yacht belonging to one of the British aristocracy, named Lancaster, 
■n-ho w:is in her. and watched with eagerness the liplit lictween liis friend Seninios and 'Winslow. 
It appears dear that he was there by previous arrangement, to alfordthe pirate any needed assist- 
ance in his power, and especially, in the event of disaster, to keep him ont of the hands of 
the victor. Tliis was done. He carried Semme.s and his officers to England. At Sonthanip- 
ton a pnblic dinner was offered to Semmes; and a British admiral (Ansoni headed a list of 
subscribers to a fmid raised for the purpose of purchasing an elegant sivord to present to the 
corsair. 

' Those vessels were generally painted a light gray, so that it was not easy to discern thorn 
■ u a fog, or the light haze that often lay upon the waters around the seaports. They were built 
for speed, with raking smoke-stacks, and were generally more nimble in a chase than their pur- 
suers. A very large number of these vessels were captured, and it is believed that a bainnce- 
Bheot, illustrative of the pecuniary results of the business, in thu aggregate, would show a loss to 
tLe violators of law. 



1864] LINCOLN'S ADMINISTRATION. 709 

Islaiiil for tlie purpose of co-oporatiiig. Early on that day the llect saik'd in 
liotwivu Forts Morgan and Gaines, llie vessels tethered to each other in eou]iles, 
and the Admiral l\imsell" laslied to the rigging at the main-top of his ihig-ship, 
the Hartford, that he might overlook his whole fleet, and not lie thrown down 
by the shocks of battle.' All went safely, in spite of the opened guns of the 
fort, excepting the iron-clad Tevuinseh, which was destroyed by a torpedo.'^ 
'J'liey drove before them three Confederate gun-boats. The forts were passed, 
their fire had become almost ineilectual, and the battle seemed to be over, 
when a Confederate " ram," called the Tennessee, commanded by Buchanan, 
of Merrimac fame,^ came swiftly down the bay, accompanied by the other gun- 
boats, and made a dash at the fleet. A brief but furious naval engagement 
now ensued, which resulted in the capture of the Tennessee, and a complete 
victory for the Nationals.'' 

Farragut now turned his attention to the forts, lie shelled Fort Gaines, on 
Dauphin Island; and on the following day [August 7, 1864] it was surrendered, 
for Granger and his troops were threatening its rear. Tiicn Farragut turned 
upon Fort Morgan, the far stronger work, situated on Molnle Point, on the 
site of Fort Bowyer.' Granger's troops were transferred to that peninsula 
[August 17], and invested the fort, and on tlie 23d, its commander, seeing no 
chance for relief or escape, surrendered it." With the two forts the victors 
received one hundred and four guns, and 1,404 men. By this victory the port 
of Mobile was ert'ectually closed, and the laud operations against the city, 
which occurred some months later, became easier and more speedily etlectual. 
The victories at Mobile and Atlanta,' following close upon each other, with 
minor successes elsewhere, and the noble response given to the call of the 
President a few weeks before [July 18] for three hundred thousand men to 
re-enforce the two great armies in the field, gave assurance that the end of 
the Civil War and the return of peace was nigh. Because of these triumphs, 
and the hop6ful aspect of aft'airs, the President issued a proclamation [Sept. 3, 
1864] in which he requested the people to make a special recognition of divine 
goodness, by offering thanksgivings in their respective places of worship on 
the following Sabbath [Sept. 11]. And on the same day he issued orders for 
salutes of one hundred guns to be fired at several places in the Union.* 

While the National armies were struggling desperately, but almost every- 

• By means of a tube extentUng from his lofty position to the deck, Farragut communicated 
liis orders. Ho exemplified in this act a characteristic remark of his own, that "exposure is one 
of the penalties of rank in the navy." 

' The Tecwniseh was commanded by Captain Craven. Slio was sunk almost instantly, and 
Craven and nearly all of his officers and crew went down in her. Only 17 men out of 130 were 
saved. 

' See page 614. 

' The Union loss in this contest was 335, of whom 1(',5 were killed, including the 113 who 
went down in the Tecumeeh. The Confederates lost nearly 300, chiefly in prisoners. Admiral 
Buchanan was severely wounded. 'With him were captured 190 men. 

' See page 438. 

' These forts were about thirty miles from Mobile. Into Fort Morgan about three thousand 
shells were cast before it surrendered. 

' See page 702. 

' At "n'ashington, New York, Boston. Philadelphia, Pittsburg, Baltimore, Newport (Ken- 
tucky), St. Louis, New Orleans, Mobile Bay, Pensacola, Hilton Head, and New Berne. 



710 THE NATION. [1S64. 

where successfully, during tlu- suiuiiht ami autumn nf 1S04, the people in the 
Free-labor States were violently agitated by a political campaign, the chief 
objective of which, to use a military phrase, was the election of a President of 
the Republic, as Mr. Lincoln's term of office would expire early in the ensuing 
spring. At a "Union" National Convention, held at Baltimore ou the Tth 
of June, a series of ten resolutions were adopted, by which the party there 
represented were pledged to sustain the government in its war against rebel- 
lion, and to uphold its position in regard to slavery. The acts of the President 
touching the prosecution of the war for the life of the l\cpublic, were heartily 
approved, and an amendment of the Constitution, so as to do away with 
slavery forever, was recommended.' Mr. Lincoln was nominated for the Presi- 
dency by a unanimous vote of the delegates, and Andrew Johnson, of Ten- 
nessee, then Military Governor of that State, was nominated for the Vice- 
Presidency.' 

On the 'Until of August, the Opposition, or "Democratic" party held a 
National Convention at Chicago, over which Governor Seymour, of New York, 
jiresided, and who, in his address on taking the chair, took strong ground 
jvgaiiist the war. I?esidos the delegates gathered there, a vast concourse of 
rnembers of the " Knights of the Golden Circle," and other secret associations 
in sympathy with the Confederates, together with Confederate officers from 
Canada, crowded Chicago, and the most inflammatory speeches were made at 
outside meetings.' It is asserted that the gathering of these disloyal men, and 
these inflammatory harangues, were parts of a scheme for making that the occa- 
sion for inaugurating a counter-revolution in the West, the first act to be the 
liberating and arming of 8,000 Confederate prisoners then in Camji "Douglas, 
near Chicago, and at Indianapolis. These schemes were frustrated by the vigi- 
lance and energy of Colonel B. J. Sweet, then in command over Camp Douglas.'' 

' In these resolutions the noble services of the soldiers nud s-iilors were reeopnized ; the 
employment of freednieu in the public service was recommended: the duty of the povernnient to 
give eiin.ll proiootion to iiU its servants was asserted; and the rigid in\iolability of the National 
faith picdiced for the redemption of tlie piiblio debt, was enjoined as a solemn duty. 

' Already there had been a convention at Cleveland [May 31, ISGJ], composed, as tlie call for 
it diroeted, of "the radio.il men of the nation." About 350 delegates were present, and after 
adoptiiie a series of th.irteen resolutions, thoy nominated General Jolm 0. Fremont for President, 
and Jolm Coehraue of New York, for Yiee-President. \Vhen, at n Inter period, it was seen that 
these nominations iniirht make divisions in the Cnion ranks, both candidates withdrew. 

' Mr. Greeley, in his AmcHcan Conjikl. ii. i)i>7. gives specimens of speeches by two clergymcu 
belonging to tlie Peace Faction, at outside meetings in Chicago, One of them, named Cliauueey 
C, Burr, said that Mr. Linooln "had stolen a good many thousand negroes; but for every negro 
he had tints stolen he had stolen ten thousand spoons. It had been said that if the South would 
lay down their arms, they would be received back into the Tnion, The South could not honor- 
ably lay down their arms, for she was lighting for her honor. Two millions of men had been 
sent down to the slaugliter-pens of the South, and the army of Lincoln could not again be fillod, 
either by enlistnients nor conscription " Tlie other clergyman alludeil to, named Henry 01;iy 
Dean, exclaimed : "Such a failure has never been known. Such destruction of human life h.td 
never been seen since the destruction of Seniniclierib by the breath of tlie Almighty. And still the 
monster nsurinr wants more men for his slangliter-pens. . . . Ever since the usurper, traitor, 
and tyrant had oeeupicd the Presidential chair, the Republican {>arty had shouted ' War to the kinlo. 
and the knife to the hilt!' Blood has (lowed in torrents; and yet the thirst of the old monster 
was not quenched." 

' Mr. Cireoley says(.l»ienWin Conflict ii. G'iS, note 191: "Weeks later, withlarger means and a 
bettor organization, the Conspirators hail prepareil for an outbreak on the day of the Presidential 
election ; but Sweet, ftdly apprised of their designs, pounced upon them on the night of Novom- 




t^-t;:!^P 








a L Stephens 



lFi^I£]SA©IDrir ESTTISmEH© SfiOBEILIE IBi^« 



186i.] 



LINCOLN'S ADMINISTRATION. 



711 




e. L. VALLAKDIGHAil. 



In the Convention there prevailed a decidedly anti-war feeling. C. L. Val- 
landigham' had come boldly from his exile iu Canada,' and was the master- 
spirit of that body. He was the most 
active man on the committee appointed 
lo prepare a platform or declaration of 
principles for the coming canvass, 
whereof James Guthrie, of Kentucky, 
was chairman. This was in the form 
of six i-esolutions, the second of which 
declared the war to be a failure, and 
that " humanity, liberty, and the pub- 
lic welfare," demanded its immediate 
cessation. The last resolution tendered 
the " sympathy of the Democratic par- 
ty" for the soldiers in the field, and 
assured them that if that party should 
obtain power, they should " receive all 
the care and protection, regard and 
kindness," which they deserved. 

The Convention then proceeded to nominate General George B. McClellan 
for President, and George H. Pendleton for Vice-President. The latter, next 
to Vallandigham, had been the most bitter opponent of the war, in Congress. 
The former had once been general-in-chief of the armies for crushing the rebel- 
lion. He accepted the nomination, and, with such candidates and such plat- 
forms, the two parties went into the canvass. The voice of the Convention, 
declaring the war a failure, had scarcely died away, when a shout went over 
the land, announcing the victories of Sherman and Farragut, and great gnus 
thundered a joyful accompaniment to anthems of thanksgiving chanted by 
the loyal people. Mr. Lincoln was re-elected by an unprecedented majority, 
McClellan securing the electoral vote of only the two Slave-labor States of 
Delaware and Kentucky, and the State of New Jersey. The offer of sj'mpathy 
and protection to the soldiers in the field, by the Chicago Convention, was 
answered by the votes of those soldiers in overwhelming numbers against the 
nominee of that Convention. They did not regard the war they had so nobly 
waged as " a failure," and they required no " sympathy and protection " from 
Rny political party.* 



ber 6, making prisoners of Colonel G. St. Leger GreufeU, who had been John Morgan's adjutant; 
Colonel Vincent Marmaduke [brother of the Confederate general of that name] ; Captain 
Cantrill, of Blorgan's old command, and several Illinois Secessionists, thus completely crush- 
ing out the conspiracy, just as it was on the point of maugui-ating civil war iu the North." 

'" See page 656. '-^ See note 1, page 667. 

' On account of the secret operations of the Peace Paction, in giving " aid and comfort " to 
•*he enemies of the Republic, those who belonged to it were called, by the Uniouists, Copperheads, 
IB allusion to tlie habit of the venomous American snake of that name, which, luilike its equally 
venomous but more magnanimous fellow-reptile, that gives warning of danger to its intended vic- 
tim, always bites from a hidden place and without any notice. The epithets ,of "Copperhead" 
And " Black Republicau " (the latter in allusion to the desire of the Republican party to give 
•freedom lo She negro slaves), were rife among politicians during a greater portion of the Ciril 



War. 



712 THE NATION. [1864. 

Let us now return to the oon.sitleration ot' uulitary eventg. 

General Sherman ijave his army more tlian a month's rest at Savannah, 
when he began his menioraVile manh northward through the Carolinas. Gen- 
eral Blair was sent, witli tlie Seventeenth Corps, by water to Port Royal, ami 
then to Pocotaligo, to menace Charleston, while the bulk of the army crossed 
the Savannali River, into South Carolina, at different points at about the first 
of February [iSGoj, the extreme lett under General Slocuin, with Kilpatriek's 
cavalry, passing it at Sister' Ferry. These forward movements at widely 
separated points, distracted the Confederates, and ))reventcd their concentrating 
a large force anywhere. Incessant rains had tlooded the whole low country 
by the overflow of rivers, and Wheeler's cavalry, hovering around the National 
advance, had felled trees everywhere in their path. 

Steadily and irresistibly the entire army moved nearly due north in the 
direction of Columbia, the capital of South Carolina, which was surrendered 
to Sherman on the ITth of February. There had been, thus far, no formid- 
able resisting force in front of the Xational army ; and that which opposed it 
in the vicinity of Columbia, being under the command of the incompetent 
Beauregard,' was easily swept away. The flag of the Republic was raised 
over the old State House, and also the unfinished new one. Wade Hampton, 
in command of the Confederate rear-guard, had ordered all the cotton in the 
city to be piled in tlie public streets, and fired, notwithstanding the wind was 
l)lowing a gale. The consequence was that tlie city was set on fiiv, and a 
large portion of that beautiful town was laid in ashes. 

Tlie fall of Columbia was the signal for the Confederates to evacuate 
Charleston, which Sherman's army had now flanked. Hardee fled, and on the 
18th [February, 1865], colored Union troops marched in and took possession 
of the city, which they found in flames, the torch having been applied by the 
Confederates when they left. Then the Xational flag was raised over Fort 
Sumter, where it was first dishonored by the Secessionists,' and on the fourth 
anniversary of the evacuation of that fortress, General Anderson,' with his 
own hand, raised over the fort the identical flag which he had been compelletl 
to jnill down, but not to surrender. 

Sherman moved onward into North Carolina, making a track of almost 
absolute desolation, forty miles in width, across South Carolina. The chief 
obstacles to his march, for some time, were the cavalry of Wheeler and Ilamj)- 
ton, with whom Kilpatrick had some sharp skirmishes. The whole army 
reached Fayetteville, in North Carolina, on the 12th of March, and there 
Slierman communicated with the troops under General Sehofield, on the coast. 
And now Johnston was on his front with a concentrated force drawn from 
the west and the coast region, together with Hardee's from Charleston, and 
cavalry, making an aggregate of not less than 40,000 men, mostly veterans. 

' Beauregard was placed iu command of Hood's shattered army. [See page '01], and he- 
was afterward succeeded by General Joseph E. Johnston, its old commander. At the timo w* 
are consideriniar, the bulk of that army was pressing forward, under General Cheatham, to gaia 
Sherman's front. 

* See page 553. ' Se* pag? 650. 



1S65.] 



LINCOLN'S ADMINISTRATION. 



713 



In view of this formidable obstruction to his northward progress, and the 
necessity for giving rest to his army, Sherman halted at Fayetteville three 
days. 

While Sherman was moving through the interior of South Carolina, there 
had been efficient and important co-operative movements on the coast of North 
Carolina. When it was determined to close up the harbor of Mobile' it was 
also determined to seal up that of Wilmington, the more ditlicult one to 
blockade eifectually. An expedition was fitted out against the fortifications 
that guarded the entrance to it, in the autumn of 1864, composed of a powerful 




LNTERIOR OF FORT FISHER. 



fleet under Admiral 1) D. Porter, and land troops under the immediate 
command of General Godfrey Weitzel. Tliis expedition, accompanied by 
General Butler, the commander of the Department, appeared ofl" Fort Fisher 
late in December [1S64], and made a combined movement against that work,, 
the main fortification, on Christmas day. Tlie fleet opened a terrible bombard- 
ment of the fort ; and at the middle of the afternoon, a little over 2,000 
troojis were landed upon the narrow tongue of land on which the fortress 
stood ; but its many guns, with one exception, having been untouched by the 
shells from the fleet, and being ready to sweep the peninsula with murderous 
eifect, it was thought prudent not to make an attack ; so the troojiS withdrew. 
The fleet remained, and General Grant prom])tly sent another land force, under 
General A. II. Terry, to co-operate with it in an attack on the fort. 

Profiting by the experience of Christmas-day, Porter took a position for 
more effectual work on the fort, and under cover of a fire from the fleet, Terry 
landed, with 8,000 men on the 13th of January. A bombardment of more 
than thirty hours silenced a greater portion of the guns which commanded the 
peninsula, when the army, skillfully handled, and bravely acting in conjunction 
with 2,000 sailors and marines, assaulted and carried the works on the loth. 
There Terry, who was too weak to advance, was joined on the 9th of February 
by General Schofield, who had been called from Tennessee, by Grant, and sent 
down the coast in steamers, from the Potomac. This re-enforcement raised 
the number of the land troops to about 20,000 men. Schofield, the senior 
officer, took command. Throwing a portion of the troops across the Cape 
Fear River, the Nationals advanced on Wilmington, the Confederates abandon- 



See page 709. 



Y14 THE NATION*. [1865. 

iug Fort Anderson, and burning the pirate steamers Tallii/iassee and Chicka- 
matitja,'' lying in the river. They also fled from Wilmington, after burning 
cotton, and naval military stores there ; and on the -'I'd of Fehruary [18G5], the 
victorious Nationals entered that city. Soon after this an army tug and a gun- 
boat went up the Cape Fear, from Wilmington, and opened communication 
between Sherman and Schofield.' 

At the end of three days of rest, Sherman's army advanced from Fayette- 
ville, where they had destroyed the government armory, and the costly 
machinery which had been taken there from Harper's Ferry.' The army 
moved, as before, in a deceptive and distracting way, a portion of the left, 
wing covered by Kilpatrick, marching in the direction of Raleigh, while the 
remainder of the left, with the right wing, moved eastward toward Goldsboro', 
the real destination of the army. Rains had made the roads almost impassable, 
yet the troops moved steadily forward, and on the morning of the 10th [March, 
1865], not far from Averysboro', Confederates under Hardee, about 20,000 
strong, were encountered by Slocum. A severe battle ensued, which lasted until 
night, when the Nationals were victorious. Each ]iarty lost about four hundred 
and fifty men. The Confederates retreated toward Smithfield, under cover of 
darkness, when Slocum moved on toward Goldsboro'. He was soon attacked 
[March 18], near Bentonville, by nearly the whole of Johnston's army. That 
able leader fully expected to crush Slocum, before he could receive support ; 
but he was mistaken. Six desperate assaults made by Johnston were repulsed, 
and when night fell, Slocum held his ground firmly. That night he was 
re-enforced, and the next day Johnston's forty thousand men were confronted 
by sixty thousand Nationals, who, in endeavoring to gain the flank and rear 
of their antagonist, frightened him away. Johnston retreated [March 21] 
rapidly on Raleigh.'' Sherman then moved on to Goldsboro', where he met 
Generals Schofield and Terry, who had fought their way from Wilmington, 
driving the Confederates before them, and entered that town on the 20th of 
]March. Sherman now went in a swift steamer from New Berne to City Point, 
where he held a consultation [March 27] with the President, and Generals 
Grant and Meade, and returned to Goldsboro' three days afterward. 

Let us now turn our attention to the Gulf region again. There we have 
seen Farragut and Granger, preparing the way for the capture of ^Mobile. 
After that, arrangements were made for securing the repossession of all Ala- 
bama. For this purpose General Canby, in command of the Gulf Department, 
moved [March, 1865] over twenty-five thousand troops against Mobile: while 
General Wilson, of Thomas's army, with fifteen thousand men, whereof thirteen 
tliousand were mounted, swept down into Alabama, at about the same time, 
from the Tennessee River, with sixty days' supplies carried by a train of two 
hundred and fifty wagons. Wilson left Eastport, on the Tennessee, late in 
February, and pushed rapidly into Northern Alabama, across the head-waters 
of the Tombigbee River, and by quick movements menaced simultaneously 

' See page 708. ' See page 713. ' See page 557. 

* In the engagement near Bentonville, tlie Nationals lost 1.643 men. of whom 191 were killed 
They burie<l 2G7 of their foes, left on the field, and took 1.625 prisoners. 



1305.J LINCOLX'-S ADMINISTRATION. 715 

Columbus, in Mississippi, and Tuscaloosa, and Selma, in Alabama. He first 
encountered Confederates in force, under Roddy, on the banks of the Cahawba. 
Forrest was in chief command in that region, and strained every nerve to 
cover Selma, on the Alabama River, where the Confederates had an arsenal 
and armory, and very extensive founderles. His efforts were vain. He was 
there with a motley force of about seven thousand horsemen, when Wilson 
arrived [April 2, 1865], with nine thousand cavalry. A sharp conflict ensued, 
but Wilson soon took the city, and the public works of the Confederates there 
were utterly destroyed.' 

Wilson moved toward Montgomery on the 10th, and reached that city, tlie 
capital of Alabama, on the 12th, when he found that the Confederates had 
just burned 125,000 bales of cotton. The city was instantly surrendered, and 
was spared. Then the raiders moved eastward [April 14], destroying rail- 
ways and other public property, all the way to the Chattahoochee ; and near 
Columbus, Georgia, they had a severe fight, captured the place and twelve 
hundred prisoners, and destroyed a large amount of property.* On the same 
day a part of Wilson's force captured Foi-t Tyler, a strong work commanding 
the railway crossing of the Chattahoochee at West Point. On the following 
morning, nearly the whole of his command were across that stream, on their 
way toward Macon, in Georgia, where they arrived on the 21st [March, 1865]. 
The remainder, luider Cuxton, reached there on the 30th, after a destructive 
raid over a route of six hundred and fifty miles, in the space of thirty days. 
This march through Alabama and Georgia, so slightly resisted everywhere, 
made Wilson readily believe the assurance of General Howell Cobb, in com- 
mand at Macon, that the war was virtually ended.' 

^Vliile Wilson was on his triumphant ride, Canby was busy in the reduc- 
tion of Mobile. The Seventeenth Corps reached Dauphin Island on the 1 2th 
of March, when Canby moved his entire disposable force against the Confed- 
erate defenses of that city. Tlie Thirteenth Corps, General Granger, moved 
up from Mobile Point, to strike the post from the east, and General Steele, 
moved from Pensacola, with a division of colored troops, on Blakely. At the 

' Wilson's loss in the encounter, was about 500 men. He captured 32 guns, and 2,700 
prisoners, witli vast stores of every kind. The Confederates liad just burned 25,000 bales of 
cotton, and "Wilson burned 10,000 more. The arsenal, foundries, aud workshops of every kind 
were destroyed, and the town was sacked. Wlieu the writer was there a year later the place 
presented a scene of great desolation. 

' The Confederate "ram" Jackson was destroyed; 15 locomotives, 250 cars, 115.000 bales of 
ootton, were burnt, and a vast amount of stores were consigned to destruction. AATth the 
prisoners were captured 52 field guns. Wilson's loss was only 24 killed and wounded. 

" There had been some important raids in Mississippi tliree or four months earlier than this, 
designed, chiefly, to attract attention from General Sherman's march tlirougli Georgia. One of 
these, under General Dana, went out from Vicksburg, to Jackson, fought a Confederate force on 
the Big Black River, and destroyed the railway [November 25, 1864], and a great deal of other 
property. Another, vmder General Davidson, went out from Baton Rouge, doing similar work, 
aud alarming the garrison at Mobile. Another, led by General Grierson, went out from Memphis, 
[Dec. 21], and sweeping southeasterly through Northern Alabama to Tupelo, broke up the 
Mobile and Ohio railway some distance southward from Okolona, aud destroyed a large quantity 
of stores. At the little radwaj- station of Egypt he had a sharp fight, in which he routed his 
foes, and then went raiding through Mississippi. The expedition finally made its way to Vicks- 
burg with 500 prisoners, SOO beeves, and 1,000 negroes. A great amount of property had been 
destroyed. 



71(5 THE NATION. [ISCSs. 

same time a brigade was transported to Cedar Point, on tlie west side of the 
bay, under a heavy fire of shells from the National iron-clad vessels. After a 
preliminary struggle, a siege was begun [March 25] in front of Blakely and 
Spanish Fort, the chief defenses of Mobile, in which the land troops and the 
fleet co-operated. These posts fell on the Otli of April. General jMaury, in 
command at Mobile, now saw that the works immediately around the city 
were no longer tenable, and on the 10th and 11th, he fled up the Alabama, 
with nine thousand troops, leaving five thousand prisoners in the hands of 
the victors, with one hundred and fifty guns. The victory had cost the 
Nationals about twenty-five hundred men.' 

General Grant's chief business throughout the winter of 1S64-G5, was to 
hold the Confederate army and "Government" in Virginia, and prevent the 
former joining forces with Johnston in North Carolina, to crush Sherman. 
So, while Sherman was making his way from the Savannah, around to the Cape 
Fear and the Xeuse rivers. Grant was holding Lee and his fifty thousand 
men, with a tight grasp, ui)on the James River. The Confederates well knew 
the reason of Grant's comparatively defensive attitude during the winter 
months, but were powerless either to strike him a damaging blow, or to comj)el 
him to be an aggressor. Only twice, during the winter, did he show a. 
disposition to attack. Early in December Warren was sent out [Dec. 7, 1S64] 
by Meade to destroy the Weldon road near the North Carolina line, which the 
Confederates were using to advantage ; and again in February two corps, with 
cavalry, were sent [Feb. 5, 1865] across that road, to Dinwiddle Court-House, 
apparently for the purpose of feeling the strength of the Confederates in that 
direction, which resulted in a severe action, with a loss of about 2,000 men on 
the part of the Unionists, and 1,000 by the Confederates. The National gain 
was the extension of their line, permanently, to Hatcher's l\un. In the mean 
time, the Confederates, ]ierceiving the withdrawal of a large part of the naval 
force on the James River, for service against Fort Fisher,^ sent a squadron' 
down that stream, under cover of darkness [January 23, 1865], to do what mis- 
chief tliey might. They gained nothing, and lost one of their wooden gun-boats. 

The Confederate horsemen, under JMosby, Rosser, McNeil, and others, were 
somewhat active in "West Vii-ginia, and in the vicinity of the Baltimore and 
Ohio railway, during the winter. Sheridan was then at "Winchester, in the 
Shenandoah Valley. He easily brushed away these annoyances on his flank, 
and at the close of February, he left head-quarters with 10,000 mounted men 
for a grand raid, ordered by Grant, on Lee's communications generally, and 
against Lynchburg, his great store-house of supplies, especially. Sheridan 
swept through Staunton [March 2], scattered Early's forces at "Waynesboro',* 
and proceeded to Charlottsville, destroying the railroad on the way. There 

' Before he evacuated the city, Maury sunk two powerful rams which liad been built there. 
In addition to the loss of men, the Nationals had four gim-boats, aud one transport sunk by 
torpedoes. ' See page 7 1 3. 

' The squadron consisted of three iron-ckd, and live wooden gun-boats, and lliree torpedo 
boats. 

' Early had 2,500 men. Sheridan captured 1,600 of them, with 11 guns, 17 battle-flags, and 
200 loaded wagons. 



1865.J 



LINCOLN'S ADMINISTRATION. 



717 



he demolished manufactories, bridges, and other property, when, satisfied that 
Lynchburg was too strong for him, he divided his forces, one coUimn for the 
•destruction of the railway in the direction of Lynchburg, and the other for the 
demolition of the James River Canal. Then he passed around Lee's left to 
"White House, and joined the Army of the Potomac on the 27th of March. 

Sheridan's raid was most destructive, and it thorouglily alarmed Lee, who 
clearly perceived that he must break through the armies encircling liim, and 
form a junction with Johnston, or his own army, and -vdth it the Confederacy, 
must perish. For that purpose he concentrated his forces near Grant's center, in 
front of Petersburg, and 
made a desperate attack 
•on Fort Steadman, for the 
2)urpose of cutting in two 
the Army of the Potomac. 
They carried that work, 
but were no further suc- 
cessful, and the assault 
was not only repulsed, 
with heavy loss to the 
Confederates,' but it re- 
sulted m the gain to the 
Nationals of a portion of 
their antagonists' line. 
Lee's chance for escape 
into North Carolina was 
made more remote, by this movement. Grant had now prepared for a gen- 
eral advance by his left, and for that purpose, large bodies of troops were 
•called from the Army of the James on tlie north side of the river. The grand 
movement was begun on the 29th [March, 1805], when Sheridan, with 10,000 
cavalry, was on the extreme left of the Union army, joined on his right 
by the Second and Fifth Corps, under Humphreys and Warren, while General 
Parke held the extended lines. Lee perceived the imminent peril of his army, 
and hastened to attempt to avert it. Leaving Longstreet with 8,000 troops to 
hold Richmond against the depleted Army of the James, he massed his forces 
on his endangered right. A desperate struggle ensued, chiefly by Warren, on 
the Union side, in which, at one time, Lee was almost victorious. Meanwhile 
Sheridan was vigorously co-operating, but was driven at Five Forks, to Din- 
widdle Court-House [April 1, 186.5], where ho held his position until his foe 
withdrew under cover of night. The heavy fighting in that vicinity resulted 
in final success for the Nationals. 

On the evening of the first of April, Grant ordered the guns all along the 
front of Petersburg to open upon the Confederate works and the city. It was 
done, and an awful night it was for the Confederate troops in the trenches, and 
the few inhabitants in the town. At dawn [April 2, 1865], the works were 




INTERIOK OF FOET STEADMAN. 



Each army lost about 2,500 men in the struggle. 



718 



THB NATION. 



[18GS. 



assailed by infimtry, ami some of them were carried. Equal success was 
attending similar ertbrts on the extreme left. Longstreet had come down 
from Richmond to helj), but it was too late. Lee held Petersburg, ])ut his 
right was too much crushed to hope to retrieve disasters in that direction, 
lie had lost 10,000 men; and he now saw but a narrow door through whicii 
there was any possibility for his army to escape into North Carolina, and that 
was liable to bo shut any moment. So he telegrai)hed to Davis, at liichmond, 
in substance: "My lines are broken in three places; we can hold Petersburg 
no longer; Richmond must be evacuated this evening."' 

A scene of wildest confusion appeared in the Confederate Capital th.it 
afternoon, when it became known that the city was to be evacuated by the 
troops. Cousteniiition fdled the minds and hearts of all friends of the "gov- 
ernment," and hundreds fled from tlio doomed town. Davis and his " Cabinet " 
were speedily on the wing to secure their personal salety ; and, at midnin;ht, a 
lurid glare shot up from the bririk of the river. The Confederate authorities, 
in disiegard of the danger to the city, had ordered the burning of warehouse* 
containing military stores. These were then in flames; and before sunrise a 
greater portion of the jmncipal business part of Richmond was a crumblino-, 
smoking ruin. At an early hour, General Weitzel (who was in command 
of the troops on the north side of the river), with his stafi", entered the aban- 
doned and burning city, followed by colored troops; and then Lieutenant J. L. 
De Peyster, of Weitzel's military family, raised the flag of the Republic over 
the State Capitol. General G. F. Shepley was appointed Military Governor 
of Richmond, and Lieutenant-Colonel Manning was made Provost-Marshal." 

Davis and his "Cabinet" — his more immediate associates in the Rebel- 
lion — fled to Danville, whither Lee hoped to follow with his army. But 

-^ ^.-isistf ig^&f .;j^ = loyal men, with trusty 

P" " arms, stood in his way. 

Petersburg liad also been 
evacuated, and the Army 
of Northern Virginia, re- 
duced to about 35,000 
men, was concentrated 
at Chestei-field. They 
moved rapidly westward, 
but were confronted by 
Sheridan not far from 
Amelia Court - House. 
There were active move- 
ments and considerable 
fiffhtinij for three or four 




THE CAPITOL AT RIOHMOMD. 



' This w.ns on Sunday forenoon, April 2, 1S65. The message found Civis in the house of 
worship ho was in the habit of atlending. He left the church immediately, without saying a 
word to any one, but nobody misinterpreted his exit. 

■' Weitzel took 1,000 prisoners in the city, besides 6,000 sick and wounded, in the hospital. 
Also 500 guns, full 5,000 small-arms, 30 locomotives, 300 cars, and a large amount of other pub- 
lic property. 



1365.] 



LINCOLN'S ADMINISTRATION. 



719 



days afterward, while Lee was making desperate efforts to escape. Finally, 
near Appomattox Court-House, the last charge of the Army of Northern Vir- 
o-inia, with the hope of breaking through the National lines, was made on the 
morning of the 9th of April. It was unsuccessful ; and on that day, Grant 




<ju*" - •-■>»s?^e.,>i4lipi((pj*i^s^5=^^^ 



m'lean's house. 

and Lee met at the house of W. McLean,' near the Court-House, where terms of 
surrender on the part of Lee, were agreed upon. These terms were very 

generous.' 

' It is a curious fact that Mr. McLean, whose residence at the beginning of the war was on a 
portion of the battle-field of Bull's Run, and had left that region for another that promised more 
quiet, was again disturbed by the clash of arms at the close of the war. 

" The Confederate army, oflicers and men, were paroled on the condition that they were not 
to take up arms against their government until properly exchanged. ''The arms, artillery, and 
public property," ran Grant's letter to Lee [.April 9. 1805], "to be parked and stacked, and turned 
over to the officers appointed by me to receive them. This will not embrace the side-arms of the 
officers, nor their private horses or baggage. This done, each officer and man will be allowed to 
return to his home, not to be disturbed by United States authority so long as they observe their 
paroles and the laws in force where they may reside." 

This generous offer of full amnesty for Lee and his companions-in-arms, who had been 
waging war for four years again.st their government, was gladly accepted by them ; and on the 
following day [April 10, 1805] Lee, profiting by that generosity, and under the shield of that 
sacred promise, issued an address to his troops, commendatory of their devotion to the cause of 
the Coufederaoy in the following words : — 

" After four years of arduous service, marked by unsurpassed courage and fortitude, the Army 
of Northern Virginia has been compelled to yield to overwhelming numbers and resources. I 
need not tell the brave survivors of so many hard-fought battles, who have remained steadfast to 
the last, that I have consented to this result from no distrust of them; but feeling that valor and 
devotion could accomplish nothing that would compensate for the loss that must have attended a 
continuance of the contest, I determined to avoid the useless sacrifice of those whoso past ser- 
vices have endeared them to their countrymen. By the terms of agreement, officers and men can 
return to their homes and remain until exchanged. You will take with you the satisfaction that 
proceeds from the consciousness of duty faithfuUy performed, and I earnestly pray that a merci- 
ful God will extend to you his blessing and protection. With an increasing admiration of your 
constancy and devotion to your country, and a grateful remembrance of your kind and generous 
consideration for myself, I bid you all an affectionate farewell." 



720 "^^^^ NATION. [1S65. 

President Lincoln liad been at City Point several days previous to tbe 
evacuation of Kiclimoiid, and two days after that event [A]ivil 4] he was con- 
veyed to that city in a gun-boat, and with Admiral Porter and a small escort 
■went to the head-quarters of General "Weitzel, in the house lately occupied by 
Jefferson Davis, where he received a large number of army officers and 
citizens. He afterward rode around the city in an open carriage, and then 
returned to City Point. This visit was repeated two days afterward [April 5,] 
■when Mr. Lincoln returned to "Washington City, full of joy because of the 
]irospect of a speedy return of peace. There was gladness throughout 
the Uepublio ; and the sounds of rejoicing were swelling louder and louder 
everywhere, when they were suddenly hushed into silence by the awful 
tidings that the hand of an assassin had taken the life of the good President. 
"While Mr. Lincoln was seated, with his wife, in a private bo.t in a theater 
at Washington City, on the evening of the 14tli of April, a man named John 
Wilkes Booth crept stealthily behind him, and shot him through the head with 
s, pistol-ball. Then leaping upon the stage with the cry of " Sic semj)er 
tijninnis " — the legend of "S^irginia's State seal — Booth turned to the audience, 
brandishing a dagger, and exclaimed, " The South is avenged!" and imme- 
diately fled out of the theater l)y a back passage. The murderer was soon 
afterward mortally wounded in an attempt to capture him ; and several of 
his confederates, one of whom attempted to assassinate the Secretary oi 
State, the same evening, Aveve arrested, tried by a military commission, and 
hung.' 

Mr. Lincoln expired on the morning of the 15th of April, and less than sis 
hours afterward, his constitutional successor, Andrew Johnson, the Vice-Presi- 
dent, took the oath of office as President of the Republic.- Thoughtful people. 



' There appears t-j liave been a conspiracy for assassinating not only the President, but other 
members of tlie Executive Department of the povernmont ; also General Grant and distinguished 
leader.s of the Republican party. The object seems to ha%-e been to put out of the way men in 
high places opposed to the Confederation who, on the death of the President, might administer 
the government, hoping thereby to produce anarchy which in some way might lead to the ac- 
cession to power of the leaders'of the rebellion. By a strange oversight in the managers of 
the scheme, the Vice-President, who would legally succeed the mui-dered President, seems to 
have been omitted in their list of victims, thei-e being no evidence that any attempt was made 
to take his life. He immediately assumed tlie reins of government without any distm-bance 
of its functions ; and on the 2d of May he issued a pnx-lamiition which was countersigned 
by William Hunter, "acting Secretary of State," charging that the crime of Booth and his 
associates had been " incited, concerted, and procured, between Jellerson Uavis, late of Kich- 
moiiil, Va., and .lacob Thompson, Clement C. Clay, Beverly Tucker. George N. Sanders, W. 
C. Cleary, and other rebels and traitors against the government of tlie Cnited States, har- 
bored in Canada." He offered a reward of §100,000 for the arrest of Davis, and from 
$10,000 to lt;2o,()00 each for the arrest of the other persons named. 

'•' Mr. Johnson rcqucstdii .Mr. Lincoln's Cabinet ministers (see note 2, page 551) to remain, and 
they did so. At that time they consisted of William II. Seward, Secretary of State ; Hugh 
McCuUough, Secretary of the Treasury ; Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of War ; Gideon Welles, 
Secretary of the Navy; Jolin P. Usher, Secretary of the Interior; James Speed, Attorney- 
General; and WiUiam "Dennison, Postmaster-General. Mr. Chase, the former Secretary of the 
Treasury, had been elevated to the seat of Chief-Justico of the TTnited States, on the death of 
J\idp-e Taney. Mr. Stanton had succeeded Mr. Cameron in the War Department, early in 1SC2; 
and President Lincoln, satisfied that the pubhc good required the removal of Montgomery Blair, 
the Postmaster-General, bad asked him to resign. The request was granted, and Mr. Deuni.son 
was put in his place. Caleb Smith had died, and Mr. Usher had taken Ids place. 



ISG5.] 



JOHNSON'S ADMINISTRATION. 



721 




who I'egarded jirivate virtue as the Lasis of public integrity, and who sadly re- 
membered the conduct of the Vice-President at his inauguration only a few weeks 
before, which shocked the moral sense of 
right-minded citizens, were filled with 
gloomy forebodings concerning the fu- 
ture of the Republic, for the most pro- 
found wisdom and exalted virtue in the 
Chief Magistrate were needed at that 
critical time. But the new incumbent 
of the chair of Washington made the 
most satisfactory promises with so much 
aj.iparent sincerity, that the people 
trusted him. How that confidence was 
requited, the history of his administra- 
tion reveals.' 

On the surrender of Lee, the Con- 
federacy fell, and the war was speedily 
ended. Sherman, immediately on hear- 
ing the glad news, moved from Golds- 
boro' against Johnston. Stoneman, meanwhile, had been making a successful 
raid in the rear of Johnston, and in aid of Sherman. He proceeded from 
Knoxville, in East Tennessee, late in March, to destroy the railway in the 
direction of Lynchburg, from Wytheville. There he turned southward, and 
swept down into North Carolina, where he struck and cTestroyed the railway 
between Danville and Greensboro', and then pushed on toward Salisbury, 
where a large number of LTnion prisoners had been confined. He was met ten 
miles from that town by a Confederate force, which he routed, capturing all 
their guns (14) and 1,364 prisoners. In Salisbury he destroyed a vast amount 
of public property. Sherman ordered him to remain ojjerating in Johnston's 
rear, in aid of his own movement against the Confederate front, but Stoneman 
refused to do so, and returned to East Tennessee. 

On the 10th of April, Sherman moved upon Johnston at Smithfield. The 
latter burned the bridge over the Xeuse, and retreated on Raleigh, destroying 
the railway behind him. Sherman followed him sharjily. The pursued and 
pursuers pushed on, in heavy rains, in the direction of Hillsboro', where the 
chase was ended by a note from Johnston to Sherman [April 14], inquiring 
whether the latter was willing, for the purpose of stopping the further efiusion 
of blood, to agree to a temporary suspension of hostilities until General Grant 



' Andrew Johnson was born in Raleigh, North Carolina, on the 29th of December, 1S07. He 
was taught the business of a tailor at an early age. During his apprenticeship he learned to 
read, but was not al:ile to write or cipher until, at the age of twenty years, he was taught by his 
young wife, when he was settled in GreeuTille, in East Tennessee, in the business of garment- 
maKing. He became an Alderman of that village, and was Mayor for three years. He was 
chosen a member of the Tennessee Legislature, and was a Presidential elector in 1810. In 1843 
he was elected to Congress, and in 1853, was chosen Governor of Tennessee. In 1857 he was 
elected a National Senator. In 1863 he was appointed Military Governor of Tennessee, and in 
the autumn of 1864, was chosen to be Vice-President of the United States. He arose to the 
Presidency on the death of Mr. Lincoln. His career in that office is noticed in the text. 

46 



Y22 



THE NATION. 



[1865. 



should be asked to take action in regard to the other armies, similar to that 
had in the case of general Lee's. Slierman jironiptly coini)lied with Johnston's 
wislies, and met that general at Durham Station on tlie ITlli. On the follow- 
ing day an agreement was signed by the two generals, whicli would, in effect^ 
instantly restore to all ])ersons who had been engaged in the rebellion evi'r\- 
right and jirivilege, political and social, tliey had enjoyed before they rebelleil, 
without any liability to punishment. It proposed an utter forgetfulness, prac- 
tically, of the events of the war, and made it a hideous farce with the features 
of a dreadfid tragedy. The goveriuuent, of course, rejected it, and sent Grant 
to Sherman to direct an immediate resumption of liostilities. This was fol- 
lowed by the surrender of Johnston's army to Sherman, on the 26th, on the 
generous terms accorded to Lee. The surrender of other bodies of troops 
speedily followed, and early iu May the armed Rebellion was ended.' 

Expecting Lee and his army at Danville, the fugitive " President of the 
Confederacy " attempted to set up a government there, but when he heard of 
the surrender of Lee and his army, he and his "cabinet," lied in the direction 
of Mississippi. Difficulties lay in their way, and they turned southward witli 
a daily dhuinishing cavalry escort. The " government " soon dissolved, eacl» 
member seeking safety as best he might. Davis, acconij)anied by his family, 
and by Reagan, his "Postmaster-General," pushed on toward the Gulf of 

Mexico, over whose waters he hoped to 
escape from the country. His flight h;id 
been made known to the vigilant Wilson, 
at Macon," who sent out cavalry forces in 
quest of him. Lieutenant Pritchard, of the 
Fourth Michigan, leading one of these de- 
tachments, found the fugitive encamped 
near Irwinsville, the capital of Irwin County, 
in Georgia, anil captured him on the 11th 
of Slay.' Pritchard conveyed Davis and 
his party, to Macon, whence the fallen 
chief was sent to Fortress Monroe.* Tliei'e 
he was confined in one of the casemates — 
a most comfortable prison — and treated 
DAvis's PRISON, PORTRESS MONEOE. ^yitji niarkcd kindness during a long cap- 
tivity, when he was adnntled to bail, cliarged with the crime of Treason. 

The armies of the Kepublic, whose fortitude, valor, and skill had saved 

' E. Kirby Smith, commanding in Texas, was disposed to longer resistance. On hearing of 
the surrender of Lee, he issued an address to lii.s troops, urging them to a continuance of tlie 
struggle in that region. Tho last figlit of the Civil War occurred not far from Brazos Santiago, in 
Texiis, on the 13th of May. Soon after that, Smith and others were fugitives in Mexico. 

" See page 718. 

' Davis was found in a disguise, composed of a wrapper, and a woman's shawl thrown over 
his head, aud was making his way, with a bucket, toward a spriug where his horses and arms 
were. In this disguise, and seeming avocation, ho appeared like a woman, but it did not save 
liim. 

* Alexander II. Stephens, the " Vice-President of the Confederacy " (who was arrested at 
about this time, at his home in Crawfordsvillc). and " Postmast4?r-General " Reagan, were sent to 
I'ort Warren, in Boston Harbor. They were released iu tho autumn. 




1865.] JOHNSON'S ADMINISTRATION. 703 

its life, and achieved the freedom of an eiishived race, were now seen making 
ihe'ir way homeward, everywhere received with tlie warmest demonstrations 
of atfection. The military prisons were opened, and tlie captive Confederate 
ioldiers were set free and kindly sent to their homes at the expense of the 
government.' On the 2d of June General Grant issued a stirring farewell 
iddress to the "Soldiers of the Armies of the United States;"^ and by mid 
iiitumn [1865], the wonderful spectacle was exhibited of vast armies of soldiers, 
surrounded by all the paraphernalia of War, transformed, in the space of one 
hundred and fifty days into a vast army of citizens, engaged in the blessed 
pursuits of Peace.' No argument in favor of free institutions, and a repub- 

' Tlio miiiiber of Coufederate prisoners released, after tlie dose of hostilities, was G3,-142. 
The number surrendered and paroled in the several Coufederate armies, was 174,223. It is a 
fact, susceptible of the clearest proof, that the treatment of Confederate prisoners, as a rule, was 
humane, and even generous, while the treatment of Union prisoners was exactly tlie reverse. 
Tlie sufferings of captives at Richmond, Salisbury in Nortli Carolina, Danville in Virginia, and 
especially at Audersonville, in Georgia, were awful, and without excuse. It is a proven tact 
that General Winder, placed in charge of the Aiidersonville prisoners, inaugurated a system 
of treatment whicli surely tended to the absolute destruction or permanent disablement of 
the captives in his hands. It is plainly evident that 11 eystem of treatment intended, if not 
actually to nuu'der, surely to permanently disable the Union prisoners of war, by unwhole- 
some and iusuffloient diet, was inaugurated and carried out. The records of Anderson- 
ville show tliis. Tliere the prisoners were actually tortured, and starved to death, in the 
midst of plenty, as the march of Sherman through that State in the autumn of 18G4, developed. 
See note 9, page 703. It may be well to note, in this connection, the fact, sliown by tlie 
records of the War Department, thjit 330,000 Confederate soldiers were captured during the 
war, of whom 26,43(5 died of wounds or diseases during theii' captivity, while of 126,940 
Union soldiers captured, nearly 23,000 died while prisoners. It i* estimated that Iho whole 
number of Union captives was about 196,000, of wTiom 41,000 died while prisoners. 

' ThofoUowing is a copy of General Grant's address: " Soldiers of the Armies of the United 
States: By your patriotic devotion to your country in the hour of danger and alarm, your 
magnificent fighting, bravery and endurance, you have maintained the supremacy of the Union, 
and the Constitution, overthrown all armed opposition to the enforcement of the laws, and of 
the proclamation for ever abohshing slavery — the cause and pretext of the Rebellion — and opened 
the way to the riglitful authorities to restore order, and inaugurate peace on a permanent and 
endnring basis on every foot of American Isoil. Tour marches, sieges, and battles, in distance, 
duration, resolution, and brilliancy of results, dims the luster of the world's past military achieve- 
ments, and will be the patriot's precedent in defense of liberty and right, in all time to come. 
In obedience to your couutry's call, you left your homes and families, and volunteered in her 
defense. Victory has crowned yonr valor, and secured the purpose of your patriotic hearts ; 
and, with the gratitude of your couutrymen, and the higliest lienors a great and free nation can 
accord, you will soon be permitted to rfturn to your homes and families, conscious of having 
discharged the highest duty of American citizens. To achieve these glorious triumphs, and 
secure to yourselves, your fellow-countrymen, and posterity, the blessings of free institutions, 
tens of thousands 'of your gallant comrades have fallen, and sealed tlie priceless legacy with their 
blood. The graves of these, a grateful nation bedews with tears, honors their memories, and will 
ever cherish and support their stricken families." 

^ The records of the War Department show that, on tlie first of March, 1865, the muster-rolla 
of the army exhibited an aggregrate force of 965,591 men; of whom, 602,593 were present for 
duty, and 132,533 were ou detached service. By the middle of October following, 785,205 were 
mustered out of the service. 

The whole number of men called into the service during the war, was 2,628,523. Of these, 



724 THE NATION. [1865. 

licuii form of government, so conclusive and potential as this, was ever before 
jiroscnted to the feelings and judgment of the nations of the earth. The great 
jiolitioal problem of tlie nineteenth century, was solved by the Civil Wnr. Our 
Republic no longer appeared as an c.i'j)criinent but as a (IcmoiiMration. 

After tlie terrible convulsion of the Civil War — the paralysis of State 
governments, and the entire disruption of the industrial and social system of 
a large jiortion of the Keimblic — came the business of rcorganizatioti, not of 
rcconMntction, for no institution worthy of preservation had liecn destroved. 
No State, as a component yAvi of the Republic, liad been annihilated. Those 
in which rebellion liad existed were simply in a condition of suspended 
animation. Tlioy were all equal, living members of the Commonwealth, 
inc.qiai-itated by deranixements for healthful functional action, and awaiting 
resnsritntion at the hands of the only healer, the National Government. To 
that i-esuscitation — tliat i-eorganization, and fitting for active life, the govern- 
ment was now called u])on to employ its powers. 

A preliminary step towai'd reorganization was taken by the President on 
the 29th of April, ISOo, when he ]irocIainied tlie lemoval of restrictions on 
commercial intercourse with the inhabitants of States in wliich rebellion had 
existed. A month later [May 29], he issued a proclamutiou, stating the terms 
by which the people of the paralyzed States, with rpecined exceptions, might 
receive full amnesty and jiardon, and be reinvested with the right to exercise 
the functions of citizenship. This was followed by the appointment by the 
President of provincial governors for seven of those States,' clothed with 
autiiorlty to assemble citizens in convention, who had taken the amnesty oath, 
with power to reorganize State governments, and secure the election of rejire- 
sentatives in the National Congress. The plan was to restore to the States 
named, their former position in theUnion without any provision for securing to 
the free<lman the right to the exercise of citizenshiji, which tlie amendment to 
the National Constitution, then before the State Legislatures, would justly 
entitle them to.' The reorganized State governments were bound only to 
respect their freedom. 

about 1, -100,1100 were in actual service. Of tliis nuiiilier, nearly 60,000 were killed on the lield, 
fliiii alioiit 3.i,000 wore mortallv wonuded. Disease iu cainps and hospitals slew 1S4,000. It is 
estimated that 300,000 Union soldiers perished diiriusr the war. Full that number of the Couft!d- 
erate soldiers perished: and the aggregate number of men. iuchuiiug both armies, who were 
crippled, or permanently disaliled by disease, was estimated at 400 00(i Tlie actual loss to tlie 
country, of able-bodied men. in eonsequcnce of the Rebellion, was fully l.OOti.UOO. 

' These were North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and 
Texas. 

' On the 3 1st of January, 18C5, tlio House of Representatives passed a joint resolution, already 
adopted by the Senate at a previous session, for an amendment to the National Constitution, iu 
the following words : — 

'■ Section' 1. Neither slavery nor involuut,ary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, 
whereof the party shaR have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any 
place subject to their jurisdiction. 

"Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation." 

This amendment was adopted by a vote of 1 1 9 yeas, against 66 n.ays. Eight members did 
not vote. Senator Wilson, one of the most earnest and able of the public men of the country, 
in labors for this consummation, says, in his Anti Slava-y Measures in Comjress, page 393, that 
when the Siieakor announced that the required two-thirds m.ajority had voted in favor of the 
joint resolution, the House and the spectators gave expression to their satisfaction by an outburst 
of applause. " The Republican members," he says, " instantly sprang to their feet, and applauded 



18G5.1 JOHNSON'S AD.MINISTRATION. 



725 



This total disregard of the higliest interests of the freedmen, ami the fact 
that the President was making haste to j^ardon a large number of those who 
had been active in the rebellion, and would exercise a controlling influenee in 
the States which he was equally in haste to reorganize on his plan, startUd 
tlie loyal men of the country, and made them doubt the sincerity of his 
vehement declarations of intention to punish traitors and to make treason 
odious.' They felt that Justice, not Exijediency, should be the rule in the 
readjustment of tlie affairs of the Republic ; and it was demanded, as an act of 
Xatioual honor, that the freodman, when made a citizen by the Constitution, 
shoulil have equal civil ami political rights and privileges with other citizens, 
such as the elective franchise. 

It soon became evident that the President was willing to take issue, upon 
vital points of principle and policy, with the party which had carried the 
country triumjihantly through the great Civil War, and had given him the 
second oflice in the Republic' And, at the close of the year, it was plain to 
sagacious observers tliat the Chief 3Iagistrate was moi'e friendly to the late 
enemies of his country than consistency with his profession, or the safety of 
the Republic, would allow. As a consequence of that friendliness, it was per- 
ceived that the j)oliticians who had worked in the interest of tlio rebellion, and 
newspapers which had advocated the cause of the Confederates, had assumed a 
belligerent tone toward Congress and the loyal people, -which disturbed the 
latter by unjjleasant forebodings. ^Meanwhile measures for perfecting peaceful 
relations throughout the Republic had been taken. The order for a blockade 
of the Southern ports was rescinded [June 23, 1865]; more of the restrictions. 

with clieers aud clapping- of hauJs. The spectators ia the crowded galleries waved their hats, 
and made the chambers ring with enthusiastic plaudits. Hundreds of ladies, gracing the galleries 
with their presence, rose in their seats, and, by waving their handkerchiefs, and participating in 
the general dcnioustration of enthusiasm, added to the intense excitement and interest of a scene 
that will long bo remembered by those who were fortiniate enough to witness it." 

Wlion this crowning act of Emancipation was accomplished. Mr. Ingersoll of Illinois, said : 
"In lienor of this immortal and sublime event, I move that the House adjourn." The motion 
was carried liy 121 to ii. On tlie following day, it was resolved to send the Act to tlie State 
legislatures for ratilioatiou; and on tlie ISth day of December following, the Secretary of State, by- 
proclamation, certitied that three-fourtlis of tlie legislatures had ratified it. 

' The fiery zeal with wliieh the new President denounced treason and traitors, made moderate 
men fear that he would deal too harshly with them. To a delegation from New Hampsliire, w-ho 
waited upon him soon after his inauguration, lie said: " Treason is a crime, and must be punished 
as a crime. It must not be regarded as a mere difference of political opinion. It must not be 
excused as an nnsneoessful rebellion, to be overlooked and be forgiven. It is a crime before which 
all other crimes sink into insig-nirtcance." Similar, and even severer language toward those who 
had lately tried to destroy the Republic, was used hy him at tliat time. 

'' So early as August, or about four months after liis accession to the Presidency, Mr. Johnson 
manifested ar. unfriendly feeling toward the most earnest men of the Republicjin party, and who 
had l)een most zealous supporters of the government during tho war. In a tclegrapliie dispatch 
to Mr. Sharkey, whom he had appointed provisional governor of Mississippi, he recommended 
[August 15, ISfiS] tho extension of the elective franchise to all persons of color in that State, who 
could read the National Constitution or possessed property valued at S'.iJO. This would all'eet but 
very few people of that class, who, in that Slate, were kept enslaved and poor Viy the laws. His 
sole motive for the recommendation, as appears in the dispatch, w^as expressed in tliese words : 
" Do this, and, as a consequence, tho radicals, who are wild upon negro franchise, will be com- 
pletely foiled in their attempt to keep the Southern States from renewing their relations to tho 
Union." More than a year before, Mr. Lincoln had suggested similar action to tho Governor of 
Louisiana, but with a different motive. " They would probably help," he said, almost prophet!- 
eally, "in some trying time to come, to keep tha jeiod of Liberty ia the family of Freedom.'" — Letter to 
Michael Hahn, March 13, 1864. 



726 "r'""^ NATION. [1865. 

on internal commerce were removed [August 29] ; State ])risoners were paroled 
[October 12]; and the act suspending the privilege of the writ o? Habeas 
Corpus was annulled [December 1]. 

The provisional governors appointed by the President were diligent in 
carrying out his policy of reorganization, and before Congress met, in Decem- 
ber, conventions in five of the disorganized States had ratified the Amendment 
of the Constitution concerning slavery ; fonned new constitutions for their 
respective States, and caused the election of rcjircscntatives in Congress. The 
President had hurried on the work by directing the provisional governors of 
the five States to resign their power into the hands of others elected under the 
ncM' constitutions. Some of these had been active partici]iants in the rebellion, 
and some of the Congressmen elect, in those States, had l)een hard workers, it 
was said, in the service of the enemies of the Republic. The loyal people 
were filled witli anxiety because of these events, and the assumptions of powers 
by the President in doing that which, as prescribed by the Constitution, 
belongs exclusively to the representatives of the people to do. Yet they 
waited, with the quieting knowledge that Congress had a right to judge of the 
qualifications of its members, and with the belief that disloyal men would not 
be allowed to enter that body over the bar of a test oath prescribed by law.' 

When Congress assembled [Dec. 4, 1865], the subject of reorganization 
was among the first business of the session, and by a joint resolution a com- 
mittee of fifteen was appointed" to make inquiries and report. This was 
known as the "Reconstruction Committee." This action offended the Presi- 
dent. It was an interference of the representatives of the peoi)le with his 
chosen policy of reorganization, and liostility to Congress was soon openly 
manifested by him. This was vehementlj' declared by the President in a 
speech to the populace in front of the Presidential Mansion on the 22d of Feb- 
ruary [1866] — a speech which Americans would gladly blot from the record of 
tlieir country — in which, forgetting the dignity of his position and the gravity 
of the questions at issue, he denounced, by name, leading members of Con- 
gress, and the party which had given him their confidence. Tlie American 
poo])le felt humiliated by this act; but it was a small matter when compared 
with what occurred later in the year [August and September, 1SC6], when the 

' By an Act passed on the 22(1 of July, 1862, Congress prescribed that every member should 
make oatli tliat he bad not " volimtarily borne arms agamst the United States since he had been 
a citizen thereof," or •' voluntarily given aid, coniiteuance, counsel, or encouragement to persons 
engaged in hostility thereto," and had never "yielded voluntary support to any pretended gov- 
ernment, autliorit}-, power, or constitution within the United States, hostile or inimicid thereto." 

' On the first day of the session, the House of Representatives, by a vote of 133 against 3r>. 
proposed, and agreed to a joint resolution to appoint a joint conunittoe, to be composed of nine 
members of the House and six of tlie Senate, to "inquire into the condition of the States which 
formed the so-called Confederate States of America, and report whether they, or any of them, arc 
entitled to be represented in either House of Congress, witli leave to report at any time, by bill 
or otherwise : and until sucli report sliall have l>cen made and finally acted upon by Congress, no 
member shall l>e received in eitlier House from any of tlie so-called Confederate States ; and all 
papers relating to tlie representatives of the said States, shall be referred to the said committee." 
The resolution was adopted by tlie Senate on tlie Itth. The House appointed Messrs. Stevens. 
Vasliburno, Morrill, Grider, i3ingham, Conkling. Boutwell, Blow, and Rogers, as its representa- 
tives in tlie committee, and the Senate appointed Messrs. Fessendon, Grimea, Harris, Howland. 
Johnson, and ■Williams^ 



1866.] JOHNSON'S ADMINISTRATION. 727 

President and a part of his Cabinet, with the pretext of lionoring tlie deceased 
Senator Douglas by being present at the dedication of a mouunient to his 
iiieniory at Chicago, on the 6th of September, made a journey to that city and 
bevond. He harangued the people in language utterly unbecoming the chief 
magistrate of a nation, and attempted to sow the dangerous seeds of sedition, 
by denouncing Congress as an illegal body, deserving of no respect from the 
people, and the majority of its members as traitors, " trying to break up the 
government." That journey of the President, so disgraceful in all its features 
— its low partisan object, its immoral performances, and its pitiful results — 
forms a dark paragraph in the history of tlie Republic' 

Having laid aside the mask of assumed friendship for tliose who had 
labored most earnestly for the suppression of the rebellion and for the freed- 
men, the President used his veto power to the utmost in trying to thwart the 
representatives of the people in their eflbrts to reorganize the disorganized 
States, and to quickly secure a full and permanent restoration of the Union on 
the basis of equal and exact justice." He made uncompromising war upon the 
legislative branch of the government, and caused members of his cabinet, Avho 
could not agree with him, to resign, with the exception of the Secretary of 
"NYar. The friends of the Republic urged that officer to remain, believing his 
retention of his bureau at that critical period in the life of the nation would 
be for the public benefit. He did so, and became the object of the President's 
hatred. 

On the 2d of April, the President, by proclamation, declared the Civil 
War to be at an end. Congress, meanwhile, was working assiduously in pei- 
fectiug its jjlaus for reorganization. Tennessee ■\^'as formally restored to the 
Union by that body on the 2.3d of July ; and on the 2Sth of that month, after 
a long and arduous session. Congress adjourned. Meanwhile notable events in 
the foreign relations of the government had occurred. The Emj^eror of the 
French had been informed that the continuation of French troops in jMexico 
was not agreeable to the United States, and on the 5th of April [1866], Napo- 
leon's Secretary for Foreign Affairs gave assurance to our government that 

' A convention bad just been held [Aug. 14] in Pliiladelphia, composed chiefly of men who 
had been engaged in the rebellion, and the enemies of the Republican party, for the purpose of 
organizing a new party, with President Johnson as its standard-bearer. So discordant were the 
elements there gathered, that no one was allowed to delsate questions of public interest, for fear 
of producing a disruption and consequent failure of the scheme. It utterly failed. A convention 
of loyal men from tlie South was held in Philadelphia soon afterward, in which representatives 
of tlie Republican piarty in the North participated. The President's journey being whoUy for a 
political purpose, members of the latter convention followed in his track, making speeches in 
many places in support of the measures of Congress for effecting reorganization. 

So disgraceful was the conduct of tlie President at Cleveland and St. Louis, in the attitude of 
a mere demagogue making a tour for partisan purposes, that the common council of Cincinnati, 
on liis return journey, refused to accord him a public reception. The common council of Pitts- 
burg, in Pennsjdvania, did the same. When, on the 15th of Septemlier, the erring President and 
his traveling party returned to 'Washington, the country felt a relief from a sense of deep 
mortification. 

' On the 19tli of February, 1866, he vetoed the act for enlarging the operations of the Freed- 
mau's Bureau, established for the relief of freedmen, refugees, and abandoned lands. On the 2"th 
of March he vetoed the act known as the Civil Rights Law, which was intended to secure to all 
citizens, without regard to color or a previous condition of slavery, equal ci\'il rights in the 
Republic. This Act became a law, after it wad vetoed by the President, by the vote of a constitu- 
tional majority, on the 9th of April. 



728 "T^E NATION. [186& 

those troops should be withdrawn wilhiu a specified time.' A military organ- 
ization of Irish residents of tlie United States, known as the Fenian Brother- 
hood, with the ostensible aim of proem'ing the independence of Ireland from 
England, made movements in May and June [1860] for a formidable invasion 
of the neighboring British provinces. Our government interfered, and tlie 
effort was a failure. Witli England, at about the same time, a pe.aceful bond 
of Union was formed, by the successful laying of a telcgrapliic cable between the 
two countries. The first dispatch, announcing the conclusion of a treaty of 
peace between Prussia and Austria, passed over it on the 29th of July, aiul on 
tlie following day tlic I'resident of the United States received by it, from 
Queen Victoria, a message of congratulation because of tlie completion of tlie 
great work, which she hoped "might seiwe as an additional boinl between tlie 
United States and England." So early as October, 1802, telegraphic coniinu- 
nication had been opened across tliis continent between the coasts of the 
Atlantic and Pacific oceans ; and while the great Civil War was in progress, 
our government cordially promoted an enterprise having for its object a line 
of telegraphic communication around tlie world, by connecting Asia ainl 
America, with the delicate cord, at Behring's Straits. 

The State elections held in tlie autumn of 1860 indicated the decided 
approval by tlie people, of the reorgaiiizaticin plans of Congress as opposed to 
that of the President, who was now openly athliated with the Democratic party 
and the late enemies of the government in the South and elsewhere. The 
majority in Congress felt strengthened by the popular approval of their course, 
and went steadily forward in perfecting measures for tlie restoration of the 
Union. They took steps for restraining the action of the President, who, it 
w-as manifest, had determined to carry out his own policy in defiance of that 
of Congress. And as an mdication of the general policy of tlie latter, con- 
cerning suffrage, a bill was passed [December 14] by a large majority of 
both Houses for granting the elective franchise in the District of Columbia, 
over which Congress has direct control, to persons, " without any distinction 
on account of color or race." The President vetoed the bill [January 7, 1867], 
■when it was re-enacted by the constitutional vote of two-thirds of the mem- 
bers of both Houses in its favor. On the same day [Januaiy 7], Mr. Ashley, 
Representative from Ohio, arose in his seat, and charged "Andrew Johnson, 
Vice-President and Acting-President of the United States, with the comniis- 
siou of acts which, in the estimation of the Constitution, are high crimes and 
misdemeanors, for which he ought to be impeached." He offered specifications 
and a resolution instructing the Committee on the Judiciary to make inquiries 
on the subject.' The resolution was adopted by a vote of one hundred and 
thirty-seven to thirty-eight, forty-five members not voting. This was the first 

' This was done, and the ArchiUike MnximiHan, of Anstria, \v)iom Louis Napoleon had phiced 
on a throne in Mexico, with tlie title ot' Emperor, was deserted by the perlidious ruler of France, 
and after struggling against the native Republican government for awhile, was captured and shot. 

' Mr. Ashley presented tlie following : " I do impeach Andrew Johnson, Vice-President and 
Acting President of the United States, of high crimes and misdemeanors. I charge him with 
usurpation of power and violation of law: (I) In that ho has corruptly used the appointing 
power ; (2) In that ho has corruptly used the pardoning power ; (3) In that he has corruptly used 



1S67.] JOHNSON'S ADMINISTRATION. ^29' 

public movement in the matter of the impeachment of tlie President, which 
resulted in his trial in May, 1868. 

At a former session of Congress, bills were passed for the admission of the 
Territories of Colorado and Nebraska as States of the Union. The President 
interposed. Now similar bills were passed, prescribing as a preliminary to 
admission a provision in their constitutions granting impartial sutfrage to their 
citizens, and the ratification of the Amendment to the Constitution. The 
President vetoed them; when that for the admission or Nebraska was passed 
over his veto. That Territory became a State on the first of March, making the 
thirty-seventh. A bill limiting the authority of the Pi-esident in making official 
appointments and removals from office, known as the " Tenure-of-Office Act," 
was passed, and was vetoed by the President, when it was passed over the 
veto.' Another bill was passed, vetoed, and passed over the veto, repealing so 
much of an Act of July 17, 1 86 2, as gave the President power to grant amnesty 
and pardon to those who had been engaged in the rebellion. A bill was also 
passed, with the same opposition from the President, foi- the military govern- 
ment of the disorganized States.^ The Thirty-ninth Congress closed its last 
session on the 3d of March, and the Fortieth Congress began its first session, 
immediately thereafter. In view of the conduct of the President, which 
threatened the country with revolution, this action of the National Legislature 
was deemed necessary for the public good. It adjourned ou the 31st of March,^ 
to meet on the first Wednesday in July. 

Congress assembled on the 4tli of July, and on the 20th adjourned to meet 
ou the 21st of November. The chief business of the short session was to 
adopt measures for removing the obstructions cast by the President in the way 
of a restoration of the disorganized States. A bill supplementary to the oue^ 
for the military government of those States was passed over the usual veto of 
the President, and it was believed that the Chief Magistrate would refrain 

the veto power ; (4) In tliat he has corruptly disposed of public property of the United States ; 
and (5) In that he has corruptly interfered in elections, and committed acts which, in contempla- 
tion of the Constitution, are high crimes and misdemeanors." 

On the 14th of Januar}', Representative Loan, from Missouri, iu the course of a debate con- 
cerning the duty of tlie House to proceed to the impeachment of the President, said that the- 
leaders of the rebellion comprehended the advantages of having such a man as the then incum- 
bent, in the Presidential chair. '■ Hence," he said. '• the assassination of Mr. Lincoln. The crim& 
was committed. The way was made clear for the succession. An assassin's hand, wielded and 
directed by rebel hand, and paid for liy rebel gold, made Andrew Johnson President of the. 
United States of America. The price that he was to pay for liis promotion was treachery to th& 
Republic and fidelity to the party of treason and rebellion." Mr. Loan was called to order. Th& 
Speaker decided that he was not out of order, the subject of debate being the charges against the 
President of "high crimes and misdemeanors," a member having the right, on his own responsi- 
bility, to make a specific charge. Tliis decision was appealed from, when the Speaker was sus- 
tained by a vote of 101 to 8. 

' It took from the President, among other things, the power to remove a member of his 
cabinet, excepting by permission of the Senate, declaring that they should hold office '• for and 
during the term of the President by whom they may have been ap])ointed, and for one month 
thereafter, subject to removal by and with the consent of the Senate.'' The act was passed over 
the veto by a vote in the Senate of 35 to 11, and in the House of 131 to 37. 

' Those States were divided into five military districts, and the following commanders were- 
appointed: First Oktrict. Virginia. General J. M. Schofield; Second District, North and South. 
Carolina, General D. E. Sickles ; Third District, Georgia, Florida, and Alabama. General J. Pope ; 
Fuurth District, Mississippi and Arkansas, General E. 0. C. Ord ; Fifth District, Louisiana and 
Texas, General P. H. Sheridan. 



730 



THE NATION'. 



[1867. 



f^ 



from further acts calculated to disturb the public peace. Not so. Iinmedi- 
nti'ly after the adjournment of Congress, lie proceeded, in defiance of that 
body, and in violation of the Tenure-of-Ottice Act, to remove the Secretary of 
War [Mr. Stanton], and to place General Grant in his place. The President first 
asked [August 5, 1867] the Secretary to resign. Mr. Stanton refused.' A 
week later the President directed General Grant to assume the duties of Secre- 
tary of War. Grant obeyed. Stan- 
ton retired, under protest, well satisfied 
that his office was left in the hands of 
a patriot whom the President could 
not corrupt nor unlawfully control.' 

The removal of the Secretarj- of 
War was followed by the removal of 
General Sheridan from the command 
of the Fifth District, and General 
Sickles from that of the Second Dis- 
trict, by which the country was notified 
that the most faithful officers, who 
were working with the representatives 
of the people for the proper and speedy 
restoration of the Union, would be 
deprived of power to be useful. Gen- 
eral Grant ])rotested against these acts, but in vain. The country was greatly 
«^\cited, and the loyal people waited with impatience the reassembling of Con- 
gress, upon which they relied in that hour of seeming peril to the Republic. 
That body met at the appointed time, and on the 12th of December the Presi- 
dent sent to the Senate a statement of his reasons for removing the Secretarj- 
of War. They were not satisfactory, and on the 13th of January the Senate 
reinstated Mr. Stanton, an<l General Grant retired from the War Deiiartmeut. 
Already Congress had made much progress toward the restoration of the dis- 
organized States, to the Union, by providing for conventions for framing con- 
etitutions and electing members of Congress ; and a few days after the restora- 
tion of jV[r. Stanton, a new bill for the further reorganization of those States 
was passed by the House of Representatives, in which larger powers were 




A 



EDWIN M. STANTON. 



' Tlio President addressed a note to the Secretary, in wliicli he said : " Grave public consider- 
ations eonsiniin me to req\iest your resignation as Secretary of War." The Secretary replied ; 
" Grave jmblic considerations constrain nie to continue in the office of Secretary of 'War until the 
jiext mcetinp: of Conpress." It was believed that the President was then contemplatinp a revo- 
lutionary scheme, in favor of the late enemies of the country, and was seeliiup to use the army 
for that puri)09e. 

■■' Tlie President was angry with General Grant for quietly giving up the ofBce to Stanton, at 
llic bidding of the Senate, and he charged the General-in-Chief with having broken his promises, 
and tried to injure liis reputation as a soldier and a citizen. A ccrrcspondence ensued, which 
speedily found its way to the public. It assumed the form of a question of veracity between tlie 
President and the General-in-Chief. Finalh-, Grant felt compelled to say to the President : 
" When my honor as a soldier and integrity as a man have been so violently assailed, pardon me 
for saying that I can but regard this whole matter, from beginning to end. as an attempt to involve 
•me in the resistance of law, for whicli you hesitated to assume the responsibility in orders, and 
tlius to destroy my character before 'tlie country.'' The President did not deny this charge. 



!SCS.] 



JOHNSON'S A D il I N I S T R A T I N . 



731 



given to the General-in-Chief of the armies, in their militarj- government, and 
depriving tlie President of all power to interfere in the matter. 

On the 21st of February, the President caused a new and more intense 
excitement throughout the country, by a bolder step in opposition to the will 
of Congress than he had hitherto ventured to take. On that day he issued an 
order to Mr. Stanton, removing him from the office of Secretary of War, and 
another to Lorenzo Thomas, the Adjutant-General, appointing him Secretary 
of War, ad interim. These orders were officially communicated to the Senate, 
■whereupon that bodj- passed a resolution that the President had no authority 
under the Constitution and laws to remove the Secretary of War. In the 
mean time Thomas had appeared at tlie War Department and demanded the 
position to which the President had assignetl him, when Mr. Stanton, his supe- 




THE NATIONAL CAPITOL. 



rior, refused to yield it, and ordered him to return to his proper office. The 
President being satisfied that he would not be permitted to iise military force 
in the matter, did not attempt to eject Mr. Stanton by force, and so that officer 
retained his place. This action of the President was so manifestly in violation 
of law, that on the following day [February 22, 1868], the House of Repre- 
sentatives, by a vote of 126 to 47,' " Resolved that Andrew Johnson, President 
of the United States, be im23eached of high crimes and misdemeanors." ■ On 
the 29th [February, 1868], a committee of the House, appointed for the pur- 

' This was an almost strictly party vote. Only two Republicans (Gary of Ohio, and Stewart 
of New York) voted in the negative, while all the Democrats voted against the resolution. 

' We have seen (page 728) that the subject of the impeachment of the President wa.s referred 
to the Committee on the Judiciary. That committee submitted reports (Nov. 25, 1SG7) which 
were acted upon on the Tth of December, wlien the House of Representatives, taking into con- 
sideration the gravity of sucli a proceeding, and indulging a liope that the President would cease 
making war upon Congress and attend to his legitimate duties as simply the Executor of the 
poeple's will, expressed by their representatives, refused, by a large majority, to entertain a pro- 



7 3. J run nation, [la/is. 

|IUNU,' |ll'l<Mlinl«ll |ll'(il'l(<H ilf illl|ll'lll'lMMi'lll, llilli- ill hllllllii r, Illl'l llll'nc, willl HiigllL 

iilli'i'iillitim, wore aw!<'|iii i| nu iln' -.'il nl' Murcli,' TIn' Ilmihn llu-ii jirocctMlcd t* 

lllii (l)i)Miilltllli'llt III' .Mlilillj^i'l'M, In I'lillillli'l- llli- lillriilicrtM ln'Cni'i! till! Scilltli',' wtli-n 
iIki I li'iiMM'r'iiliii iiiciiilii'i'H oC lliii lliiiim', l<( I.I1C iiiiiiiliir ul' fori y-flvc, nitcri'il x 
liiriiiiil |irii|.t<Bl. iti(iiiii!il, till' wlmli' |ii'ii<'t'(i(liiif^h. 

Oil llm filli III' Miiri'li ||M(1k|, Uiii HmiiiUi whm iii;.;:uii/,ii| .'in 11 ytry lur llic 
l.llill 111' llm I'lrhiilcIlL, ('liii-r.Illhlirii SllllllDM I'. (JIlllMH lil'i'Hiili'il/ Oil llic TlU 

tliu I'ri.'Miildiil, witH HiiiiiiiiiiiMnl III iv|i|H'iti' III. I III' lull'; iiitil on lliit l.ltJi, wIk-ii tliu 
Hiiiiiilii wiiM liii'miilly ii|iriiiM| I'lir ilm iiiijiunl, ln' ijiij mh u|i|iciii', liy Iiiw coiiiiwcl, 
will) itfltrij liir It H|iu('i! Ill' liiily cliiyH wliinin I'l |>i'i'|iiii'ii an itiiHWi-r lit tliu 
iiiilii'l iiit'iil., 'I'lMi ilayH vvi'i'it ^riiiiU'il, mill nil lli« U^i'l lln' i'ri'tiiiU'iil'H ('iiiniHr'l 
lii'iTTCiiii'il III! aiiB\v<M', 'I'lii' lliiuhii 111' lic'|iri'Hciital,ivii*, lini aiiciiHcr, Niin]ily 

ilrliiiij I'VlM'y aViTlllclll III IIm MlllSWI'l', wllill III!' I'l'l'Hillcilll'H COUIIMC'l llHki'il (ill" ft 

|iiini |iipiii'iiiriil iil'llii! iriiil liii' lliirly iJiiyH, 'riui Ni'imti' iillowi'il flcvi'ii ilayn, 
fiml nil Miiiiilay, lint iioili nl' Miircli, liiu iriul lic^raii, 'riin I'xtiiiiiiialioii of 

liOHilliiii fur liiilit<iii<liti)uiit, Niiw, HO lUigriiift wiih tlm ma of tliu Pi'tiulilKiit, Unit tlio Il»|iiilillr<iin 
iiii'IiiIkii'u wui'u uiigui' III pliiiiu llilli ii|iiiii Irliil, iiml citt'uinl wiiii wuro iiul jinttit'iil wlivii lliu vulu 
ruiiiinlril III lliti lutl wiiH liikc'ii, iil'ibi'wiii'il uiilui'mi iliiilr vhIuh III I'liviir nl' InipKiii'liiiu'iit. 

' 'I'liu I'liiiiiiiiUuu iiiniuUlml III' MuaurH .Kuiitwull, HUviMii (wlin iniiilu tlio iiiutlnii fur Ini- 
|iuiii'liiiiL'iil), Ilini^lwiiM, Wllniiii, Iiiiijiui, iliilliiii, iiiitl Wiii'il. Mi'HHi'H. BtuvuiiH mill lliiixliiiin wera 
a|i{iiillili'i| II iiiiinliillliiu III iiiiinMiiii'u In lliu HiniiiUi tlm himIiiii ril'llm I[iiii«u, TliU tlu-y illil nil llio 
'JAiIi IIi'uIi.I, wliim llii< Huimlu, liy iiiiiiiiliiiiiiin voUi, ri-lui'l'i'il lli" aulijiii'l lu 11 euluol iiuiiiiiillluu ul' 
dliVI'll, III i'iiiiuIiImI' It 

'' Tim lullinvliiK Id II lii'li'l'iiiiiiiiiiiii'v III' till) rliiii'Kuii 111 lliu Ai'lli'luii nt' Iiii|iuiii'liiiitiiit ; — ArlliK' I. 
riiliiwIUII.v i>rili<iiii|{ lliu rtiiiiiiviil ul Mr, Bluiilnii im HitiTuinry nl' Wiir, in vlnliitlnii nl' ll.a 
iii'iivUlnim III' lliu 'J'uiiiii'u-nr-lll)liiu j\i't. Al'llulu 2, lliiliiwrully ii|>piiliilliit{ (luiiuntl I<nrt'ii/.i> 
Tliiiliiiiil iiH Huni'iiliiry nl' Wiir, iltt ialeriin, Arllulu !l. HiilitiUiiiUiilly tlm niiiiih tirt Arllulu i, vvllli iIjU 
llilillllniiiil iivuriiiLiIlL llliit lliui'u WIIH III llm llinu nf llm lippnIiiliiiMiil nf lliiliurul Tliolilliu, lii> 
ViiKuni'y III Ihiiiillli'u nl' Huiiruliiry nl' VViir. Ai-lli'ln '1. (Jnnupiiliiif witli oim I/ut'ii/n Tliniiiini, mnt 
nlliur purnnliu in llm llnlliiitnl' lluprurtiMMllllvnH llliltlinwil, In prKViuil, \>)' lllllliliillllinll llliil llil'i'liU, 
Ml'. Hllllll.iill, llm li'flllly llppnillluil Mi'iiI'lilllIT nl' Will', (Viilll linliljlijj Ihal nlllcii, Al'lll'lu ft. t'oll- 
Bplilhii Willi llnimnil 'riiniiiiiEi mill nllmr.-i In lilinlui' llm u\iM<iiUnii nl' llm Ti'liiil'u-nr-dllli'u Art; lillil 



III piii'tiiiiilii'n nl' IliU nniinplnii'y, iitlii|ii|illiiK In prnvniil Ml'. Hliilitnii li'iiiii iii'liii|{ IIH Hi'i'i'i'liii'y nl' 
Will'. Al'lll'lu II. l!n||ilp||'|l|)j( with (lulmrill Tlmlllllri mill nlllul'H In lliku t'nl'i'ililu pnHHUHHinli III' Ilia 
pinpul'ly 111 lliu Will' llupiil'tliiulit. Al'lll'lu 7, llu]iuiilinl tliu uIimI'Ku nl' uniiMpll'lliK In liliiilur tlia 
untiuiillnii nl'lliu 'ruiiiiru-nr-l lllluu Aul, iiiiil prevuiit Mr. Slmilmi I'min uxuuiitliii; lliu ollluu nf Koure- 
liil'y nf Will'. Al'lll'lu H, Itiipuiiluil tlm I'lmi'Ku nf nniihpiiiiin to liiliu pnHiiuBHinii nf tliu Wiir 
llupiirlliluiil. Al'lll'lu II. Oliiil'Kuil tliiit lliu I'luHiiluiit Kiilli'il liufni'u llilli lliu I'liiiiiiiiiiiilur nf ilia 
fmrnd til llm |l'<piirliiii-lil nf WiiHliiiiKlnii iiiul ilurliii'inl In llilli tliiil II liiw, piiHxi.il nn llm Mlllll uf 
Jiiiiu, IHin (Bi'ii piin,i> 1'Jli), iliriMitliiH llml "nil nrilui'ii iiiul liinlriii'iiniiM luliiiiiiK In iiiilllai'y npurn- 
llniia, iBBUnil liy ;liu I'luaiilriit nl' ^^ll| I'uliiry nf Wiir, hIiiiII Iiu Uaiu-,! IlimnnU llm Uniuriil nl llio 
Al'lliy, IIIkI ill I'llKK nf llif IllllliilitV, llirnllgll lliu liu\t III I'llllli," W'llH lllli'nlinlilllllnliMJ, mill lint lilllil- 
tug lipiili lliu iiniiiiiiiiiiilui' nf tlm llupiirlliiunt nf WiiihliiKlnii ; tlm liiluiil IiuImk In liiiliinu tliiitcniii- 
lllllllilul' In \inliilu llm IllW, mill lu nliuy nl'ilul'S IhhUuiI ilil'uutly IVnIll lliu I'l'i'HiiU'llt. 

On llm Mil nf Mill'uli, lliu iiimiiiKi'i'il pi'unuiilml Iwn lulilillniiiil mlli'lun, w'lili'li W'ui'u ailnplcil liy 
lliu llniiMu, 'I'lm/fi.vt uliarttuil lliiil llm I'i'unliluiil hail, liy liillaiiiiiiiilni'y npi'i'ulmii, iliii'iii); liiM Jniir- 
liuv IVniii Wiiahiniilnii InliJiliiaHn, iili'uaily iiiuiiliniiKil (piiKu I'-ll, alli'iiipli'il, W'llli a iK<ai)(ii Intel 
lialilu llm aillllnl'ilv nf I'lillKri'MI, In lirillU It lllln ilianliiuu, alal In uM'ilii ihu niliillil mill ri'aulllllicllt 
nf llm punplii analiial rniiKi'unn ami Hiu laWH It uiiiii'luil. Thu nnnmt I'liiii't-'i'il llmt ill Ali^'iiHl, 
Irtdll, thu ritialiluiil, III a plihllu Bpurrli at Wiialiiiinlnii Oily, ih'ulai'i'il lliat I'niini'uHH wiia lint ft 
linily lilllhni'l/uil liy Ihu Oniiallliillnn In utui'ulau lutfUlallvu pnw'ui'a; ami lliuii w'ulil nil In Hpuulfy 
Ilia niVuiiaua in uiuluiivnl'llitl liy liiiliiwfiil iiiuaiia, tn pruvuiit lliu uxuuiiliiiii nf lawa paHaml liy l.'dii- 
gruaii, 'I'liuau fiiriiiuil Ihu llitli ami lllli Ai'tli'luanf liiipuiiuliiiiuiit, 

* Tliu fiilliiwliitf iiiuiiiliura nf llm llmiHunf Ui<pri'..<<'iitallvua wurn olioauu to liu tlio maiinift<rii, 
nil lu pari, nf Ihu iiiipuimhiiiunt uimu: 'fliiiilili.iiH Hluvuiia, nf ruiiiiHylviiiilai llui\|niiilii V. HiilliT, 
nf MaaaanJiiiuulla; .Inliii \. Iliii^'liiiiii, nf Hhin; Ounr^'u M. llniil wull, nf Miiaaauhiiaultii ; Jaiiii'il 
V. Wllaim, of Inwa; 'I'hnmaa Wllhaiii:<, nf IViiiiaylvaiila, aiul Jnhii A. lin^'«ll, nf llliiinJH. Tll» 
ahluf liiaiili|iuiiiuiil nf lliu uaau, nn Ihu liiil'l nf Ihu llminu, an pi'naui<iilni', wan liilriialuil In Mr. Ulltler. 

' ,Muu ulailBu li, aui'linii II, nf Ailii'lu I , nf Ihu Nallniiiil Oniialltillinii, in ihu SiippluiliuiiU 



1668.] 



JOHNSON'S ADMINISTRATION. 



733 



■witnesses was closed on tlie 22(1 of April, and on the following day the argu- 
ments of counsel began. Those closed on the aftei-noon of Wechiesday, 
tiie Gth of May, when the case was sulmiittcd to the judgment of the Senate. 
Its decision was given on the 26th of the same month. Every member of 
tiic Senate was present and vcjted. Thirty-five pronounced the President 
gudly, and nineteen declared him not guilty. So lie escaped conviction 
by one vote.' 




THE KATIONAI. BENATE CnAMBER. 

Tlie political campaign preparatory to an election of a new President of 
the Repul)lic, had begun al)out a WfjeJi Itefore the final act in the imiieach- 
nient case. On the 201 li of May, a national convention of representatives 
of the Repul)lican party assembled at Chicago, and liy unanimous voice 
nominated General Ulysses S. Granf^ for the itrcHidcney, and Schuyler 
(Juifux, tlien Spcakei' of tiic House ol Rci)resontativos, for Vice-President. 
The party was immediately organized for action. The Opposition deferred 
their nominations until the 4th of July, when, in a national convention 

• TIii^ voti! of the Senate was ns follows : — 

Fur Cijiirir.linn — Messrs. Aiitlioiiy, Cameron, Cattell, Chandler, Cole, Conkling, Conness, Cor- 
bett, Crayiii, Drake, Edniiuuls, Fi'rry, Frelinfrlmyson, Harlan, irowanl, Howe, Morgan, Morrill 
of Verniiiut, Morrill of Mniiif, Mi;rlon, Nye, I'MUerson of New Hanipsliire, Ponieroy, Ifaniscy, 
Sliernian, «|ira;;iie, Stewarl, Sunnier, Thayer, Ti),ton, Wtuie, Willey, Williams, Wilson and Yates. 
Tliesu were all " KepuMieans." 

For Ai'iiuiiiii/ — Missrs. Hayanl, Buekalew, Davis, Dixon, Doolittle, Fessenden, Fowler, Grimes, 
Ilenilersoii, Ilcmlrieks, .Johiisori, MeCreery, Norton, Patterson of Tennessee, Ross, Saulstiurv, 
TriiMilmll, Van Winkle, and Viekers. Eipht of these, namely, Bayard, Buekalew, Davis, Heii- 
drieks, .Johnson, MeCreery, .Saidslmry, and Viekers, were elected to the Senate as "Democrats." 
The remainder were elected as " l<e|iiil)lieans." 

^Sec portrait of General Grant, on page 601. 



734 THE NATION. (1868. 

held in Tammany Hall, in New York City, Horatio Seymour of New York,' 
was named for President, and Francis P. Blair of Missouri, for Vice-Pres- 
ident. The canvass was carried on with great warmth on both sides.' 
The elections in November resulted in tlie choice of Grant and Colfax for 
the respective high offices, by very large majorities. 

In the meantime, important events in the process of the reorganization 
of the national Government had taken place. The subject of a fourteenth 
amendment of the Constitution proposed by Congress in July, 1866, for 
securing the rights of citizenship to all persons " born or naturalized in 
the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof;" disabling a 
certain class of cliief offenders in the late rebellion ; declaring the validity 
of the national debt, and forbidding the ])aymout of any part of the so- 
called " Confederate debt," had been before the people and the State 
Legislatures for several months.' On the 20th of July, the Secretary of 
State publicly certified that the requisite number of States had ratified the 
proposed amendment, and on the following day. Congress, warned by the 
active opposition of the President to the measure,* declared, by a concur- 
rent resolution, the amendment to be a part of the National Constitution. 
On the "iSth of the same month, the Secretary of State issued a proclama- 
tion to that effect. As the work of reorganization had now been accom- 
plished ill all but three States, and civil governments therein established, 
the General-in-Chief of the armies issued a proclamation (July 28, 1868) 
declaring that so much of tlic Reconstruction acts as provided for the 
organization of military districts, subject to the military authority of the 
United States, had become iiio-ierative. 



1 See Xoto .•?, jinje 6.')7. 

2 Willie II;\m])ton, N. B. Forrest (see pajres 6S2, 6S3,) and several other prominent leaders in 
the reliullion were ineml)ers of the Demoeratic Convention, and were oontrollinir arehiteets of its 
platform, in wjiiili tlie acts of Congress for the re-organization of the Government were deelared 
to be "nsurpations. nneonstitutionnl, revolutionary and void." In a letter written by Fraueis P. 
Blair, the nominee fur Vice-President, a few davs before the Convention, to Colonel James O. 
Brodhend, he laiil down a plan for the inaugnratlon of another civil war, in the event of the elec- 
tion of the DemoeiMtie nominees, in these words : " There is but une way to restore the Govern- 
ment and the Constitution, and tiiat is for the President elect to declare these ;u-ts [of Congress) 
null and voiil. comp'-l the army to undo its usurpations at the South, disjierse tlu' Caqjet-bag State 
Governments, [estalilished under the authority of Congress,) allow the white jieoiilo to re-organize 
their own governments, and elect Senators and Ueprcsentativcs. The House ol Kc])rcsentativc3 
win contain a majority of I")emocrat> from the North, and tliey will admit the Heprescntatjves 
elected by the white people of the South, and with the co-operation of the President it will not 
be ditficult to compel the Senate to submit once more to the obligations of the Constitution." 

Tlie ConvcMUiou having approved this ]ilan for usurpation, revolution and civil war, by t)ie lan- 
puage of a portion of its platform, and the nomination of its author tor the second office in the 
Government, large numbers of the patriotic and thinking men of the 0])position refused to accept 
that platform, and to vote for the nominees. In accordance with the feelings of all true Ameri- 
cans, General Grant, in his letter of acceptance, had said. " Let ns have peace," and with that 
desire an immense majority of the people gave him and Colfax their support, 

'See Article XIV of the Amendments of the Constitution, in SuppU^ment. 

■* The President tuok the position that the State Governments in the South, estabhshed by Con- 
gress, were illegal and could have no voice in national affairs ; conseipiently, the amendment was 
not ratified. He had also, on the 4tli of July, issued a proclamation of general and unconditional 
pardon and amnesty for all who had been engaged it) acts of rebellion, excepting a tew who were 
under presentment or indictment for the otTcuce. This was calculated to weaken the force of » 
Vian ol the ameudmcut. 



ItOJ.J JOHNSON'S ADMINISTRATION 



735 



Congress took a recess in August to meet again in September, if the 
public good should seem to require. The recess continued until near the 
time of the regular session, in December. Before the adjournment, the 
Senate had ratified an important treaty with the Emperor of China, by 
which mutual intercourse between the citizens of the United States and 
China, and mutual privileges of trade, travel, education and religion, 
should be secured to each. This was a concession never made by the 
Chinese to any nation.' During a greater part of the recess, the attention 
of the people was absorbed by the Presidential election ; and the result 
was such, that when Congress re-assembled, the Republicans in that body 
were very strong, not only in numbers, but in the moral power of a 
majority well sustained by the peojile. A condition of such strength is 
great responsibility. There was in the aspect of public affairs at home 
and abroad, reasons for the exercise of the greatest caution and wisdom. 
Among other perplexing and important duties was the devising ways for 
ending a war with the Indians which had been raging a long time ou 
the great plains of the West, without positive results. To this end ; to 
the further security of rights to all citizens of the Repubhc ; and to the 
strengthening of the public credit, the attention of Congress was specially 
directed. 

The military leaders engaged in war with the Indians, recommended the 
most rigorous and unrelenting measures, and for that purpose it was pro- 
posed to vest the entire control of the Indians ^ in the War Department. 
But a more humane policy, promising excellent results, was finally adopted 
on the recommendation of General Grant after ho became President. 
."Recognizing the fact that the chief cause of wars with the Indians has 
been tlie injustice tlie red men were subjected to at the hands of dishonest 
or incompetent officers in charge of them, and of the traders and con- 
tractors with whom they are compelled to deal, the President recommended 
the appointment of a number of members of the Society of Friends or 
Quakers, who are noted for their general uprightness and peaceful princi- 
ples and conduct, as Indian Agents. Congress approved, and in April, 
(1869,) on the nomination of the President, sixteen Friends were chosen 
for the important service. 

A fifteenth amendment of the Constitution, intended to secure the exer- 
cise of the right of suifrage to all citizens of the Repubhc, without regard 

' This treaty was negotiated, and brousht from China by Minister Burlingame who, having been 
appointed by the Emperor a general commissioner to several of the Christian powers of the Earth, 
came attended by high officials of the Chinese Empire. After concluding the business of his 
mission at home, he went to Europe with the embassadors. 

2 In one of his reports. General Sheridan, who was in command of the forces employed against 
the Indians, said : " Indian tribes should not be dealt Tvnth as independent nations. " They are 
wards of the Government, and should be made to respect the lives and property of citizens. The 
Indi.ui history of this country for the last three hundred years shows that of all the great nations 
of Indians, only remnants have been saved. The same fate awaits those now hostile ; and the 
best way for the Government is to make them poor by the dcstructioa of their itock, and then 
aettle them on the lauds allotted to them." 



T36 TDE NATION, 



usual. 



••0 race, color, or previous condition, was recommended by a joint resolu- 
tion of both houses of Congress, on the 2Cth of February, 186'J.* It wae 
ininicdiatcly submitted to the authorities of the several States, for action, 
and was ratified by the required number. 

At about the same time, an important financial bill was passed in the 
lower house of Congress, (and afterward in the Senate, and became a 
law,) the chief provision of which was as follows : " The faith of the 
United States is solemnly pledged to the payment in coin or its equiva- 
lent, of all interest-bearing obligations of the United States, except in 
cases where the law authorizing the issue of any such obligation has 
expressly provided that the same may be paid in lawful money or other 
currency than gold and silver." This was intended to strengthen the 
public credit at home and abroad, and such was its effect in a remarkable 
degree. 

Tlie administration of Mr. Johnson closed on the -ith of March, and on 
that day Ulysses S. Grant was inaugurated the eighteenth President of 
the Republic.^ The oath of oflice was administered by Chief Justice 
Chase. At noon, the same day, the Forty-first Congress assembled ; and 
on the 5th, the Senate promptly confirmed the President's Cabinet ap- 
pointments.' The new administration began its career under circum- 
stances apparently very auspicious for the future prosperity of the nation. 
At home, the work of reorganization and pacification was going on pros- 
perously. Abroad, the relations of our Government were eminently 
peaceful. The only subject that promised difficulty in the future, was 
the claims against Great Britain for damages inllicted by the Anglo-Con- 
federate ship Alahama, and others.* The special business of Keverdy 
Johnson, lately appointed minister plenipotentiary to Great Britain, waa 
the negotiation of a treaty for the settlement of those claims. It was ac- 
complished, but the treaty was so imsatistactory to our government and 
people that the Senate promptly rejected it by a vote of 54 to 1, and Mr. 
Motley, the historian, was sent to England to supersede Mr. Johnson. 

iThe following is a copy of tlie Amcntlraent ; 

"Article 15. The right of the citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied ot 
abridged by the United States or any State, on account of race, color, or previous condition of 
servitude. 

"Section 2. The Congress shall liave power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation." 

■■^ Ulysses S. Grant was born in Clenuont County, Oliio, on the 27th of April, 1S<22. When a 
bov he \w:\3 employed in his father's tannery. He entered the West 1 oint Military Academy in 
isiiy, and was griuluated in 1843, when he entered the a.iny as brevet second lieutenant. His 
conduct as a lirave soldier, was conspicuous during his services in the war with Mexico, at the 
cloie of whieli he bore tlie Drevet rank of captain. He received a commission as full captain in 
18.53 He ieft the army the next year, and settled near St. Louis. Fivb years later he became a 
partner with his father, in the leather triule, at (Jalena, Illinois. When the civil war broke out in 
1861, he entered the service in the field as colonel of the 21st Illinois Volunti'crs. His promotion 
from ranlc to rank was rapid. How he performed the duties of each position in which he was 
placed, these ])agcs reveal, in brief outline. From a comparatively obscure leather dealer in 1861, 
he lias arisen, in the course of eifrht years, to the highest official dignity in the Uc^iublic. 

"It was found necessary to make some changes in the apjiointraents. The toUowing named 
genliemen composed the cabinet as finally chosen : 

ii'mtarq of ei'ati-, Ilimilton Fish. Secnlarii of the Treasury, George S. Boutwell. Secretary 
of If^ar, John A Hawlins. Secretary of the A'aii/, Adolph ft. Bone. Secretan/ of the Interior, 
Jacob I). Coxe Postmaster- Genera!, John A. J. Creswell. Attorney-General, E. ftockwood Hoar. 

■■ iJ-O (ja;;e 70" 



aXJ.J GEANt's ADMINIbTKA'I ion. 737 



CHAPTER XX. 



When President Grant' entered upon his duties lie found the reor- 
gauization of the TTuion incomplete, and on the 7tli of April, 1S69, he 
sent a message to Congress, urging that body to take steps for accom- 
plishing an object so important at as earlj a period as possible.^ The 
special session of the new Congress, which had been called, ended on the 
10th of April, when the Senate was convened for executive business, 
and continued in session until the 22d. 

The President and Congress took measures for securing the desired 
Union, and did all in their power under the restrictions of the amended 
National Constitution to induce the people of the States not represented 
in Congress to assist in bringing about that result. It was accomplished 
in the spring of 1872. On the 23d of May every seat in Congress was 
filled, for the first time since the winter of 1S61, when members from 
several of the slave-holding States abdicated. On the previous day (May 
22, 1872) an Amnesty Bill was passed, for removing the political disa- 
bilities imposed b}' the third section of the Fourteenth Amendment to 
the Constitution from all persons excepting members of the Thirty-sixth 
and Thirty-seventh Congresses, heads of departments, members of diplo- 
matic corps, and otScers of the army and navy, who had engaged in the 
rebellion. The political reorganization of the republic was now com- 
plete. 

At about the same time a most important event occurred in the 
social and commercial history' of our country. It was the completion of 
a railway communication across our continent from the Atlantic to the 
Pacific ocean, by which the States bordering on the two seas and those 
between, were firmly linked in interest, and by which, also, a vast over- 
land trade with China and Japan, and the islands of the sea, was inaugu- 
rated. The last " tie " was laid, and the last spikes were driven, on the 
10th of May, 1869, in a grassy valley at the head of the Great Salt Lake 
in Utah. That " tie " was made of polished laurel wood, its ends bound 
with silver bands. A spike of gold was sent by California ; one of silver 

' See portrait on page 601. 

' In that message the President said : " It is desirable to restore the States -n-hicli 
were engaged in the rebellion to their proper relations to the government and the 
country, at as early a period as the people of those States shall be found willing to 
become peaceful and orderly communities, and to adopt and maintain such constitu- 
tions and laws as will effectually secure the civil and political rights of all persons 
within their borders." 



TJS THE NATION. Hfea 

by Nevadii, aud one uf gold, silver, and iron by Arizona ; and these 
were driven in the presence of tln-ee thonsand people. So was com- 
pleted what is commonly known as the Union Pacific Tlailroad.* 

An insurrection in Cuba had now assumed such proportions that the 
Americans, natnrally sympathizing with a colony struggling for freedom, 
were disposed to give the insurgents moral and material aid, and expedi- 
tions were fitted out, under tlic general directions of a " Cuban Junta " 
m Xew York City, for the purpose of carrying men and materials of 
war to the Cubans. Our government wisely resolved to maintain its 
neutrality, at least until the Cubans should show their ability to maintain 
tiieir independence, and took measures to sujipress all jiUlhusteriiKj move- 
ments, at the same time, keeping faith with other governments. The 
United States authorities seized a large numlier of Spanish gunboats 
that had been built in this country, on suspicion that they were ijitended 
for war against Peru. They were soon released. 

These relations with Cuba and Spain gave the government of the 
United States much trouble, and, at times, M^ar seemed inevitable. 
finally, late in 1873, the steamship Virginius, flying the flag of this 
re2)ublic, suspected of carrying men and supplies to the Cubans, was 
captured by a Spanish cruiser off the coast of Cuba, taken into port, and 
many of her passengers, with her captain and some of her crew, were 
shot by the local military authorities. The affair produced intense ex- 
citement in the United States. But the difficulties involved in it were 
• Wsely settled by diplomacy. The vessel was surrendered to the United 
i iates, and ample reparation offered. "While the Virginius was on h.er 
■V ly, under an escort, to New York, she sprung a leak and v.-ent to the 
b ttom of the sea off Cape Fear, at near the close of December, 1ST3. 

An organization of Irishmen in the United States, known as " Fe- 
nians," prepared to invade the British dominions on our fVontiers, for tlie 
avowed purpose of liberating Ireland from British rule — how, in that 
■way, is not clearly seen. In the last week in May, 1S70, between two 
and three thousand of them had assembled on the borders of Canada, in 
Vermont, and there invaded that province. The authorities of both 
governments interfered, the leaders were arrested, and no similar viola- 
tion of the neutrality laws of the republic has since been attempted by 
adopted citizens. 

The possession of territory by the United States, among the West 
India Islands, has been considered desirable for a long time ; and in the 
year 1SG9 our government and that of Ilayti conferred upon the subject 

' To aid in the constmction (if this niihvay from Kansas to the Pacific, tlie na- 
tional government offered a subsidy of $r)3, 000, 000. The distance by railway 
between New York and San Francisco, by way of Chicago, is, in round numbers, 
about, S,400 miles. 



1813.] GEANr'a ADMINISTRATION. 739 

i)f the tannexation of the island to our domain. The President was de- 
cidedly in tavor of the measure. In November, that year, a treaty for 
annexation was made, but the Senate of the United States refused to 
iMtify it. More information was needed, and in December, ISTO, the 
President ajspointed a commission, composed of eminent and judicious 
citizens, to proceed to San Domingo and inquire concerning the resources, 
the political condition, and the disposition of the government and people 
of that republic on the subject of annexation. The report of the Com- 
mittee in the spring of 18T2 did not lead to the ratification of the treaty, 
and the subject was dropped as a national measure. A private company 
made a treaty with the authorities of San Domingo in December, 1ST3, 
by which that government ceded to them a large portion of the island 
Avith valuable franchises and pri\aleges. All the public lands on the 
peninsula of Samana, and the waters of Samana Bay, were ceded to the 
•'Samana Bay Company." 

An inter-oceanic ship canal across the Isthmus of Darien has been a 
subject before the public a long time. During President Grant's admin- 
istration some steps were taken in connection with such a project. In 
July, 1871, Commander Selfridge returned from an exploration of a. 
route which he considered feasible. It was from the Napipi river, a con- 
fluent of the Atrato river that empties into the Gulf of Darien, across, 
the Isthmus to Liraon Bay on the Pacific coast. The entire length of 
the cannl would be thirty-two miles. Its cost he estimated at about. 
$130,000,000, and the time to be occupied in its construction about twelve- 
)'ears. In March, 1S72, the President appointed a commission to exam- 
ine all plans and proposals for an inter-oceanic canal across the Isthmus.' 
Meanwhile an international company had been formed in Europe to con- ■ 
struct a canal across the Isthmus of Panama. 

In October, 1871, one of the most destructive fires on record con-- 
sumed a large part of the business section of Chicago. It raged about: 
twenty-eight hours ; spread over two thousand acres of ground ; laid! 
twenty-five hundred buildings in ruins, and consumed property, real and 
personal, to the amount of about $200,000,000. Of this amount, $90,- 
000,000 worth was insured. In November the following year a fire in 
the heart of Boston swept over si.xty acres of ground, and destroyed 
property to the amount of $75,000,000, on which was an insurance of 
$50,000,000. 

Mormonism, in its political relations to the state, remains a vexatious 
question. It seems to be strongly intrenched, in the heart of the conti- 
nent, among the everlasting hills ; and it appears to be popular among 

' Composed of Major-General A. A. Ilumphreyg, Professor Benjamin Pierce, anU 
Captain Daniel Ammen. 



740 THE NATION. II87L 

tlio sex M'liicli tlic practice of polygamy most degrades. In 1S71 the 
'Iclegatc in Congress from Utah presented to that body a petition fifty 
feet in lengtli, signed by twenty-five hundred Mormon women, iu favor 
of polygamy. The elective franchise has been given to women in tliat 
territory (as well as in Wyoming territory); and of the 215,324 vutcs 
cast in favor of a state constitution in Utah in 1ST2, nearly oue-hali' 
Avere by women. They have enough citizens to entitle them to a state 
crgani/.ation, but the moral sense of Congress has Ijeen strong cnongh to 
deny the jjolygamists a place in the l^nion of States. 

"We have observed, on page 730, that the settlement of claims against 
Great Britain, on account of the depi'cdations of the Alahama and other 
Anglo-Confederate vessels, was an open question when Grant became 
I'l'esident. He jjroposed a joint commission to negotiate a treaty for the 
adjustment of all pending difficulties between the two goverimieuts. 
(-ireat Britain acceded to it, and each government appointed commis- 
sioners.' This "Joint High Commission," as it was called, met at 
Washington city, and on the Sthof May, 1S71, completed a treaty which 
both governments promptly ratified. Tha*' treat}- provided for the settle- 
ment, by arbitration by a mi.xed commission, of all claims on both sides 
for injuries by either government to the citizens of the other, during the 
Civil War; for the permanent regulation of the American coast-fisli- 
cries; for the free navigation of certain rivers, including the Ct. Law- 
rence, and for determining which of two channels between T aucouver's 
Inland and the mainland, on the Pacific coast, constituted the boundary- 
line between the territory of the United States and Great Britain. 

In accordance with the jirovisions of this treaty, arbitrators were 
appointed.' The Ti'ibunid of Arbitration, as this was called, met at 
(icnuva, in Switzerland, on the l.'Jth of December, 1S71, and organized 
by the appointment of Count Sclopis president of the board. After two 
meetings the Tribunal adjourned to the 15th of June following. The 
linal meeting of the Tribunal was held on the 14th of September, 1872, 
when the decision was announced. The sum of fifteen million five luiu- 
<lred thousand dollars in gold was awarded to the government of the 
United States, to pay to its citizens for losses incurred by the depreda- 
tions of the Alahama and other Anglo-Confederate vessels. That 
amount was paid into the Treasury of the United States in September, 

'Tlic riiitcil Stiitcs iippointoil ILiiiiilloii Fish, Uohert C. Sclicnck, Samuel Nolson, 
Ebenczcr U. Hoar, ami (;eor<;t' II. Williams. Orcat Uritaiii apjiointod Karl do Grey 
ami Kipoii, Sir StalToicl Ndrtlicote, Sir Edward Thornton, Sir Jolin McDonald, and 
Professor Moiitaj;iie lieniard. 

"The I'liiled States appi>iiited Charles Francia Adams; Great Britain api^iuted 
Sir .Mexander Coeklpiirn ; the Kinjjof Italy appointed Count Kredcrie Selopis; the 
President of the Swiss Confederation named .laeol) Staniiilli, and the Kini)eror of 
Bra/il lliu Haron il'Itazulm. .1. C. Baueroft Davis was appointed agent of tlie 
United States, and Lord Tenterden of (^jreat Britain. 



1 



i3ia.] grant's administkation. Y41 

IS 73.' So 's-as settled, by the Christian-like method of diplomacj', serious 
difficulties between two powerful nations. The Emperor of Germany, 
to wliom the question of boundary on the Pacific coast was referred, 
decided in favor of the claim of the United States, which gives to our 
territory the island of San Juan, the domain in dispute. 

On the first of May, 1S72, a national convention of politicians styled 
" Liberal Republicans," lield at Cincinnati, nominated Horace Gi'celey 
for President of the United States, and B. Gi-atz Brown for Vice-Presi- 
dent. At a convention held at Baltimore on the 9th of July, the 
'' Democrats " coalesced with the " Liberal Pcpublicans," and nominated 
the same candidates. Meanwhile a convention of " Pepublicans " had 
assembled at Philadelphia (June 5th) and nominated President Grant 
for a second term, with Henry Wilson for Yice-President. Grant and 
"Wilson were elected in tlie autumn by a large majority over the coalition 
candidates. 

During President Grant's first term several important measures were 
adopted, besides those alreadj' mentioned. A system of weather signals 
by means of the Morse electro-magnetic telegraph was established, under 
the superintendence of the National Signal Bureau, by which the changes. 
in the "weather in all parts of the rej)ublic are noted simultaneously at 
various hours of the day, and predictions given concerning tliosc changes 
for about twelve hours ahead. This is a most important branch of the 
public service, and is especially usefid to the commercial and agricultm-al 
interests of the country. A new apportionment in representation was 
established, making the ratio 137,800, and giving a House of Representa- 
tives of 283 members. A new Pension Bill was passed, giving eight dol- 
lars a month to all surviving officers, enlisted and drafted men and volun- 
teers in the wars of Ihe Revolution and of 1812, or their surviving widows. 



' The banking firms of Drexcl, Morgan & Co., Morton, Bliss & Co., and ,Jay 
Cooke & Co., made a contract witli the British government to pay tliis award on or 
before the lOtli of September, 1873. The conti'acting banlvcrs, from time to time, 
bouglit exchange, wliich they deposited in comparatively small amounts and received 
coin certificates for such deposits, and ]nirchased United States bonds. These bonds 
and coin certificates they finally exchanged willi the Secretary of the Treasury for a 
single certificate for $15, 500,000, whic^h reads as follows: "It is hereby certified 
that fifteen million five luin<lred thousand dollars have been deposited with tlie 
Treasurer of the United States, jiayable in gold at liis office to Drexel, Morgan & 
Co., Bliss «& Co., .Jay Cooke lic Co., or their order." This was endorsed by an order 
by these parties to pay tlic amount to the British Minister at A\'ashington (Sir Ed- 
ward ThorntonJ and "the Acting Consul General at New York (E. B. Arcliibald). 
The Minister and C'onsid endorsed it with au order to pay the amount to Hamilton 
Pish, Secretary of State, and he in turn endorsial it wiili' an order to pay it to W. 
A. Richardson, Secretary at the Ti'casury. This was the method of navnient of the 
award into the Treasury of the United States, without moving a dollar of coin. A 
eommission was afterward appoiuled to distribute the award among the just claim- 
ants fur damages. The money was innnediately invested in the then new five per 
oent. bonds of the United States of the fundiid loan, redeemable after the first dav 
of May, 1881. '' 



7i'2 TIIK NATION. ris^ 

At the lic;,Miiiiiiij; of 1S75, our govcnuiioiit was paying for petsions at tlic 
rate of nlioiit lliirty million dollars annually. Early in 1873 the Frank- 
ing privilege was aboli.slicd, liy which tlic mails liavc been relieved and 
monov saved for the government to the amount of two and a quarter mil- 
lion dollars annually. During tliat first term, an important embassy came 
from Japan (1872) to in(jnirc about the renewal of former treaties be- 
tween our government and that. It consisted of twenty-one persons, 
composed of the heads of the several departments of the Japanese gov- 
ernment, and their secretaries. In the same year the Cirand Duke 
Alexis, son of the Etnjicror of Russia, visited the United States. Steps 
liad also been taken by the government for a celebration of the centennial 
anniversary of the national independence, by a display at riiiladclphia 
of the i^'oducts of all nations. This matter will be more fully mentioned 
liereal'ter. 

(Jrant and "Wilson took the prescribed oath of office, Jidmiiiistercd by 
Chief Justice Chase, on the Ith of ]\Iarch, 1S73, and the Senate imme- 
diately conllrmed the l*resident's nominations for the heads of the several 
departments.' The future of the country appeared bright and prom- 
ising. There was a steady improvement in the tone of ])nblic feeling 
after the irritations caused by the Civil AVar, for the government, in its 
dealings with the leaders in the insurrection, had been exceedingly 
lenient." There was a gradual lightening of the burden of taxation' 
Mhich that war had imposed, and rccujierativc energy was visible c\ery- 
where. In Jainiary, 1875, Congress passed a law providing for the 
resumption of specie payments, suspended in ISOl, begimiing with the 
redenqitiou of legal tender notes on the first of January, 1870, silvei- 
coin being meanwhile substituted for fractional pajier currency. 

We have noticed, on page 73.5, the more humane policj toward the 
Indians, inaugurated by President Grant. Owing to the unwise feature 
of that policy in treating the Indians as foreigners, keeping them on 

'Tlu; followiiiL,' nnincd },'onllomoii roiuiiosnl llio Prcsulcnt's caliinct nt tlic licjjin- 
niiif^ t>f liis sci'oiiil liTJU ot ollirc: lluiiiiitoii ]''isli, Si'Civtiiiy of Stiilu; Williiiiu W. 
ni'llvn:i|), Si'crctiiry of War; Williiim A. Itit-luinlson, Secretary of tlio 'I'rcnsury ; 
George ]\t. l{i)licson, Scorctiiry of tlicNiivy; Columlms Dcliiiio, t^ccicliii-y of llw lii- 
ttrior; Joliu A. J. C'rcsswell, rosliiiiistii-lJciK'nil ; Gcorgo II. ^Villi^lllls, Attuiiuy- 
GciiL'iiil. 

'Of tlio tliousaiKls of flio citiziMis of (lie rcinililic wlio consciously tiiid willin<rly 
comiiiittcil "ti'fuson against the I'liited States," aeeonliiiii; to llie jirescriplion of tlio 
National Constitution (see clause 1, section li, Article 111.), not one Inul l>pen jnin- 
islieil for the crime, ami only one olTeniler had lieen iiulietcil when this record was 
closed. That one was JelTcison Davis, the aetinjj; head of the Keliellion, vliowas 
released from jicril hy iv jii'oclumalion of amnesty made by PresiiU nt Johnson ou 
Christmas <lay, 1808. 

"Ta.xaticm was reduced, na comi)ared with ISCiO, nt the rale of ^170.000,000, 
whilst the revenue had increased from ;?;!: 1,000, 000 in ISOU, to !?4;!0,000,000 in 1873. 
The exports of 1873 BJiowcd an increase, tis compared with ISfiO, of more than 
twenty-live per cent., whilst the value of iin|)orts had increased ^l.")"), 000,000. 



1875.] grant's a I) si 1 N I s t u a T I o n . 743 

reservations, and so making neccssaiy llie cinploynionl of agents and con- 
tractors, who are not always trnc men, that iKilicj- has not worlccd so well as 
'Vs friends had hoped. There exist tlie same causes for irritation on the |)art 
of the savages, and always will exist so long as the system of reservations 
and agencies is sustained.' ^lake the Indians citizens of the republic, and 
hold every individual rcsponsih'le to the laws, and tiic evil will be cured. 
It is estimated that about three iiundred thousand Jndians are living within 
the domain of our rcpul)lie, of whom ninoly-seven thousand are civili/ed, 
one hundred and twenly-five thousand are senii-civilized, and seventy-eight 
thousand are wholly liarharous or savage. To reclaim these — to civilize and 
Christianize them — the most earnest efforts of tlie Church and State sliould 
be given. 

During the year IST."), there was much uneasiness observed among the Sioux 
Indians, and threatened or actual trouble with them instantly api)eared. The 
dashing cavalry ollicer, General (Jeorge A. Custer, had been sent the year 
before into the region of the Black Hills, a part of tlie Sioux reservation 
around the tributaries of the Yellowstone River in Dakota and Wyoming 
Territories. Custer went with a considerable military force to examine and 
report upon the features of the country and the state of affairs there, lie was 
charmed with the region, and rejjorted that It was another Florida in floral 
beauty and extremely rich in precious metals. This report excited the cupid- 
ity of miners, and very soon ninnbcrs of them ap|)eared there. The jealousy 
and susi)icions of the Sioux were thereby excited. Finally at near the close 
of 1X71, a bill was introduced into Congress for the extinguishment of the 
Indian title to so much of t!io Black Hills reservation as lay within the 'i'erri- 
tory of Dakota. This movement when reported to the leading chiefs of tlie 
Si^ux, greatly irritated them for they justly regarded it as a preliminary step 
toward rolibing them of their rightful domain. 

In the spring of ^H^^), agov(>rnment geologist was sent to the Black Hills to 
make a survey of that regi(jn, under an escoit of a considerable body of cav- 
<llry and infantry. The niilitaiy and the surveyors excited the jealousy of the 
Sioux ; and all through the year they exhil/ited conspicuous signs of prepara- 
tions for hostilities. Early in 187G a strong military- force was in the region 
of the Yellowstone, lo disposed in three separate columns, as to make a simul- 

'Tlie number of reservations is ninety-two, upon which are seated al)out ?''0,000 
Indians. They aggregate 10S,000 Bquaro miles. Of tlieso rcserviitioiis lliirty-oiio 
are cast of tlio Mississippi river, agj,'refjaling 2,700 sqiiaro miles, lictween the 
MiHsissippi and tlio Kocky Mountains are forty-two ic'servations, aggregating nearly 
144,000 Bnuaro miles; uiul )ipon tlio I'uc.ilic b1o|ii) aro nineteen, aj^^regating 20,000 
square miles. Tliero aro 40,000 Inclians wlio havo no lands awarded (o tlieni by 
treaty, Init have reservations set apart upon (lie |)ul)lic lands of (lio repniilic, to tlio 
number of fifteen, aggregating alioiit fiO.OoO s.|iiaro miles. It is estimated that tlio 
potentially liostilo tribes nt this time [issiij number about 50,000. The wonder is 
that there are not more liostilo Indians, when wo consider the horriblo injustice 
which these natives c: the coitsUy havo Buflered ut t!io liands of the European 
racea. 



"It THE NATION. [187C. 

taiioous movement upon the Sioux, if necessary. General Alfred II. Terrjr was 
ill cliiiif command of tlio cxpediticm. Tlieso columns were led respectively hy 
(u'liorals Terry, Crooke and Gibbon, and tbese forces were to form the meshes 
of a not into which they expected to ensnare the Indians, who were lod by an 
iililo chief named Sitting BuU. 

General Custer, accoiniianiod by Terry and his staff, pushed across the 
country from the Missouri Ilivcr toward the Yellowstone, and at the mouth of 
the Rosebud Creek they mot Gibbon. It was fcniud that Indians were in the 
vicinity in larf^e uumhera GonenU Crooke had fought them on the 17th of 
Juno, and as the savages were much gi-eator in number tlian his own force, 
and were well armed, lie had been compelled to retreat. As Custer's force 
wiui stronger than Gibbon's (coiiKi,stiiig of the whole Seventh Cavalry, twelve 
compiuiies) he was ordered to niiiku the attack. lie and Gibbon marched to 
the vicinity of the Big Horn River. Custer arrived first and discovered a 
large Indian camp on a plain. lie had been directed to await the arrival of 
Gibbon, to cooperate with him, but iHjheving the Indians were moving ofT, he 
du'ected Colonel Reno with seven companies of the cavalry to attack at one 
point, while ho dashed off with tlie remainder to attack at another point. 
Cnstcr had a terrible fight with the savages who numbered five to one of the 
white men. With Custer perished his two brothers, a brother-in-law and 
other gallant ofBcers. 

This sad event occurred on the 25th of June, 1876. Tlio Government 
iinmodiatoly ordered a largo military force into tliat region, to watch the 
Sioux, but the latter evaded the troops, who finally went into camp for the 
winter. Sitting Bull and liis followers anticipating severe chastisement, at 
leiigtli withcb'ow into the British possessions. 

Dm'iug the summer of 1875, our government engaged in war with the Nez- 
Pcrc^ (Pierced-Nose) Indians, in Idaho. These Indians were peacable and had 
always been time friends to the white people, fi'om the time when explorers were 
sent out to that region by President Jefferson, early in the present century. 
Their dweUing-place had always been in the beautiful and fertUe Wallowa 
Valley, where they were happy and contented. About thirty years ago, the 
United States govoriimout sent an agent there to look after the Indiana As a 
consequence this measiu'O led to discontent on the part of the barbarians 
Very soon white peoi)le began to settle among them, and, as usual, after 
awhile these began to lay plans for disijossossing the Lulians. Treaties were 
made with a part of the latter, proviiling for their settlement on a reservation, 
on the receipt from the government of a fixed annuity in exchange for their 
lands. 

Old Joseph, a veteran chief, who took no port in the treaties, refused to 
leave the Valley. To this determination his band adJierod, so, also, did others of 
the non-treaty Indians. Old Joseph died and was sncceiHled by hia son, Joseph, 
liike his father, ho, as well as liis band, preferred tlio ancestral home and refused 
to go. President Grant, recognizing their right to remain, issued orders, in 
1873, to prevent interference with them. But he was induced to revoke thb 



I'^'fi- J G K A N T ' S A D M I N I S T U A T I O N. '/45 

order iji 1875, wben the greedy wliite aettlera, rapaciously encroached upon the 
domain of then- dusky l.ri^thj'en. The Xez-Perc^a [)lea led I'l ir justice and right; 
the United States seuL troops to diive them from their patrimony. Just be- 
fore the time fixed for expeUiug the Indians from their home, some of Joseph's 
band, exasperated by contact with the encroachuig white people, murdered full 
twenty settlers. War ensued, and the distressing couflict continued from June 
until in the autumn of 1577. The Indians, as usual, were l)eaion and compelled 
to make a humihatiug treaty of peace. These events embittered the feelings 
of the fi'iendly Nez-Perces toward the white people, and converted them into 
passive enemies. 

We have observed that Sitting Bull and his followers fled north, and into 
the British possessions. There he remained, sullen and revengeful, an unwel- 
come refugee on the Queen's domain. Conferences with him on the part of the 
United Sta'.cs through appointed commissioners, to make proposals for a pacifi- 
cation, were held ; but the propositions of the commissioners were treated with 
scorn, until at about the beginning of 1S80. The British autlforities had given 
Sitting Bull notice, that if he should attempt to recross the border with hostile 
attitude or intentions, he would not only have the Americans, but the British, 
as his enemies. Finally, negotiations for a surrender of the barbarians were 
again opened, in 18S:\ and at the close of that j'ear the Sioux chief offered to 
surrender himself and his band. About one thousand of his followers did sui'- 
render early in 18S1, after having been in esUe for about five years, but their 
famous leader had not given himself up at the time of the present vrriting, early 
in Mai-ch, 1881. 

The yeai- 187G was distinguished by two conspicuous features. It was the 
"Presidential Year" — the year when the election of a President of the Re- 
public takes place. It was, also, the "Centennial Year'' of the nation, which 
was celebrated at Philadelphia, fi'om May until November, by a marvellous ex- 
hibition of the industry and arts of many nations. The campaign for the prize 
of the Presidency opened at about the middle of June, when the Republicans, 
in national convention at Cincinnati, (June 16,) nominated Rutherford B. Hayes, 
of Ohio, for President, and William A. Wheeler, of New York, for Vice-Presi- 
dent. On the 27th of the same month a national convention of Democrats 
met at St. Louis, and nominated Samuel J. Tdden, of New York, for President, 
and Thomas A. Hcndiicks, of Indiana, for Vice-President. A most exciting 
canvass ensued, which resulted in the election of Hayes and Wheeler. 

In the political world, the Centennial Year was also distinguished by the im- 
peachment of a cabinet minister for malfeasance in office. It was Mr. Belknap, 
the Secretary of War. The trial ended early in August, with a verdict of ac- 
quittal. At about the same time the House passed a resolution for an amend- 
ment of the National Constitution, concerning popular education by j^ubhc au 
thority. A resolution for a similar object, offered in the Senae, was rejected 
6y that body, and the subject was deferred. At near the close of June, a joint 
resolution was adopted, providing for the issue of $10,000,000 in silver coin, in 
2xchange for legal tender paper currency ; and silver soon became very plentiful 



740 



THE NATION 



187«. 



One of tho most important events in the history of onr Country occurred in 
the year 1876, namely the Centenuiul Exhibition at PhUaJelphia. When the 
civil war had ended, and the strength and stability of our national government 
was no longer in the category of experiments, but was a matter of absolute de- 
monstration, the citizens of the Republic looked back, with just pride, over the 
ninety years of their national history which had then elapsed, since the inde- 
pendence of the English-American colonies had been declared. Many felt a 
wish that the one hundreth anniversary of that event might be celebrated in an 
appropriate manner ; and between the years 1865 and 1870 the newspapers 
contained suggestions concerning the propriety of such a celebration. Finally 
* communication from tho Franklin Institute of PhOadelphia to the municipal 
authorities of that city, asking for the use of a portion of Fairmount Park for 
I centennial celebration was presented to the select Council by a member of 
ihat body. A joint committee of seven from each chamber of the city govern- 
ment took the subject into consideration. 

This Committee proceeded to lay the subject before Congress. The Legis" 
latui'o of Pennsylvania resolved to ask Congress to take action in favor of an 
international celebration at the city of Phil.idelphia on the one hundredth birth- 
day of the RepubUc, and appointed a Committee to proceed to Washington to 
urge the matter. This committee joined the Philadelphia committee in presen- 
ting a memorial to Congress. Congress took action, and provided for the 
appointment, by the President of the United States, of a Commission and 
alternate Commission from each State and Territory of the Union, who were 
to be nominated by the respective governors of the States and Territories. 
It oIbc provided that the Exhibition should take place at Philadelphia. This 

act became a law on the 3d of March, 
1871 The commissioners and alternate 
commissioners met at Pliiladelphia on 
the 4th of March, 1872. Twenty-four 
States and three temtories were repre- 
sented. They organized a United States 
Centennial Commission, by choosing 
Joseph II. Hawley, of Connecticut, 
President ; Hon. Orestes Cleveland, A. 
T. Goshorn, William M. Byi-d, J. D. 
Creigh, and Robert Lowry, Vice-Presi- 
dents; Lewis Wain Smith, Temporary 
Secretary ; an Executive Committee and 
a Solicitor. John L. Campbell of In- 
diana, finally became the permanent 
Secretary. The commiasionerB adopted rules for their goverment, and also an 
official seal, which may be described as follows : 

In concentric circles around the edge of the seal is the title of the oganiza- 
tion — "The United States Centennial Commission." In the centre of the 
■eal is a view of the State House as it appeared when the Declaration oi 




JOSEPH R. nAWl,ET, 



1876.] 



orant's administration. 



747 



Independence was signed in its great hall. Beneath the building are the worda 
which were cast on the State-House bell in Colonial times, " Proclaim libertt 

THKOOaHODT THE LAUD : AND TO ALL THB 
INHABITANTS THEEEOF." 

In April, 1873, a Centennial Board 
of Finance was created, of whom 
more than one-half were residents of 
Philadelphia. They were author- 
ized to issue bonds not to exceed in 
amount the sum of $10,000,000, and 
to proceed to the preparation of the 
grounds and the erection of bmldings 
in Fairmoimt Park. On the 4th of 
July, 1873, the Park Commissioners 
formally surrendered to the custody of 
the Centennial Commission, the^por- 
BEAi, OF THE cENTEjTNiAi, coMMis9icw."i tion of the grouuds which had been 

designated for the purpose. On that day the President of the United States 
issued a proclamation, announcing the fact that an " International Esliibition of 
Arts, Manufactures, and Products of the Soil and Mines," would be opened at 
Philadelphia in April, 1876. The next day, July 5, 1873 the Secretary of State 
sent a note to aU the foreign ministers of the United States, containing the regu- 
lations adopted by the Commission concerning exhibitors, and du'ecting these 
ministers to caU the attention of the foreign governments to the proposed 
Exhibition. Early in the summer of 1 874, the President issued a cordial invi- 
tation of the United States Government to the Goverments of other nations, 
to be represented in the Exhibition, and to take part in the Centennial 





CKNTKNNIAI. MEDAL. 



Exposition. Congress also passed an act authorizing medals, commemorating 

the one hundredth anniversary of the first meeting of the Continental 



74S TUE NATION. [1876. 

Congress, and also of the Declaration of Imlepondence, to be struck. A 
piotui'e of the latter is given in the engraving.' 

Grand Buildings were erected for the accommodation of the articles exhib- 
ited, at an aggregate coat of $4,444,000. They covered, \vith their annexes, 
about 75 acres of ground. They were five in number, namely : Slain Exhibi- 
tion Building, Art Gallery, Machinery Hidl, Horticultural Hall and Agricul- 
tural HidL Beside these many other builtlings were erected by national and 
individual exhibitors, and by several States and Territories, making tlie whole 
number of buildings in the Centennial grounds, 190. 

When, in the summer of 1875, it was found that applications for space in 
the Centennial Exhibition from foreign coimtrios, were so numerous that under, 
the rules for classification much work done by women would be thrown out, or 
lost in the crowd of other exhibitors, a separate building for the product <>f 
woman's hands was suggested. A Woman's Centennial Exhibitinn Com- 
mittee was* formed, with Mrs. E. D. Gillespie of Philadelphia at its head, 
with able assistants in the various States and Territories. She gathered from 
the women of our countiy sufficient money to build and equip a magnificent 
" Woman's Pavilion," at a cost of more than $S0,000. The display of the 
work of women in nearly all departments of art and industiy seen in that 
building, was among the most attractive features of the Great International 
Pair. The women of our country contributed $100,000 to the funds raised 
for mjddng preparations for the Exhibition. 

At the opening of 1876, it was found that about #1,500,000 were yet lacking 
for the completion of the preparations, and Congress was asked to supply that 
sum. Thii-ty-six nations had accepted the invitation of our government to 
participate in the exhibition, and every true patriot felt that nothing should 
be wanting to make it what it had been promised to be ; and yet our people 
had the mortifying spectacle presented, of a powerful minority voting against 
the measure. The appropriation was made, however, but with a proviso that 
the amount should be refunded to the National Treasury out of the proceeds 
of the Exhibition, and it was done. The preparations were carried on vigor- 
ously to completiop, and the Exhibition was opened on the appointed day, the 
loth of May, 1876, with imposing ceremoniea Privileged ones were first ad- 
mitted and took their seats. Among them was Dom Pedro, Emperor of Brazil, 
with his Empress — the only foreign sovereign present. The President of the 
United States (General Grant) arrived at the appointed hour, when the inaugural 

' On one side la a feininiue figure repreeciuing the Qenias of Libertj wilb a aword buckled to 
her pinile, the shield of the Stare and Stripes leaniug ai 'est, whilst with each hand she extends 
a welcome and a ohaplet to other feminine figures, representing Art and Science, who present evi- 
dences of their skill and craft to do honor to the date, 1770, which is inscribed upon the platform. 
Around the whole are the words, "In COMMEMORATION OK TUB IlUNDKEDTli ANNIVBKSAKT 
OF Amkkican Indkpbndknck, " and "Act of Conorbss, Junk, 1874." On the other side 
is a feminine figure representing the Genius of America rising from a recumbent position, grasp- 
ing with her right hand the sword which is to enforce her demands, and raising her left m ap 
pealing pride to the galaxy of thirteen stars, which, indicating the original Colonies and States, 
ire blazing in the Hrmament. Beneath is the date 1776, and around the whole the kernel of the 
rei'olutiiin for imiepeiidence, in these words, " TllKSB COIONIEB ABB, *JID OF RIOHTODOBT TO 
BK, FKKB ANU INIIKPKNDEITT STATX8." 



1^'''-] qbant's administration. 749 

ceremonies were begun with music by Theodore Thomas's orchestra. After a 
fervent invocation by Bishop Simpson of the Metliodist Episcopal church, a 
thousand voices sang a beautiful " Centennial Hymn," composed by John G. 
'\\'hittier. The buildings were then formally presented to the United States 
Centennial Commission, by the President of the Centennial Board of Finance. 
A cantata was sung, when General Hawley presented the Exhibition to the 
President of the United States. Then the American llag was unfurled over 
the lofty tower of the Main Exhibition Building, as a signal that the Great 
Fair had begun. 

The attendance of the Exhibition through the intense heats of that Summer 
was hmited, but early in the Autumn, the number increased to an average ol 
80,000 or 90,000 a day. On the "Pennsylvania Day," the number of admis- 
sions was about 275,000. The largest attendance for a full month, was in 
October, when 2,603,911 persons were admitted in thu'ty-one daya The 
total number of admissions from the opening until the closing, was 9,910,965- 
The total amount of cash receipts during the exhibition was $3,813, 725. 

On the 4th day of July, 187G — the Centennial day of the RepubUc — the 
Territory of Colorado was admitted into the Union as a State, making the 
whole number thirty-eight. Ten other Territories are preparing to enter ; 
and the time is probably not far distant when they will all take their places as 
commonwealths of the Repubhc, and other Territories will be organized. 

The result of the Presidential election was long in doubt. Each party 
daiming a majority for its candidate. One hundred and eighty-five votes ia 
the Electoral College were necessary to a choice. It was decided immediately 
after the election that Mr. TUden had one hundred and eighty-four votes, 
while the result in South Carolina, Florida and Louisiana was doubtful 
Concerning that result there was a long and bitter contest. Representative 
men of each party went into these states to witness the counting of the votes. 
Meanwhile pubhc excitement ran high throughout the country. In anticipa- 
tion of violence, the President took the precaution so early as the 10th of 
November, to order the United States troops in New Orleans to be in instant 
readiness to preserve the peace. The same measure was adopted in South 
Carolina. 

Charges and counter-charges of fraud were rife in the three doubtful states, 
and the subject occupied much of the attention of Congress during its session. 
The difference of opinion concerning the legal method prescribed by the Con- 
stitution, for the final opening and counting of the votes of the Electoral 
College, was so wide that it was agreed to submit the whole affair to an 
Electoral Commission to be composed of an equal number of representatives 
of each pohtical party, A committee, similarly constituted, was appointed to 
submit a bill for the purpose. They reported on the 18th of January, 1877 
The bill provided for the appointment of five members from each House, with 
five associate Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, four of them 
to select the fifth : the entire Commission to be presided over by the associate 
rastice longest in commission. It was agreed that their decisions should be 
final 



760 



THB HATIOS. 



[1876. 



After much stormy debate, tho bill waa adopted by both Houses on the 
2Gth ; was signed by the President on the 29th, and the next day the 
commission was appointed.' They met in the Hall of the House of Representa- 
tives, on the first of Febuary, to open and count the votes. Great care, dehb- 
ation and impartiality were observed in the business, and the CommiBsion 
did not roach their final decision until just at the close of the session, when it 
was declared that Mr. Hayes had received a majority of the TOtas of the 
Electoral College 



• ■ * ■ » 



CHAPTER XXI. 

Hates' Administration. [ 1 8 7 7—1 8 8 L] 

Rntiierford B. Hayes was inaugurated the niiioteenth President of the United 
States, on Monday, the 5th of March, 1877 ; Chief-Justice "Waite administering 

the usual oath of office. He named his Cabinet 
Ministers and the Senate confirmed them.' Honored 
with the confidence of the majority of both parties, 
in his integrity and abUity, and with the concurrence 
of his cabinet, the President inaugurated an era of 
apparent good feeling by adopting a liberal, kind 
and concihating policy toward the people of the 
lately disorganized but now reorganized States.' 
A prominent featm-e in his administration at the 
Tery beginning, was the adoption of measures for 
concihating the feelings of the yet disaffected in 
the States in which insurrection had prevailed, 
known as his "Southern PoUcy." Mr. Key, of 
Tennessee, the Postmaster-General, had been a 
confederate military leader. He removed a prominent object of bitter com- 
plaint, namely, the United States troops from Southern States, and left the 
tf ovemment of affairs there in the hands of the civil authorities ; and he de- 

' The Senate elected MesBrn. Edmunda, Morton, Frelinghuvsen, Thurmsn and Bajard ; and 
the bouse elected Messrs. Payne, Huuton, Abbot, Garfield and Hoar. The four associate Jub- 
■jcps chosen, were Clifford, Miller, Field and Strong; and these chose for the the fifth, Justice 
Joseph P. Bradley. 

' These were Wm. M. Evarts, of New York, Secretary of State ; John Sherman, of Ohio, 
Secretary of the Treasury ; George W. MoCrary, of Iowa, Secretary of War; Kiohard W. 
Thompson, of Indiana, Secretary of the Navy ; Carl Schurz, of Missouri. Secretary of the Interior ; 
David M. Key, of Tennessee, Postmaster-General; and Charles Devins, of Massachusetts, 
Attorney-General. 

' Kutherford Birchard Hayes, the nineteenth President of the United States, waa bom in 
Delaware, Ohio, Oct. 4, 1822. He is of Scotch descent. His father emigrated to Ohio fix)m 
Vermont. He was edueat«d at Kenyon College, and graduted at the Cambridge Law School in 
184.'). He practised law in Cincinnati until 18G1, when he entered the Union Army as major of 
Ohio Volunteers, and served with his regiment in Western Virginia, a part of the lime on the stafl 
of General Kosecraiis as Judge Advocate. In December 18(32, he was promoted to the command 




BUTHEBFOBD B. BATES. 



IS78.] HATES'S A D MIHI 8T B AT I N. 751 

clared his intention to endeavor to bring about a more cordial union among all 
sections. Much has been accompUshed toward that desirable end. 

President Hayes also attempted to carry out much needed reforms in the 
Civil Service of the government, and was partially successful ; not so much in 
actually affecting reforms, as in opening the way to them by awakening a pub- 
lic consciousness of the necessity of such reforms. 

The XLVth Congress, at its regular session having failed to make appro- 
priations for the maintenance of the miUtary estabUshment, the sum needed 
being nearly $35,000,000, the President called an extraordinary sossion of the 
Congress on the 15th of October, 1878. In the House, there were 180 Demo- 
cratic, and 140 RepubUcan members, and in the Senate, 38 EopubUcans, 33 
Democrats, and 2 Independents, with 3 vacancies. The session continued 
antil the opening of the regular session (Dec. 3.) The chief object for which 
the special session had been called was not accomplished, and exciting debates 
of a partisan character occupied nearly the whole of the ensuing regular 
session. During that session, and the next, there appeared a disposition on the 
pai-t of the opposition to block the wheels of government unless peouHar 
measiu-es which they had proposed should become law. They passed a bill for 
almost prohibiting, by restrictive measures, Chinese emigration, in violation of 
the spu-it of existing treaties. The biU was vetoed by the President, and the 
opposition, having the power, caused Congress to fail to pass the necessary ap- 
propriation bills. 

This failure made a special session of Congress necessary, and the President 
convened it on the 18th of March, 1879. The opposition, having a majority 
iu Congress, put upon each appropriation bill such obnoxious " riders," that the 
President felt compelled to veto them. The special session contiaued to July 
1, (1879), when most of the objectionable features of the several biUs which 
had been vetoed, having been removed, they became law by the signature of 
the President. An ineffectual effort was made to pass a bUl, prohibiting the 
seiTice of United States trocps and of United States marshals in keeping or- 
der and preserving the purity of the ballot-box at elections. 

In 1879, there was a remarkable exodus of negroes from States on the lower 
Mississippi River and from the CaroUnas. The larger number, and the earlier 
emigrants went to Kansas, and later a considerable number went to Indiana. 
Congress appointed a committee to inquire into the causea of the remarkable 
exodus, but there labors were not satisfactory. 

One of the most remarkable events in our national history occurred on the 
Ist of January, 1879. It was the resumption of specie paymenta by the national 

of the first brigade of the Kanawha Division, in which capacity he served until tbe Fall of 1864. 
He had engaged in the battle of South Mountain in 1862, and he was couspiououi in the battles of 
Winchester, Fishers' Hill, and Cedar Creek, and was promoted to Brigadier General " forgallant 
service." He was four times wounded duriug the war, and had fonr horses shot under him. 
In 1864, General Hayes was elected to Congress, and served a full term. He was re-eleoted in 
1866, resigned in 18ti7, and was twice chosen Governor of Ohio, in which position he won the 
respect of all classes. In 1875, he was a third time elected Governor of Ohio, and in 1876, wai 
oliosen by the Republicans, to fill the oSioe of President of the United States. He was inaugu- 
rated iu March, 1877. His administration was conspicuous for its purity. 



?63 THB HATIOV. [in». 

gOYernmeut and the brinks, after about 18 years of suspension. It had been 
initiated in a degree, by the law of January, 1875, abeady mentioned. This 
measure had ever since been violently opposed by indationists, or those who 
desired to have the government issue a limited or an unlimited quantity of 
paper currency, known as " greenbacks," because the backs of the bills were 
printed with a green color. These opposers were cr}-stallized into a political 
pai'ty, known as the "Greenback Party." They prophesied financial ruin, or 
ftt least great financial embarrassment, that would follow the act of resumption. 
In apite of all opposition, nnd of the prophets of evil, the act of resumption took 
place at the appointed time with the most salutary effects. The business of 
the country which had been depressed for six years, immediately improved, and 
has ever since, moved on toward uncommon prosperity in all the industries. 
Not one of the e\'ils predicted, occiured. 

A distressing hostile outbreak of the Ute Indians occurred early in the 
Riitumn of 1879. They became dissatisfied with the treatment they had re- 
ceived from the national government, and were in arms. They murdered N. 
0. Meeker, the government agent, at their reservation. Major Thomburgh 
waa sent with national troops to suppress the outbreak, and was fiercely at- 
tacked by the Utes on September 29. He and ten of his men were slain, and 
the remainder of his command were surrounded by the hostile barbarians, for 
six days. The troops were intrenched and held out until succor arived. The 
Utes were soon subdued. 

A joint resolution was introduced in the Senate of the United States on Jan- 
nary 19, 1880, and in the House of Representatives, on January 30, to amend 
the national constitution to secure the elective franchise for women. The 
amendment offered was as follows : 

" Article 16. The right of Suffrage in the United States shall be based on 
citizenship, and the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be 
denied or abridged by the United States, or by any State, on accotmt of sex, 
or for any reason not equally apphcable to all citizens of the United States. 

"Congress shall have power to enforce this article by apppopriate legislation." 

The project of an interoceanio canal across the isthmus which connects 
North and South America, was revived by a visit, early in 1880, from M. deLes- 
seps, the constructor of the Suez canal, who extended his journey to the isthmus. 
He announced his confidence in the feasibihty of his plan, and his intention 
to raise the funds for its construction and press forward the work speedily. 
The feelings of Americans being averse to the supreme contrcl of such a work, 
if done, by Europeans, President Hayes deemed it wise to apprise the world 
of it through a message to Congress, March 8, 1880, in which he declared that 
it is the duty of the United States to assert and maintain such supervision 
and authority over the enterprise as will protect our national interests. 

In June, 1880, national conventions of four distinct political parties, to nomi- 
nate a candidate for President of the United States, were held. The Repub- 
lican convention was held at Chicago on the 2d, when James A. Garfield, of 
Ohio, was nominated for President, and Chester A. Arthur, of New York, for 



1880.1 HAYES'S ADMINISTRATION. 751 

Vice-President. The convention of the "National" or Greenback party was 
held at Chicago on June 9, and nominated James B. Weaver, of Iowa, for Presi- 
dent, and Benjamin J. Chambers, of Texas, for Vice-President. The Prohibi- 
tion convention was held at Cleveland, Ohio, on the 17 th of June, and nomi- 
nated M eal Dow, of Maine, for President, and A. H. Thompson of Ohio for Vice- 
President. The Democratic convention assembled at Cincinnati on June 22, 
and nominated Winfield S. Hancock, U. S. Army, for President, and TV'illiam 
H. English, of Indiana, for Vice-President. There was a fifth (anti-masonic) 
candidate for President — John W. Phelps^ of Vermont. Samuel C. Pomeroy, of 
Kansas, was the anti-masonic candidate for Vice-President. 

The canvass for President and Vice-President was an exciting one, and result- 
ed in the choice of James A. Garfield, of Ohio, and Chester A. Arthur, of 
New York, by considerable majorities, the Republican candidates havmg 213 
Electoral votes, and the Democratic candidates 156. The result of the election 
gave a powerful impulse to the business of the country, and the year 1880 closed 
with evidences of increasing and jjermanent material prosperity throughout the 
Republic. Taxes had gradually decreased, and the burden of the public debt 
has been greatly lightened, year after year, by the operation of the sound finan- 
cial policy of the government. That debt, on the first of January, 18G6, amounted, 
in round numbers, to a little more than $2,800,000,000; at the close of 1881 it 
was less thaa $1,900,000,000, or more than $900,000,000 reduction in 14 years. 
Since 1877, the government has refunded about $850,000,000 of the public debt 
into bonds bearing interest at the rate of four-and-a-half and four per cent, a year. So 
high is the public credit that these bonds are now (1881,) sought after with 
avidity and bear a considerable premium. The reduction of the annual interest 
charge on the public debt by this refunding is about $17,000,000. During 
Hayes' administration of four years, about $209,000,000 of the pubhc debt was 
paid. 

A new funding bill, fixing the rate of interest at three per cent, a year, was 
debated for some time, and two days before the close of the 46th Congress it 
was passed, and sent to the President. On account of a very mischievous 
section, the President vetoed it the next day (ISIarch 3, 1881), and no further 
action upon it ensued. The House of Representatives also passed a new Appor. 
tionment bill, fixing the number of the members of that House at 319, in the 
48th Congress, instead of 293, as in the present Congress. The ratio of repre- 
sentation is increased from 131,425 under the census of 1870, to 154,764, under 
the census of 1880. The Senate did not act upon it. 

General Garfield," the President elect, left his home at Mentor, Ohio, on the 

' James A. Gnrfield was bora in Cnyaho™ Connty, Ohio, fifteen miles from Cleveland. Nov. 19, 1831. Hia 
father was a smiill farmer, and died when this, his yount:est son, was two years of age. His widow, a woman 
of j^reat eueri^y and perseverance, was left with four children to support, and for many years the struggle of 
the family for a livelihood was very severe. When James was old enough he worked on the little farm in 
summer, and in the winter woriced at a carpenter's bench, and went to school when he could. At the age of 
seventeen, ha hired out as a driver on a canal, and soon rose to the position of pilot of the boat. He flnallv, 
by dint of hard labor, obtained first an academic education, worlting at the carpenter's trade mornings arid 
evenings, and teaching school in winter. He entered Williams College when he was twenty-three years n]d, 
became professor in a small college in Ohio, and in less than two years was its president. "He studied law. 
Uid was admitted to the bar in IStiO, and the same year was elected to the Ohio State Senate, in which li« 
tru active in promotiug measures for the safety of the Union. He was made colonel of Ohio Volunteers. 



754 THENATION. [1881, 

28tli of February, \ritli his family. Among its memhers was his venerable 
mother, eighty years of age. He arrived in Washington on the first of March, 
and on Friday, the 4th, was inaugurated the twentieth President of the United 
States, just one hundred years after the adoption, by the Continental Congress, 
of the first constitution of the United States. The day was pleasajit, and Chief- 
Justice Waite administered the usual oath of office to General Garfield, in 
the presence of fifty thousand citizens of the Republic. His inaugural address 
was delivered in a strong, clear voice, that might be heard by many thousand 
spectators. 

President Hayes had called a special executive session of the Senate to act 
upon the new President's nominations of Cabinet Ministers. They assembled 
immediately after the inauguration ceremonies were closed. On Saturday after- 
noon the President sent in the names of persons ho had chosou for advisers. 
These uouiinatious were confirmed without debate' 



CHAPTER XXII. 

Garfield's Administration. 

President Garfield, in his inaugural address, promised full and equal protec- 
tion of the Constitution and laws for every citizen, irrespective of race or color; 
advocated universal education as a safeguard of suffrage; recommended such 
an adjustment of our monetary system "that the purchasing power of every coined 
dollar will bo exactly equal to its debt-paying power in all the markets of the 
world ; and that the national debt should be refunded at a lower rate of interest, 
without compelling the withdrawal of National Bank notes; the prohibition of 
polygamy within the bordei's of our republic, and the regulation of the civil 
service by law." These were the principal points discussed in the inaugural 
address. 

At tho very beginning of the new administration there was a struggle in the 
Senate of the United States between the two great parties (Repubhcan and Dem- 
ocratic) for power in that body, each refusing to yield on the question of com- 
pleting the organization, ono wishing to elect new officers of that body, the other 
insisting upon keeping tho old ones. There was a dead-lock for several weeks. 
There was also strife concerning the confirmation of nominations made by the 



did adniiruMo Kcrvlce In eiitteni Kentucky In 1S61. lie wns nppolntcd chief of General lioHecrnns's staff in 
18&1. and rot*e to the rank of inajor-penend. He was elected to Congree»» while in the Held, and in that l)t)dy 
he did excellent nervice on tho Coiniuitlee on Military AlTairs. General Garlleld wac sixteen euccej^fiiveyeare 
a nipmlur of that boilv. and ftir pome time a Uepul)llcan leader. In .Tanuary, 1880, he was elected to the 
Senate of tlie United Estates, but never tooli his seat, for in the fall of that year he was elected rrcsldeiij of 
the I'liited Stales. He was Inaugurated Mardi 4, lasi, Ue was shot by an a^tsassln July '.(, and died Sep- 
tember 19, at I.oncHranch, tm tiie Ne\s' .Jei-sev shore. 

'The following' (;eiitlcmene<U]slituted the Cabinet: James O. Blaine, ot 'Maine, Sferftary rf StaU; William 
Wlndoni, of Minnesota. Serreldnj of llie Trtmimj' Robert Lincoln, (son of President Lincoln.) of Illinois, 
atcrtliirij of IVor,- William H. Hunt." of Louisiana, Seerelary of Ihe Xury: Samuel J. Klrkwood, of Iowa, SiC- 
Ttury vf Ou Interior; Tliomas L. Jomus, Foalnvasltr-Otnerai; Wayue McVeogb, of PeDUsylTimia, AUonuy- 
Otncrai. 



1881.] 



GARPIELDS ADMINISTRATION. 



755 



President of the United States, of incumbents for oiBce in the State of New 
York, particularly that of the collector of the port of New York. The nominee 
for that office, it was conceded, was thoroughly qualified to fill it, but was per- 
sonally distasteful to the senior U. S. Senator (Roscoe Conkliug) from New York, 
and he vehemently opposed his confirmation by the Senate. Because the Senate 
could not agree with him, the Senator resigned his seat, deserted his post and 
returned home, taking with him his Senatorial colleague, so leaving the great 
State of New York unrepresented in the Senate of the United States. The 
President withdrew all of the nominations for New York, excepting that for the 
collectorship which was immediately confirmed, and the Senate adjourned (May 
20) sine die. 

The New York Legislature was in session at 
that time, and were compelled to take immediate 
steps to fill the seats deserted by the two New 
York Senators. Mr. Conkhng had no doubt that 
he and his colleague would be immediately re- 
chosen to fill their vacated seats. He was mis- SlQHiSS!MUiB^B>. .N. 
taken. Instead of meeting general support and k 
sympathy, he encountered general opposition and "^^^ 
indignation among his political friends and others 
for his unwarrantable course. Perceiving this, 
he repaired to the State capital, and there con- 
ducted, for several weeks, a most persistent per- 
sonal struggle for a re-election, but was defeated. 
His seat and that of his colleague were filled by 
the choice of two other men. This strife had 
agitated the whole nation, and in the final result the people felt great relief. 

While these personal struggles were going on at Washington and Albany, the 
government, which was moving on in successful progress, had confirmed impor- 
tant treaties; one with China, concerning immigration and commerce; an extra- 
dition treaty with the United States of Colombia; a consular convention with 
Italy, modifying and defining the judicial powers of certain consulates; a con- 
vention with Morocco respecting the taxation prerogatives of the Moorish Grov- 
ernment, and a treaty with Japan prescribing reciprocal duties for the Japanese 
and United States Governments, in cases of shipwrecks upon their respective 
coasts. On May 18, the Senate postponed the resolution asserting the "Monroe 
doctrine" in the case of the Isthmus Ship Canal.' 

The fearful agitation of the people by the humiliating strife for office at Albany 
intensified the ill-feehng of disappointed ofSce-seekers everywhere, and produced 
its logical result. While that struggle was at its height the nation was appalled 
by the fact that one of this dangerous class— dangerous alike to public order and 
public virtue — had shot the President of the United States as he was about to 
leave the national capital on a trip to New York and New England. The terri- 




^^*^^;:-.x^iv 



JAME3 A. GABFIKLD. 



' See page 752. 



75G THE NATION. [1881 

ble deed was done at the station of the Baltimore & Potomac railway, in Wash- 
ington, at about 9 o'clock on Saturday morning, July 2, 1S81, where he was to 
be joined by members of his cabinet. A s he was walking through the passenger 
room arm-in-arm with Mr. Blaine, the Secretary of State, two pistol-shots were 
fired in quick succession from behind them, and the President sank to the floor, 
bleeding profusely. Only one shot touched his body; that entered it through 
the eleventh rib, alx)ut four inches to the right of the spine, and taking a tortu- 
ous course lodged some distance to the left of the lumbar vertebraa at the lower 
margin of the pancreas. It was, externally, a jagged wound, caused by a ball 
of the size known as cahbre 44. The wounded President was at first carried to 
a room in the second story of the building where he was shot, and an hour later 
he was conveyed to the Executive Mansion. Tlie assassin was instantly arrested 
by a police ofEcer (Kearney), to whom he said: "I did it and will go to jail for 
it. 1 am a Stalwart [the political name given to the friends of Senator Conkling 
in the strife then going on] and Arthur will be President." In his pocket 
was found the following letter directed " To the White House": 

"The President's tragic death was a end necessity, but it will unite the Republican party and save the 
republic. Lite is a llimsy dream, and it matters liiile when one yoes- A human life isofsmiill value. Dur- 
ing file vs'ar thons.uKls yf brave boys went down without a tear. I i)rcsume the President wjis a C'hri?ljan, 
anil that he will be liappicr in I'ariidisc than here, it will be no worse for Mrs. Garfleld. dear soul, to part 
with her husband this way than by natural death. He is liable to go at any time any way. 1 had no ill-will 
toward the Pret^ident. His death was a political necessity. 

"I am a lawyer, a theoloirian, Rr.<\ a politician. I am a Stalwart of the Staiwarts. I was with Gen. Grant 
and the rest of our men in New Vorli during the canvass. I have some papers for the press which I shaJl 
leave with Byron Andrews and his co-journalists at 1,WU New York Avenue, where nil the reporters can eea 
them. I am going to the Jail. "Charliss Guiteac." 

A much shorter letter, but of similar import, was found, addressed to General 
Sherman, asking him to send troops to protect the jail. The assassin (Guiteau) 
had been an unsuccessful office-seeker for a long time, and had led a precarious 
and disreputable life in various large cities in the Union. Soon after the arrival 
of the ambulance, with the President, at the Executive Mansion, the Cabinet 
Ministers and their wives who had taken the cars for the journey came in haste 
to the "White House," Soon afterwards the gates which lead to the Executive 
Mansion were closed, and armed military sentinels silently took their places 
about the house and grounds to relieve the police force. Before he was taken 
from the station, the Pi-esident, anxious about the effect of the intelligence of 
his wounding upon his wife, who had lately recovered from severe illness, 
dictated the following note to Colonel Rockwell: 

" ]frf. Garfleld, Elbfron, Long Branch. 

The President desires me to say to you, from him, that he has been seriously hart, how reriODtly ha 
cannot yet say. He is himself, and hopes you will come to him soon. He sends his love to you, 

" A. F. BOCKWELL." 

Mrs. Garfield left Long Branch on a special train at near two o'clock, p.m. 
Wlien the President was told of her departure, he said, " God bless the little 
woman I " Owing to a slight accident on the road, she did not arrive at the bed- 
Bide of her husband until after six o'clock. After the first nei-vous prostration, 
the President's usual cheerfulness returned. Tlie best physicians in Washington 
were in attendance upon him. "Conceal nothing from me, doctors," he said, 
" for remember I am not afraid to die." Late in the afternoon, when there were 



1881.J Garfield's administration. 757 

evidences of internal hemorrhage, he asked Dr. Bliss what the prospects were. 
The Doctor repUed, " Your condition is very critical. I do not think you can 
Uve many liours." The President firmly responded, "God's will be done. Doctor; 
1 am ready to go if my time is come." 

When Mrs. Garfield entered his room, all others retired. She remained fifteen 
minutes, when the surgeons were admitted. The President was conscious, but 
very weak; his pulse being UU. "There is no hope for him," said Dr. Bliss; 
"he will not probably live three hours; he may die in half an hoiu-." But he 
revived, and with it a faint hope of his ultimate recovery. 

On the morning of the 4th of July it was thought he could not live until noon. 
The preparations for the joyous observance of the national hohday were 
abandoned in all parts of the Union, and it became a day of great solemnity 
among the people. Messages of condolence to the stricken family and to the 
nation soon came from every part of the civilized world. The frequent bulletins 
issued by the surgeons in attendance day after day were sent over the land by 
telegraph and across the sea; and hke the ebbing and flowing of the tide was the 
condition of the hopes and fears of the watching milhons. Prayers ascended 
hourly from devout hearts all over Christendom, asking for the recovery of the 
President; and medical skill, science, experience, and tender ministrations of love 
were exhausted in eli'orts to save the precious life. The surgeons in daily and 
nightly attendance upon the sufferer were Doctors D. W. Bliss, J. K. Barnes, 
J. J. Woodward, and R. Reyburn, of Washington City, and the chief nurse was 
Mrs. Doctor Edson, of tlie same city. Doctors Hayes Agnew, of Philadelphia, 
and Frank H. Hamilton, of New York, were the consulting surgeons. 

The President had relapses and physical complications, but at length, early in 
September, it was hoped that he was on the sure way to recovery. Dreading 
the effects of the malaria-laden atmosphere of the vicinity of the White House, it 
was resolved to remove him to Long Branch, on the borders of the sea. This 
was done by railway in the space of about seven hours, on the 6th of September, 
the cars running at the average speed of 55 miles an hour. He was lodged at 
Long Branch in an upper room of a cottage there, where from his bed he could 
look out upon the sea. He continued to improve, apparently, until he was able 
to sit up awhile in an easy chair. The way to peiTnanent convalescence appeared 
to be assured. His Cabinet ministers were lodged close by, and were admitted 
to his presence. Only Dr. Bliss, of the regular attending surgeons in the case, 
remained with him. Dr. Boynton, his family physician (who was not in the 
case), and Drs. Agnew and Hamilton were also in attendance. On Friday, Sept. 
16, he had an alarming relapse. Chills followed at intervals until Monday, and 
the physicians lost hope. At ten o'clock on Monday night Dr. Bliss inquired of 
him if he was uncomfortable. He replied with his usual cheerfulness, " Not at 
all." The Doctor retired. General Swaim, the President's warm personal 
friend, remained with him. The patient slept. Awaking suddenly, he said, 
"Swaim, I am suffering great pain here," laying his hand near his heart. "Oh, 
Swaim 1 " These were his last words. Tlie Doctors and Mrs. Garfield wer» 



758 THE NATION. [188L 

Bmimioned. He waa dying, and at 10.:! j i-.M., tiept. 19, be drew his last hreatk 
For oig!it_\- days the Fresident had struggled ior life heroically, hopefully, and 
checrluliy. 

A few minutes after his death the sad news was flashed over the Republic 
and beyond the seas. Back, from states and territories, and from all Europe 
came quick responses of coniiolence iuid sympathy. From the Queen of Enghuid 
who knew by her own experience how to feel for Mrs. Garlield, the brave, lo vilify 
Iiopeful wife of the President, came this dispatch : 

•■ WonlB raiiiKif ixpre-s tin- deep syniimtliy I fiel lor you at lliis terrilile moment. Key God support 
and conifort you a^ He ulune eau. »» Thk Qulen. 

Messages of condolence came from high dignitaries everywhert ir. Europe and 
America, and even from far-off Australia and New Zealand; and Queen \'iotoria 
ordered her court to wear mouiniiig for a week in token of rcjpoct for the dead 
President. The courts of Belgium and Spain were also ordered lo wear mourning. 
Immediately after the President's death, the Cabinet niinisteiL who were present 
sent a dispatch to Vice-President Arthur, giving him the sad j...nvs, advising him to 
. take the oath of office as President of the United States, 'without delay," and 
invituig him to come to Long Branch the next morning. Tlie official oatli was 
admiiiistered before Mr. Arthur slept. That act was performed in his parlor by 
Judge John H. Brady, of the Supreme Court, in New York, in the presence of a 
few friends, at nearly two o'clock in the morning of September 20. President 
Arthur arrived at Long Branch the same day at about one o'clock in the after- 
noon, accompanied liy Secretaries Blaine and Lincoln, and there met the other 
members of the Cabinet. 

On the next day (Wednesday, Sept. 21), the body of the dead President was 
conveyed from the ocean shore to the rotunda of the Capitol at Washington, 
whei'e It lay in state under the great dome luitil noon on Friday, Sept. 23, and 
was looked upon by thousands of citizens of all classes and ages. Near the 
casket were many floral offerings; and upon its lid was placed by Victor Drum- 
mond, of the British legation at \Vashington, by command of liis Queen, a 
beautiful wreath of flowers. A card was attached to the wreath, which read as 
follows : 

"Queen Victorin to the memory of the late President (Jarfleld \n expression of her sorrtm , ana 
eympatliy «illi Mrs. Garlic'd and the .\merican Nation. Sept. 2S, 1S«1." 

President Arthur was formally inaugurated at Washington on the 22d, in the 
Vice-President's room at the Capitol. Tlie oath of office was administered by 
Chief-Justice Waite, in the presence of members of the Cabinet, E.\-Presidents 
Grant and Hayes, General Sherman, some Senators And others, after which 
President Arthur read a brief inaugural address, in which, after alluding to 
t'.'.e dreadful crime, and the protracted sufferings and unyielding fortitude of 
the murdered President, he said: "Men may die, but the fabric of our free 
institutions i-emains unshaken. Nor higher or more assuring proof could 
exist of the strength atid permanence of popular government than the fact 
tha''. though the chosen of the people be struck down, his constitutiopal 



ISHI.I AltTIII'i;"s A li.M I \ TSTI! ATIMX. 759 

successor is peacefully installed witliout shock or strain excepting the sorrow 
which mourns the bereavement.'' He tlien referred to the prosperous con. 
dition of the country, its peaceful relations with all the nations of the worki, 
and the positive tranquility of the pu)>lic mind in the presence of the great 
calamity which liad befallen the Republic. '■ I assume the trust imposed l)y 
the Constitution," lie said, in conclusion. •• relying for aid on Divine guidance 
and the virtue, patriotism, and intelligence of the American people." 

President Arthur then issued a proclamation designating Monday, September 
26th (the day appointed for the funeral of the dead President, at Cleveland, 
Ohio), as a day of fasting, humiliation, and prayer throughout the country. 
On the following day (September 23d) he issued another proclamation, calling 
a session of the United States Senate on Monday, October 10th. Meanwhile 
President Garfield's Cabinet Ministers remained in office. 

Funeral services were held in the Rotunda of the Capitol at "Washington, 
on Friday, September 23d, in the presence of many members of Congress, 
Cabinet ministers, the diplomatic corps, officers of the Army and Navy, 
E.x-Presidents Grant and Hayes, and other distinguished persons. Then tlie 
hearse was escorted to the railway station by troops and a funeral cortege, and 
was conveyed to Cleveland, where the coffin was placed under a catafalque in 
a spacious pavillion erected for the purpose of holding the funeral services. 
There the body lay in state until Monday morning, the people passing it, four 
abreast, about ten thousand each hour, until the procession numbered, it was 
estimated, nearly two hundred thousand. After the funeral services at the 
pavillion, tlu^ body was conveyed to the Lake View Cemeteiy, where it was 
placed in a vault. A knoll near the vault had been chosen for the last resting 
place of the remains of James A. Garfield, and measures were taken, at 
once, for the erection of a suitable monument over them. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

Ain'HI'lfs AliMlMSTK'ArillN'. 

The Administration of Mr. Arthur,' the twenty-lirst President of the United 
States, was begun under very sad circumstances. The public mind was filled 
with intense anxiety concerning the future of the country; for the new incum- 
bent of the Presidential office was untried in that capacity. There was a 

'Chester Alan Arthur was bom in Fairfield, Franklin County, Vermont, on Octobers, 1830. 
His father was a Baptist clerg:yn)an. Youriij Arthur was graduated at Union College. Schenec- 
tady, in 1848; taught school awhile, studied law, and was admitted to the bar in lS5:i, when 
he became an associate in a law firm. In politics he was a Whig, and became a Republican. 
His sympathies made him active in anti-slavery movements, and his successful management of 
!he famous Lemmon Slave case gave him great reputation. At the breaking out of the lato 



7 ''.'■> 



TIIK NATION, 



[1881. 



geiier:il willirignc's.s not to ])i-ejudgo hiiti, but to await, in faith, tho rosult of 
his acts, llo assuinod tin- cli ef magistracy with modesty and an expressed 
rcsohition to do well, llo accomplished his purpose. His administration 
tliroughout was distinguished liy great dignity and prudence in intercourse 
with other nations; by sound judgment and wisdom in the management of 
public affairs at home; l)y jiurity of official conduct in all departments of the 
government, and by abounding national jirosperity and peace. 




The special session of the .Senate called by tlie President, met on October 
loth. Senator Bayard of Delaware was chosen president of that body /)?() tern. 
in place of Mr. Arthui', but was dejiosiHl on tjie Kith, when Senator David 
Davis of Illinois, was elected to that iwsition. Ou March 3, 1883, Davis was 

Civil AVar .\rtliur bocanio tliL> cliief iiiilit«ry Iiolpcr of GoveriKir X[orgaii of New York, who 
made liirii an cllicient war niiiilsler of tho Stale, iiractioally pi.Tformiii>r tho duties of Kiipiiiecr- 
lii-Chiof, Inspcctor-Gt'iieral, and Qnarlonnastor-Gener.il. He hil>ored iiicos.sanlly for the public 
welfare until tho close of the war, when he resumed the praetieo of law. 1-ale in lrt"l, be 
was appointed Collector of the port of New York, and remained in that office until 1S7.S. when 
lie was removed on alle^'cd t'ivil Service jrroundx. To the Fall of ISSO he was elected Vice- 
President of (he I'nited Siate.s, wlien James .V. (iarlield was elected President On the death 
of HMrlicM, in September 1881, Arthur became President, and on the 4tli of March, 1885, be 
retired to private life. 



1S81.1 ARTHOU'S ADMINISTRATION. 761 

succeeded by Senator Kdiininds of Vonnont. The Senate confirmed most of 
the nominations of the rresident for Cabinet ministers,' and adjourned on the 
29th of September, 18S1. 

One of the most important of the Centennial celebrations of events in the 
national liistory of the United Stat(^s — the surrender of Cornwallis at York- 
town, in Virginia — occurred at tliut phice. with imposing ceremonies, on 
October 19, 1881. There was a grand civic, military, and naval display. The 
Chief Magistrate of the United States was present, with liis Cabinet anil many 
Congressmen ; and representatives of the families of Lafayette and of the Baron 
Von Steuben were there as guests of the nation. As an evidence of cordial 
good feeling toward the English people, the British (lag was .saluted, by order 
of the President. 

The trial of Guiteau, the assassin of President Garfield, which was begun 
in November and continued several weeks, was, in all its phases and events, 
one of the most renuirkable in the criminal records of our country. It 
occurred in the District Supreme Court at Washington city. The criminal 
was allowed the utmost latitude in speech and action, and some of the scenes 
were disgraceful. The trial resulted in the conviction of the murderer, and 
he was hanged in June following. 

The first regular session of the Forty-seventh Congress began on December 
5, 1881. The President in his Annual Message, after speaking of the death of 
the late Chief Magistrate and the peaceful relations of the country, expressed 
his agreement with the views of the Secretary of the Tieasury that the coinage 
of silver should be stopped and silver certificates be called in. This tojuc has 
engaged tlie attention of Congress ever since, without any result. He also 
Commended to the consideration and action of Congress the subject of Civil i 
Service Reform, which he favored. He recommended legislation looking to 
tlie suppression of Polygamy in Utah.- He also olTered valuable suggestions 
concerning the civilization of the Indians. The latter most important topic is 
engaging, more and more, the earnest attention of the people of the United 
States. Humanity and State policy both demand earnest efforts to speedily 
solve this important problem. In the making th(! Indian & citizen of the United 
States, endowed with all the privileges of citizenship and bound by all its 
duties, seems to be the most promising of any measure yet proposed. 

From time to time changes have been made in the apportionment of 
population to each representative in Congress, so as to keep the number of 
representatives nearly the same (325). In the first apportionment, in 1792, 
there were given to every 33,000 inhabitants one representative. The appor- 
tionment in 1882, on the basis of the census of 1880, gives to about 137,000 
inhabitants one representative. 

'The nominees confirmotl were F. T. Frelingluiysen, Seeretary of State; IMiarleg .1. Fdlgor, 
Secretary of the Trea.sury; I?oliert T. Lincdlii, Secretary of War; William H. Hunt, Sccrotiiry 
of the Navy; S. J. Kirkwood, Secretary of the Interior. Sworn afterward: T. 0. Howe became 
Postmaster-CJeneral, and Benjamin H. Brewster Attorney-tieueral. There were changes in the 
Cabinet afterwards. 

' See page 503. 



762 Tn i: .\ ation. [1881. 

For some years jealousy of the Chiiiesc on our racific cciast. because tliey 
furnishoil lalior at a cheap rate, caused loud clamoi-s against tliem by a certain 
class of workingnicn. Political demagogues, perceiving in this spirit a power 
wliich tlioy might use for their own benefit, stimulated this clamor to such a 
degree that their partisans in Congress heeded it. Early in 1882 a l)ill was 
introduced for the suppression of ('liinese immigration for the space of twenty 
years. It passed. The President vetoed it, when another Inll was passed, 
limiting the time to ten years, with other modilications. This the President 
approved. An act for the suppi'ession of Polygamy in Ftah, also became a law. 
The long session of the Forty -seventh Congress closed its labors on August 
8th, after sitting 247 days. During the session between 6,000 and 7,000 bills 
had been presented to Congress, but only 2.51 public acts, 2.'5.'i private acts, and 
84 joint resolutions became laws. There were three vetoes. Oi the acts 
passed, comparatively very few assumed the character of national importance. 
Among the most ]u-ominent of the latter were the Anti-Polygamy Act; the 
Anti-Chinese Act; an act for the estalilishment of a tribunal for the adjustment 
of the I'cmainder of the Alabama Claims ' ; for the extension of tlie National 
Bank Charters; for regulating immigration so as to prevent the landing of 
paupers and criminals on our shores; for the improvement of rivei's and 
harbors, and the appointment of Commissioners to negotiate a commercial 
treaty witli Me.xico.'-' This commission soon concluded a treaty which jtrovided 
that the chief agricultural products of Mexico, including leaf tobacco, should 
be admitted to the United States free of duty. Few manufactures were 
included in the free list. The schedule of articles to be admitted free into 
Mexico, from the United States, included over seventy entries, and comprised 
five great classes of manufactures and the chief mineral products. This treaty 
was )-ati(ied in March, 1884. The worst act — the most corrujit, unwise, and 
Anti-American measure of the session, for which both parties were equally 
responsible, was that for the suppression of immigration from China of an 
orderly, sober, and industrious people. 

Corrupt methods connected with the Postal Service, known as the -'Star 
Route System," under which huge frauds were practised, and in wliich an 
incumbent of the General Post OfBce and other persons in oiTicial stations weni 
implicated having been discovered, several of these persons were brought to 
trial at the National Capital. After the exjienditure of several months in judi- 
cial iuvestigation.s, and also an enormous amount of money, the persons charged 
with participation in these frauds escaped punishment, chiefly in consequence 
of the radical defects in our antiquated jury .system, which is often cmly a 
lottery and a farce, in the quest for trutli, and for the administration of justice. 
A commission appointed under the Anti-polygamy Act, made a registry of the 
voters in Utah Territory. The chairman reported in the fall of 1882, that the 

' Sor page 740. 

'' This commission consisted of Ex-Presidont U. S. Grant uiul William H. Trescott. See 
page 740. 



1882.] AI!THUr's a DMIMSTIt ation. 763 

registration was completed, and that 1,000 polyganiists of both sexes had been 
disfranchised. 

Tiie fall elections changed the political complexion of Congress, giving to 
the House of Representatives a Democratic majority of 77. This result was 
largely effected by the disaffection of " independent" Republicans, on account 
of the controlling methods of tlieir party. This disaffection was most conspic- 
uous in the State of New York, where the Democratic candidate lor governor 
was elected by ^dml]st 'JOOjOoo majority. Party ties were only loosened, not 
broken. Two years later, similar disaffection gave the jiresidency of tbe 
United States to the Democratic nominee. 

In 1882, the two hundredth anniversary of the landing cf William Penn in 
America was celebrated in a peculiar and imposing manner at Philadelphia. 
Penn. one of the founders of the Society of Friend.?, or Quakers, was eminently 
a man of peace, yet the grandest display on the occasion referred to consisted 
of military and naval manoeuvres. 

The final session of the Forty-Seventh Congress began on Dec. 4, 1882. 
The President, in his annual message, made prominent the topics of civil ser. 
vice reform and i-evenue reform, which held a prominent place in the public 
mind during the whole of this administration. Mr. Pendleton of Ohio had 
introduced into the Senate a Civil Service Act, in accordance with the convic- 
tions of leading men in the nation. The subject had commanded wid(> atten- 
tion. Mr. Pendleton's bill became a law early in January, 1883. and commis- 
sioners appointed under it have put into operation measures which jiroinise to 
secure a radical pii^^fication of the civil service.' An act was also passed for- 
bidd ng assessments of office-holders for political purposes: and the Unified 
States Supreme Court, by a decision made public in December, 1882, put on 
record its condemnation of such assessments. 

During the month of February (1883), very destructive floods occurred in 
the Ohio and Mississippi valleys, causing the destruction of human lives and a 
vast amount of propert}'. These calamities were repeated liy a more destruc- 
tive flood in the same montii in 1884. On each occasion Congress made liberal 
appiopriatioiis for the relief of the sufferers; and the people all over the 
country gave generously for the same purpose. The Forty-Seventh Congress 
expired on the 4th of March, after a session of three months, it had reduced the 
postage on letters weighing one-lialf an ounce from three cents lo two cents, recog- 
nized the essential value of civil service reform, and started a wholesome agita- 
tion all over the country on the subject of revenue reform, or a revision of the 
tariff'. The agitation of the subjet't was set in moti(in by the passage of a tariff 
act, which presented such a curious piece of patchwork that nobody could tell 
precisely what it was intended to effect. Among other important acts of this 
Congress was the adoption, by l)oth houses, of a joint resolution for the ter- 
mination of the treaty with Great Britain relating to fisheries." 



' Tlie commissioners appointed were Dorman B. Eaton of New York, John M. Gregory ot 
Illinois, and L. P. Tlioman of Oliio, with their headquarters at Washington. 
■ Sei' page .'it 1. 



704 THK NATION. [1883. 

The subject of tlie relations between labor and capital which has so long 
occupied the minds of statesmen and philosophers, and the problem involved 
which has been .so long unsolved, had so often, during th5s Congress, appeared 
prominent in debates, that tlie Senate appointed a committee to sit during the 
recess, who should receive testimony concerning the condition of labor in the 
United States and its relations to capital, and report a method for solving the 
impiii'tant problem. That committee sat in New York early in the fall, but its 
labors achieved no important result. The problem remains unsolved. Trades 
unions arc in active existence. Antagonism between labor and cajiital are as 
ripe as ever, and "strikes" abound. 

One of the greatest achievements in engineering skill on record was accom- 
plished in the United States in the spring of 1883, in the completion of a giant 
iron suspension bridge over the East river, between the cities of New York 
and Brooklyn. It was opened to public travel on the 24th of May witli the 
most imposing ceremonies. President Arthur and Governor Cleveland of New 
York, with many other distinguished persons, were present on that occasion. 
That bridge effectually joins the two cities by a magnificent highway susjiendcd 
in the air, and nuiy lead to a mimicipal union. Another great achievement of 
engineering skill was accomplished by the completing of the Northern Pacific 
railroad on August '22d, by joining the two ends in the Territory of Montana 
A golden spike was driven at the completion. This work is of national 
importance, like that of the Union Pacific railway.' 

An important centennial of the old War for Independence, namely, the dis- 
banding of the Cimtincutal army in 1788, was celebrated at Newburgh and its 
vicinity in 1883. The time of this disbandment was in June, 1783, and the 
operation went on chielly at New Windsor, not far from Newburgh. There a 
centennial celeltration was properly held in June, 1883; but with strange inap- 
propriateness, it was also held at Newburgh on the 18th of October, a day having 
110 historical significance. On that occasion, the principal speakers were T. F. 
Bayard of Di^laware and Win. M. Evarts of New York. Congress made an 
appropriation for a monument to be erected at Newburgh in commemoration 
of the disbanding of the Continental army. Intimately connected with this 
event was the evacuation of the city of New York liy the British troops on 
November 2.3, 1783." Tl;e centennial of that event was celebrated in an appro- 
priate manner by the citizens of New York. On that occasion a colossal bronze 
statue of Washington was unveiled. It occupies a jiosition in front of the 
United States Sub-Treasury, nearly over the spot where, on the balcony of the 
old Federal Hall, he was inaugurated the first president of the Republic. 

The first session of the Forty-Eighth Congress began on December 3, 1883, 
when John G. Carlisle of Kentucky was elected Speaker of the House of Rep- 
resentatives. Among other recommendations of the President's annual mes- 
sage was that some kind of civil government should be given to the people of 
Alaska, and the repeal of the act conferring upon the people of Utah territorial 

' See pages 737 and 738. ' See page 360. 



1883.] ARTHUR"8 A))iMiNlSTi; atkin. 765 

power, and "the assumption by Congre.s of the entire political control of the 
territory, and the establishment, of a conunission with such powers anddatiea 
as shall be delegated to it by law."' Senator Edmunds was re-elected President 
■pro tern, of the Senate. 

At the beginning of 1884, it was found that the government was embarrassed 
by riches. It was receiving annually from $75,000,000 to §150,000,000 from 
ta.xes levied on the people more than it needed for current expenditures. The 
question arose, '' What shall be done to decrease the receipts or dispose of the 
surplus?" b'liur plans were proposed in Congress. One, put forth by a 
prominent extreme protectionist, was to abolisli the tax on whisky and tobacco, 
and leave the tax on foreign importations unclianged: that is, let the citizen 
have his whisky and tobacco free, but tax his necessaries of life! The Repub- 
licans of Pennsylvania proposed to continue the taxes, and divide the surplus 
between the States; and a third proposition was to divide the whisky and 
tobacco tax, amounting to alwut $86,000,000 a year, among the States. 
Another projiosition was subsequently made to expend the surplus revenue for 
the purpose of reviving the shipping and export trade by allowing a rebate 
from tariff duties on foreign goods imported in ships built and owned in the 
United States, and by also allowing a premium on American-grown products 
and articles of American manufacture exported in American vessels. Nothing 
has been done excepting a partial modification of the tariff, and the govern- 
ment still suffers from an cmbarrasment of riches. 

The Mormon problem received early and earnest attention by this congress. 
The Governor of Utah (Murray), in his annual message, made a vigorous state- 
ment of the abounding evils of polygamy, and a forcible appeal to the people 
of the United States to grasp these evils heroically and eradicate them. He 
made wise suggestions concerning laws to this end wliich should touch with 
power vital points in the marriage relation so as to make polygamy a positive 
crime and a social shame. Action was taken by Congress, and measures have 
been put in operation under the provisions of the Edmunds bill; and, at the 
close of Arthur's administration, this fearful fabric of social evil, which has 
been growing in strength for almost half a centiu'y, seemed tottering to its fall. 
The conviction and imprisonment of persistent jjolygamists, and a wholesome 
dread of like treatment have thoroughly alai-med other polygamists, and in 
February, 1885, the President of the Mormon hierarchy, his two counselors, 
the "president of the Twelve Apostles," and other leading violators of the 
Edmunds law, withdrew from the Mormon capital to "parts unknown." ' 

' Joseph Cook, who has recently visited Utah, and made a thorouirh investigation of the sub- 
ject, in a lecture in Bo.ston, on Feb. 2, 1885, declared that "tlie Mormon ciiicer is now at least 
1,000 miles bro.id," extending its vile and destructive growth into Montana, Idaho, Oregon, 
California, Arizona, and New Mexico. He predicts that if it be allowed to grow unchecked for 
another twenty-five years, it will have a controlling power in the politics of all the States west 
of the Rocky Mountains, excepting California and Oregon. This is the conviction of all lho\ight- 
ful men who have studied the subject. The public mind everywhere seems alive to the perds of 
further tolerance of the evil, and the press, the pulpit, and legislators are calling loudly for the 
employment of vigorous measures to eradicate it. 



7f>t) Tin: NATION. [18ft4. 

Earnest efforts ior the suppression of Mnotlier fjigantic and djingerous social 
evil — lntcnii)erance — have been made for several years, anil witli marked 
success, especially within tlie last decade. These efforts have assumed variouK 
forms, and tlio iinestion How sliall this terrible monstor of destruction to lile 
and morals be subdued ? is yet an unsolved problem. 

The following statement of the extent of the abominable liquor trallic in the 
TTniled States, for one year — the expenditures for into.xieatinj; drinks as com- 
paretl with those of various other of the largest items of e.\p:^ndi lures, based 
on the Census report of l!S.S(), and other authorities — will give an idea of the 
frightful character of this evil: 

For Christian Missions, .... $."), 01)0,000 

For Public Education, .... .S.'i.OOO.OOO 

For Sugar and Mohisses, .... l.').'),on(l,000 

For Boots and Shoes, ..... 1!)6,000.000 

For Cotton Goods, ..... 210,000,000 

For Sawed Lumber, - . . . . 2:!;i,0(i0,o00 

For Woolen Goods, ..... 237,000,000 

For Iron and Steel, ..... 290,000,000 

For Meat, ...... :{()3,000.000 

For Bread, ...... ,505,000,000 

For Liquor. ...... itOO.OOO.OOO 

It will bo observed by reference to the above statement, that the people of 
the United States pay, every year, more than a< much for intoxicating drinks a.s 
for their bread and meat; a sum equal to one-half of the amoiuit of the public 
debt at the close of L'<a4! 

In the spring of 18S4, an act was introduced into Congress ai)i)ropriating the 
sum of 877,000,000 to be distributed ainong the States and Territories of the 
llcpublic. in proportion to their illiteracy, on the bases of the Census of 1880, 
the payments of the money to extend over a series of eight yeare. In this 
distribution the late slave-labor States would receive nearly $60,000,000 of tbo 
$77,000,000. Diiriiig this session a Bureau of Navigation was authorized. 
Also the siun of $1,000,000 was appropriated for promoting an exhibition of 
industries at Now Orleans. The "iron-clad oath," so called — a test oath 
required of all persons before assiuning the functions of any public office, civil 
or military, who might be suspected of having been engaged in rebellion 
against the government, was repealed. 

Tu the presidential campaign during the summer and atimmn of 1884, there 
were candidates in the field of four contesting parties. These contestants were 
the Republican, Democratic, Greenback,' and Prohibition parties. The national 
conventions of these parties, for the nominations of a candidate for President 
of the Republic, were held in May, June, and July. 

The Greenback convention met at Indianapolis, Indiana, on the 2yth of May, 

'Soinllod by the advocacy of a more extended papor currency. The paper money of tha 
Uniteii'States lias llie devices and lettering on the back, printed in green ink. See jiago 752. 



I 



1884.] AUTHLMi's ADMI NISTi: ATION . 767 

and nominated 15enjamin F. Butlei-, then Governor ol Massacliusetts, fur Presi- 
dent, and A. M. West of Mississippi, for \'ice-Fresident. Ttie Kepublican 
national convention assembled at Chicago, on Tuesday, June 3d, and on the 
evening of Thursday, the names of James G. Blaine, Chester A. Arthur, 
George F. Edmunds, John A. Logan, John Sherman. Joseph R. Hawley, 
Robert T. Lincoln, and W. T. Sherman, were presented for nomination. The 
balloting began on Friday, 819 delegates present, 410 votes being necessary to a 
choice. On the fourth ballot, James G. Blaine of Maine, received .541 votes — 
a majority of 132 — when it was voted that his nomination should be considered 
unanimous^ John A. Logan of Illinois, was nominated for Vice-President. 

The Democratic national convention met in Chicago, on Tuesday, July 8th. 
The following names were presented for the nomination for President of the 
United States ; Thomas F. Bayard, Joseph E. McDonald, John G. Carlisle, 
Grover Cleveland, Allen G. Thurman, Samuel J. Randall, and George Hoadley. 
On Friday evening, Grover Cleveland of New York, was nominated at the 
second ballot. There were 820 votes cast, of which Cleveland received G84, or 
137 majority, Thomas A. Hendricks of Indiana, was nominated for Vice- 
President, 

The Prohibition national convention met at Pittsburgh, Pa., on July 23d, 
and nominated John P, St. John, Ex-Governor of Kansas, for President, and 
William Daniel of Maryland, for Vice-President. 

The presidential canvass during the summer and autumn of 1884, was a 
very exciting one. It was largely personal in its chaj-acter, no question of great 
national importance being at issue between the two larger parties. Opposition 
to the nomination of the Republican candidate appeared very strong in the 
convention; and after the nomination, " Independent Republicans" anxious for 
reform in the civil service, partially organized in opposition to the candidate, 
declaring by resolutions that the nomination had '■ been made in absolute dis- 
regard of the reform sentiment of the nation," and that it was their " convic- 
tion that the country would be better served by opposing the nomination than 
by supporting it." This disaffection permeated the Republican party throughout 
the country and many leading Republican newspapers gave their support to the 
opposition. At the election in November, a vast number of Republicans either 
refused to vote for the nominee of the party or voted for the Democratic 
candidate, who was fairly pledged to the support of measures for a reform of 
the civil service. The Prohibition party, whose chief object is to obtain a 
national law forbidding the manufacture, importation, and sale of intoxicating 
liquors, as a beverage, polled a large vote. A greater portion of these voters 
were members of the Republican party. The action of the Independents and 
the Prohibitionists at the election, caused the defeat of the Republican candi- 
date, and the election to the Presidency of the United States, of Grover Cleve- 
land of New York. 

It was at about the beginning of the presidential canvass that the public 
mind was deeply stirred by the arrival at St, Johns, Newfoundland, of the two 



71j8 thk nation. 11884. 

vessels, Thetis and Bear, wbidi had been sent to the Polar regions to allord 
relief to a seientilic party under Lieutenant Greeley of the U. S. Navy. This 
oflicer had been sent by his government to establish a post for scientific observa- 
tions at a high latitude. Some of his party reached latitude 8:!" 24', in IHS.'i — 
the highest ever attained. Failing to receive e.xpected supplies, in the autumn 
of 1883. Lieutenant Greeley established a permanent camp near Cape Sabine, 
West Greeidand, in Smith's Sound. At the beginning of 1884, his party were 
all in good health, but were soon compelled to subsist on sht)rt rations. 
Supplies failing to arrive, starvation began. The last n'gular issue of pro- 
visions was on May 8tli. When, on the 2 2d of June, they were discovered by 
the relief vessels, seventeen of the whole party of twenty-five, had perished. 
The bodies of twelve of these men were recovered and brought to the United 
States, together with Lieutenant Gn^eley and the other survivors. They 
reached Newfoundland on the 17th of Jtdy, and won; taken thence to Ports- 
mouth, N. H., where they were received with great demonstrations of joy. 
The public heart was deeply stirred by the recital of their tales of suffering. 
For the relief of these men the British government generously gave a steam- 
ship (the Alert) to the United States. 

A fearful disaster to another American narty in polar water.«, had recently 
occurred. The steamship Jcuimellc had teen sent to the Ai-ctic regions by the 
cooperation of the United States government and James G. Bennett, proprietor 
of the Nciv York Herald. She was commanded by Captain James H. DeLong 
of the United States navy. The vessel was not heai-d of for about two yeai"s. 
In the spring of 1882, tidings came by telegraph from tlie coast of Siberia, 
that survivors of the lost ship's company were being aided by friendly Russians. 
Captain DeLong and his men had been compelled to leave the ship in a sinking 
condition, and with three small boats traverse the immense ice-fields to the 
open sea. Two boats lauded on the uninhabited coast of Siberia. One boat- 
load was swamped in a gale. When the Captain landed, with his records and 
instruments, thirteen of the Jeannette's crew were with him. The brave young 
Captain and nearly all of these men perished from starvation, and were found 
half buried in the snow by a searching party under Engineer Melville, who 
had been saved in another boat. Two of DeLong's party had been sent 
forward in quest of help, and were saved. All of Captain DcLong's papers 
were secured. 

The French people, chiefly in commemoration of the (Mnancipation of the 
slaves in the United States, presented to the Americans an immensely colossal 
statue of "Liberty Enlightening the World." It is made of beaten copper, 
by the eminent sculptor Bartholdi, and is to be erected on Bedloe's Islan<l in 
the harbor of New York, where it is to serve the purpose of a lighthouse, with 
an enormoxis electric light, and to be maintained at the expense of the national 
government. The corner stone of the pedestal of the statue was laid in 
August, 1884, with Masonic and other ceremonies. The height of the statue 
is about 150 feet, and that of the pedestal is about the same. New York had 



1884.) ARTHUR'S ADMINISTRATION. 769 

already Lecome the repository of anotiier gilt to Americans from the old- 
world. It is one of the ancient obelisks covered with hieroglyphic inscriptions, 
which had stood for centuries at Cairo, in Egypt. It was presented by the 
Khi5dive or ruler of the "land of the Pharaohs." This obelisk was re-erected 
on the crest of gently-rising ground in Central Park, near the Metropolitan 
Museum of Art. 

We have seen that, in 1880, M. de Lesseps, an eminent French engineer, 
had perfected a plan for the construction a ship canal across the Isthmus of 
Panama, and that President Hayes, in a message to Congress on the subject, 
declared that it was the duty of the United States to assume and maintain 
such supervision over any inter-oceanic canal, in that region, as will protect our 
national interests.' M. de Lesseps' plan was soon put into practical operation, 
and work on the canal has been carried on with much vigor. It is to be com. 
pleted in 1888. Our Government has not since hinted that it will exercise the 
sjairit or letter of the Monroe doctrine.- Meanwhile, two projects which would 
compete with that of M. de Lesseps, have been nearly perfected, namely, an 
inter-oceanic marine railway, proposed by Captain Eads, an eminent American 
engineer, and a ship canal across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, from Lake 
Nicaragua to the Pacific Ocean, to be constructed liy the United States Gov- 
ernment. In furtherance of the latter project, a treaty was negotiated at 
Washington, between the United States and the Ee])ublic of Nicaragua, on 
November 28, 1884, which provided that the former power should con.struct 
the canal, and that the latter should grant the right of way witii a strip of 
territory alwut three miles wide on each side of the canal, as a neutral domain, 
over which Nicaragua should maintain civil jurisdiction.^ The treaty was 
published, its provisions were discussed by the people, and the Senate failed to 
ratify it. 

In the same month (November) a treaty was concluded by representatives of 
the United States and Spain, providing for commercial reciprocity between our 
Republic and the Islands of Cuba and Porto Rico. Before this treaty had 
fair)y reached the hands of the President of the United States, it was published 
in the New York Daily Times, the proprietors of that journal having obtained 
a copy of it from Madrid by telegraph. This innovation of an established rule 
to conceal the provisions of a treaty from the people until it has been ratified 
by the President, with the consent of the Senate, after discussing it in secret 



' See page 152. -Sec Note 5, pa<;e 44S. 

^The treaty also provided tliat tlie two governments should be joint owners of the can.il, and 
that one-third of the revenues arising from it sliould belong to Nicaragua, and two-thirds to tlie 
United States. Also that there should be perpetual alliance between the two governments, and 
that the United States should protect the integrity of the territory of Nicaragua. It was also 
provided that tlie United Slates should loan .'r;4,nol),000 to the Republic of Nicaragua, and thai 
the treaty when ratified by the respective governments, each sliould exercise proper legislation 
to carry it uito effect. It was provided that a railway and telegraph line might be constructed 
and operated by the United States along the canal and the southern sliore of Lake Nicaraeua. 
The lake, 120 miles long, was to constitute a part of tlie canal. The canal proper would be 
about 60 miles long, between the Port of Greytown on the Atlantic side of the isthmus, and tlio 
Port, of Breto on the Pacific side. These ports were to be granted to the United States. The 
estimated cost of the work is $100,000,000. 



""?>* Ill i: N A 11 ON. 1 !«»•-. 

.sfssiiiiis, pniiluci'd niiicli CDiiiiiuMil. Tlio prcviiiliii)^ opinion twenunl to 1h' thiit 
tiio uiiiforin rule, Intliorto, of Uisiuissing the provisions-; of a truiity by tlic Senate 
only, with clost'd doors, might wisely be abandoned. So widely dilTcrent were 
the pulilic expiessioMs of o])iiiion concerning the treiity that the Senate paused. 

'I'he Second Session of the Forty-Eighth t ongress begun on the 1st of 
DeconduT, issi. The Tresidcnt, in his wwund message, alluded to the Si>an- 
ish treaty, and also to a treaty for a similar purpose which had boon coix'luded 
with tiie l>oininican Government, lh^ called the attention of Congress to t\w 
consideration of the condition of, and the means for, securing our foreign trade, 
which ho regarded as '-one of the gravest of the problems which a]>i)eal to 
the wisdom of Congress." He rc^ferred to the salutary labors of the Utah 
Commi.ssions, and again recommended that Congress should a.ssume absolute 
political control of the territory. Ho also referred with satisfaction to the 
labors of the Civil Service Reform Commissioners and their report, saying : 
"The system ims fidly answered tlie expectations of its friends in .securing 
competent and faithful public servants.'' The Report of the Secretary of the 
Treasury showed the necessity of some wise legislation in behalf of our shipping 
interest. "Of the combined exports and imports of merchandise " during tlie 
fiscal year 1881, he said, "about seventeen and oiie-hidf p(>r cent, was conveyed 
in .\nierican vessels, and about eighty-two and one-half per cent, in foreign 
vessels." 

A "World's l''air"was opened at New ( •rleaiis on the llltii of lierember 
(1H84), ill the ])rosence of at least .">(i,OliO iicople. The preparations of every 
kind for tliis international exiiibilion of industries had cost about $;!,(iO(),000. 
The buildings cover an aggregate of more llian lifty acres. Tlie Hi'V. Dr. 
Talmage, of llioi.klyii, N. ^'., odered liii- opeiiiiig pra\er, after wiiiili Majoi 
Hiirke, the (JeiuM-al Director ot' tin- K.\|>osilioii, addressed the niuhitiidc. Presi- 
dent Arthur had been invited to o|ien tlie Exhibition in person, but as that 
wa.s impracticable, it was done by him through the aid of the telegrapii. He 
was addressed, through Ihe telegraph, by the President of the Exposition, 
Colonel Richard.son (the most extensive cotton iiianter in the world), to which 
the President of the Republic responded through the same medium. As he 
closed his reply, the President declared the Exhibition to be open, and then 
tou(-hiiig a button of tlie electrical instrument, the great Corliss Engine of 600 
hoi-se-power, at New Orleans, a thousand miles away, was set in motion in ten 
seconds, and by it the vast series of nnichinery in the Exposition. Tiiis per- 
formance at the National Capitol was in the East Room of the presidential 
mansion, in the presence of many wondering and delighted spectators. This 
Exposition will undoubtedly be instrumental in greatly promoting a more 
fraternal feeling among all the citizens of the Republic — a true national har- 
mony — and perhaps tlie unilientioii of North and South America. 

In the year 1818 the corner-stone of a ci>iossal obelisk composed of blocks of 
white luarblo, to be erected at Washington City in honor of General tieorgtj 
■Washiugton, was laid, 'i'he cap stone of the ctmipleted obelisk was set, on tho 



iay4.] A IMII 1' It's ADMINISTK ATION . 771 

Gth of Deceiiibor, 188-1, and llic iqicx oT iiluiniiiuiii was placed upon il. This 
was done under tlie diivclkin ol' ('(iloiicl Tlionias l.iiicniii ('as<'y, the Uuvcrn- 
int'Mt Engineer in cliarji;('. Then tlir Anii'i-ican Ihi^- was unriirli'd t)Vi)i' it, and 
!i salute of twenty one cannons was lir((d. The oliclisk is ^)[i5 fi^cl in li<Mf;lil, 
aixivi' the grouinl. Among tiic few persons pi-csmt at the setting of the cap- 
stone was one of the niaslci'-incchanics who assislivl al I he laying of tlie corner- 
stone!, more than thirty -six years before, and the walcinnaii of the nioiiunient, 
who had been on duty tlun-e during nearly the whole of that pej'iod. TIk^ 
obelisk was dedicated, with imposing eereinoiiies, im Ihe Li'id of l<'ei)ruary. 1885. 
The chosen orator on that occasion was tlii^ Hon. K. ('. \\'inlhro|i, who per- 
formed the sam(! service at the laying of the corner-stone. 

The danger to the peace of the count I'v l,o be .•ipprehenilcil I'linii I hi' |)i-esent 
constitutional jjrovision for cotinting the electoral votes foi- {'resident of the 
Uniteil States in the presence of the two liouscs of t'ongress, was made .so 
conspicuous in 187i)-T7, that much anxiety has since been nuinifesled for the 
a|>plicatiou of a safe I'emedy. Efforts to that end liave been made fi'oui tijue 
to time. A bill foi- that purpose was adopted by the Senate, at the ses.sioii of 
188.'i-84, but the House of Representatives have steadily refused to act upon 
the nieasunis." It is a national disgrace that tlu! country has been left (Mght 
years expos(Ml to this peril. 

The administration of I'nvsideut Arthur closed on the -Itli of March, 188"). 
It had been peaceful, honcirable, and surc(!.ssful. He left his country, as lu; 
found it, at peace with all the world and I'espected by every civilized nation. 
Taxes had been reduced, and the national debt, which amoiuited, in '-..iind 
numbers, to $'2, 80(1, 000, 11(10 on the 1st of Januai'V, I8()(;, liad been reduced 
one-half on the 1st of .lanuary. 1885. On leaving the Chair of Stat(!, lu! retired 
to private life, ami was succeeiled by (iiMver ('leveland,' who was inaugurated 



' Wlicii .St'imlDr lOilnmiids, llie I'ri'sident Jiro /riii. ol' the Seiintc, iimiouiK'i'il llui nwill, el' (lie 
ciiiliit !>!' Ilio olcMtonil Vdtc's to Ihe iispcmblcil Ilon.'^os of ('oii};r('.^.s on l''cl)ni;ir_v II (188.'')), lie 
o;ille(l pulilic .'ilU'iitioii sliai'ijly to tlie prcseiil iilisiird and daiifrenms cundllidii ot tlio law witli 
ivgard l.n the couiitlii;;. by saying: "'I'lio rro.sidoiit of tlic Senate makes this declaralioii only as 
a |)iil)hi' .siaienieiiL in the presence of the two houses of Coiifrre.MS of tlie eimtcnts of tho papers 
opened and read on this oeeasion, and not as possessing any authority in law to declare any legal 
cimelusion whiitevor." 

■tirover Oleveland, a .son of ii Presbyterian elergyninn. ami the lilili of nine children, was 
horn in the par.sonage at Caldwall, N. J., about nine miles from Newark, on March 18, ISH". 
His (iitlirr intended to edueale him l!)r a professional career, but thc'dcalli of the good pasloi 
compelled (irovcr, who was then a lad, to bear a part of tho burden of providing snpporl lor his 
mother and the younger uhildreii. Having, by diligent hibor and study, aciiuired a good I'^nglish 
education, he obtained employnieiit as a book-kee[icr and lussistant teiieher in tho Now York hisli- 
tulion for tho Blind. Ho afterwards started to seek his lortuno in "tho West," but was delained 
by his uncle, ;i great stock raiser near ISutl'alo. ffe soon entered the office of a leading law linn 
in liulValo, as a student, and in duo time was admitted to tho bar. In 18G:! ho was appointed 
l''irst Assistant Uislricl Attorney of Krio County, and .soon became widely known as ii good 
lawyer. In 1871, he was elected ShorilV of tlioCounty, aiul successfully purged the ollicc of 
inueh corruption. The best cili/.ens of l)olli parties nominated anil sup|i'ortcd him for the ollicc 
of Mayor of Bufl'ulo, and he was elcclcil by a very largo majority. His fame as a relbrmer went 
abroad. In 1882, there was ninch disall'ection in the Republican party (if the State of New- 
York. The nemnorats nominated Mr. (.leveland lor (lovernor, A large number of Hepnbhc.-ins 
voted for him, while many others abstained from voting, and he was elected by a majority of 
nea-lv 2()(l,()(10. A .similar disatreetion in thu Republican parly eaii.sod his election to the presi- 
dency of the t'nited States in ISS'l. 



772 Tin: nation. |1W5. 

Prosiileiit oi tlio I'liitcii .StiiU's on llie siiiiie day, Clue l-.liisl ice Waito ndmiiiis- 
teriiifj; the oath ol' ollice. 

Within hair an liour botorc the exjiiration of Iho Foity.(.'i'j;hth Coiigrcss, on 
March -Ith, tlio House of licprosciitativcs passed the .Senate iiill authorizing the 
['resident of the United States lo plaee one man on the retired list of the 
Army, with the rank and full i>ay oi General, for life. The hill was imme- 
diately !~igiied by tlie I'residenl, when ho sent a message to the t^enate, to be 
read in open Session, accompanied by tlio nomination of Ulysses S. Grant for 
the position named. It was eonsiiiercHl in open Session, and the nomination 
was eonlii'Mied liy a uiianiiiunis vote. This was the last ael of the Forty-eighth 
Congress, jieiiornicd tour uiinutcs liel'ore its demise, and the last ollicial act of 
Pre.sident Arthur. Tho Congress then adjourned, miic dii. 

Immediately alter this event, (irovi'r Cleveland was inaugurated Tresident of 
the United Stales, in the presenee of 10, (Mill or .J0,000 citizens. The air was 
warm and the sky was almost cloudless, ['resident Cleveland's inaugural 
wius short, lie urged all eitizens to lay aside all partisan auimositie.s and give 
tho common government cordial support; favored a close ai)plioation of tho 
Monroe Doctrine to Foreign Relations; urged strict economy in Domestic 
Affairs; favored the exclusion of foreign jiauper laboi', the suppression of Mor- 
mon polygamy, the protection of tho Indians and their elevation to citizenship, 
and the maintenance of the rights of citizenship for the freed men. Ho 
demanded the aiij^lication of Civil Service Keform in all Departments, and in 
all governmentid niattiu's. 

President Arthur having summoned an e.xtraordiiuiry session of the Senate, 
on tho 5th of March, it convened, received tho nominations for membei-s of the 
President's Cabinet, and tho ne.\t day, Friday, March (ith, they were all 
ccrifirmed." 



' Tlic following natnod pontlemcn constituted President Cleveland's Cabinet: Thomas F. 
Bayard of I'elaware, Soerotury of Stall-: liaiiii-1 MaMninir of New Yorl<, Sceretarv of the 
Treasury; William C. Kndieott of Mass!H'liii.>ietls, Sei'ri-l;irv of War; William ('. Wliiiney of New 
■York, Secretary ol the Navy ; L, Q. C. Liimar of Mississippi. Seoretary of llio Interior; William K 
ViiBS of Wisoousiu, Postniaster-Genorul; Augustus U. (iaiiaiid of Arkansas, Attomey-lioueraL 




■'y 



^rk. 



-^^rt^^ii. 



''•g' inHsitcirr 



I 



8UPPIEMEHT* 



ABTIOLES OF OONFEDEBATION. 

80 mrif M Joljr, 1776, Doctor FnokUo labmlttad to th« oonalderatioD of CongnM • ikatA 
of AitlolM of Confederation between the ooloniee, ' limiting the duration of their vitality to tk« 
time when reconoUistion with Qreat Britain should take plaoe; or, in the arent of the (kilure of 
that desirable result, to be perpetual. At that time, Congreu leemed to have no fixed plani for 
the future— the teeming present, with all Ita vast and novel oonoems, engroued their whole 
attention — and Dr. Franklin'i plan aeemi not to have been dieoueeed at all in the National Counoih 
But when a Declaration of Independence was proposed, that idea alone suggested the neoeesit/ 
of a confederation of the States to carry forward the work to a successful consummation. Con- 
gress, therefore, on the 11th of Jnns, 1776, resolved that a committee should be appointed to 
prepare, and properly digest, a form of confederation to bs entered into by the several Statos. 
The oommlttee appointed under the resolution consisted of one delegate from each state.* John 
Dickenson, of Pennsylvania, was chosen chairman, and through him the committee reported a 
draft of Articles of Confederation on the 12th of July. Almost daily debates npou the subject 
•nsned until the 80th of August, when the report was laid aside, and was not taken up again for 
oonsideration until the 8th of April, 1777. In the meanwhile, several of the States had adopted 
Constitutions for their respective government, and Congress was practically acknowledged the 
■npreme head In all matters appertaining to the war, public finances, &o. It emitted bills of 
credit, or paper money, appointed foreign ministers, and opened negotiations with foreign govern- 
ments. 

From the 8th of April nntll the 15th of November fbllowing, the subject was debated two or 
three Umes a week, and several amendments were made. As the confederation might be a per- 
manent bond of union, of course local interests were considered prospectively. If the union had 
bseo designed to be temporary, to meet the exigencies arising from the state of war in which the 
ooloniea theo were, local questions could hardly have had weight enough to have elicited debate ; 
but such was not the case, and of course the sagacious men who were then in Congress looked 
beyond the present, and endeavored to legislate accordingly. From the 7th of October until the 
16th of November, the debates npon it were almost daily, and the confiiotiug interests of the sev- 
eral States were strongly brought into view by the different speakers. On that day the following 
draft, containing all of the amendments, was laid befors Congress, and after a spirited debate 
was adopted : — 

Abticlk 1. The style of this confederacy shall be, "The United States of America." 

1 Fuse 267. 

2. The committee oonslited of Menn. Bartlett, Sunnel Adams, Hopkins, 61ieni>4n R B LiTin"i"on 
Ulolieiuao. MoXean, Stoat, Nelson BewM, Bdwud Botlsdge, and QwloBett, 



jj SUPPLE M KNT. 

Article 2. Each State retains its soTcrcignty, I'roedom, and inilependenec, and every power, 
jurisdiction, and riglit, which is not by this confederation expressly delegated to tlie United States 
in Congress assembled. 

Article 3. The said States hereby severally enter into a firm league of friendship with each 
other for their common defense, tlio security of their liberties, and their mutual and general wel- 
fare ; binding themselves to assist each other against all force offered to, or attacks made ujioii 
them, or any of them, on account of religion, sovereignty, trade, or any other pretense whatever. 

Article 4. The better to secure and perpetuate mutual friendsliip and intercourse among tho 
people of tlio different States in tliis Union, the free inliabitants of each of tliese Stales, paupers, 
vagabonds, and fugitives from justice excepted, shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities 
of free citizens in the several States ; and the people of each State shall have free ingress and 
regress to and from any other State, and shall enjoy therein all the privileges of trade and com- 
merce, subject to the same duties, impositions, and restrictions, as the inhabitants thereof respect- 
ively, provided that such restrictions shall not extend so far as to prevent tlie removal of property 
imported into any State to any other State, of which the owner is an inhabitant ; proTided, also, 
that no imposition, duties, or restriction shall bo laid by any State on the property of the United 
States, or either of them. 

If any person guilty of or charged with treason, felony, or other high misdemeanor, in any 
State, shall flee from justice, and be found in any of the United States, he shall upon demand of 
the Governor or executive power of the State" from whicli he fled, be delivered up and removed 
to the State haviug jurisdiction of his otTense. 

Full faith and credit shall be given in each of these States to the records, acts, and judicial 
proceedings of the courts and magistrates of ever_v other State. 

Article 5. For the more convenient management of the general interests of the United States, 
delegates shall bo aniuially appointed in such manner as the Legislature of each State shall direct, 
to meet in Congress on the first Monday in November in every year, with a power reserved to 
each State to recall its delegates, or any of them, at any time within the year, and to send others 
ju their stead for the remainder of the year. 

No State shall be represented in Congress by less than two, nor by more than seven members; 
and no person shall be capable of being a delegate for more than three years in any term of sis 
years ; nor shall any person, being a delegate, bo capable of holding any ofliee under the United 
States, for which ho, or another for his benefit, receives any salary, fees, or emoluments of any 
kind. 

Each State shaU maintain its own delegates in a meeting of tho States, and while they act as 
members of the committee of the States. 

In determining questions in the United States, in Congress assembled, each State shall have 
one vote. 

Freedom of speech and debate in Congress shall not be impeached or questioned in any court 
or place out of Congress; and the members of Congress shall be protected in their persons from 
arrests and inipri?onment.s, during the time of their going to and from, and attendance on Con- 
gress, except for treason, felony, or breach of the peace. 

Article G. No State, without the consent of the United States, in Congress assembled, sliall 
send any embassy to, or receive any embassy from, or enter \ into any conference, agreement, 
alliance, or treaty, witli any king, prince, or State ; nor shall any person holding any office of 
profit or trust under the United Slates, or any of Ihem, accept any present, emolument, office, or 
title of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign State ; nor shall the United State* 
in Congress assembled, or any of them, grant any title of nobility. 

No two or more States shall enter into any treaty, confederation, or alliance whatever between 
them, without the consent of the United States, in Congress assembled, specifying accurately tiio 
purposes for which the same is to be entered into and how long it shall continue. 

No State shall lay any imposts or duties which may interfere wiili any stipulations in treaties 
entered into by the United States, in Congress assembled, with any king, prince, or State, in pur. 
Euanco of any treaties already proposed by Congress to the courts of France and Spain. 

No vessel of war shall bo kept up in time of jieace by any State, except such number only a» 
shall be deemed necessary by tho United States, iu Congress assembled, for the defense of such 
State or its trade ; nor shall any body of forces be kept up by any State in time of peace, except 



ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION. jii 

such number ouly as in the judgmeul of the United States, in Congress assembled, shall bo 
deemed requisito to garrison the forts necessary for tlie defense of such State; but every State 
shall always keep up a well-regulated and disciplined militia, sufficiently armed and acoontcred, 
and shall provide and have constantly ready for use, in public stores, a due number of field-pieces 
and tents, and a proper quantity of arms, amniimilion, and camp equipage. 

No State shall engage hi any war without the consent of the United States in Congress assembled, 
imless such State be actually invaded Ijy enemies, or shall liave received certain advice of a reso- 
lution being formed by some nation of Indians to invade such State, and the danger is so imminent 
as not to- admit of a delay till the United States, in Congress assembled, can be consulted ; nor 
shall any State grant commissions to any ships or vessels of war, nor letters of marque or reprisal, 
except it be after a declaration of war by the United States, in Congress assembled, and then 
only against the kingdom or State, and the subjects thereof, against which war has been so 
declared, and under such regulations as shall bo established by the United States, in Congress 
assembled, unless such State be infested by pirates, in which ease vessels of war may be fitted 
out for that occasion, and kept so long as the danger shall continue, or vmtil the United States, 
in Congress assembled, shall determine otherwise. 

Article 7. When land forces are raised by any State for the common defense, all officers of or 
under the rank of Colonel shall be appointed by the Legislature of each State respectively by 
whom such forces shall be raised, or in such manner as such State shall direct, and all vacancies 
shall be filled up by the State which first made the appointment. 

Article 8. All charges of war, and ali other expenses that shall be incurred for the common 
defense or general welfare, and allowed by the United States in Congress assembled, shall be 
defrayed out of a common treasury, which shall be supplied by the several States in proportion 
to the value of all land within each State granted to or surveyed for any person, as such land and 
the buildings and improvements thereon shall be estimated, accortUng to such mode as the United 
States, in Congress assembled, shall from time to time direct and appoint. 

The taxes for paying that proportion shall be paid and levied by the authority and direction 
of the Legislatures of the several States, within the time agreed upon by the United States, la 
Congress assembled. 

Article 9. The United States, in Congress assembled, shall have the sole and exclusive right 
and power of determining on peace and war, except in the cases mentioned in the sixth article ; 
of sending and receiving embassadors ; entering into treaties and alliances — pro\'ided that no 
treaty of commerce shall be made whereby the legislative power of the respective States shall bo 
restrained from imposing such imposts and duties on foreigners as their own people are subjected 
to, or from prohibiting exportation or importation of any species of goods or commodities what- 
soever; of establishing rules for deciding in all cases what captures on land or water shall bo 
legal, and in wliat manner prizes taken by land or naval forces in the service of the United States, 
shall be divided or appropriated ; of granting letters of marque and reprisal in times of peace ; ap- 
pointing courts for the trial of piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and establishing 
courts for receiving and determining finally appeals in all cases of captures; provided that no 
member of Congress shall be appointed a judge of any of the said courts. 

The United States, in Congress assembled, shall also bo the last resort, on appeal, in all dis- 
putes and differences now subsisting, or that hereafter may arise between two or more States 
concerning boundary, jurisdiction, or any other cause whatever; which authority shall always bo 
exercised in the manner following: whenever the legislative or executive authority or lawful 
agent of any State in controversy with another shall present a petition to Congress, stating 
the matter in question, and praying for a hearing, notice thereof shall be given by order of 
Congress to the legislative or executive authority of the other State in controversy, and a day 
assigned for the appearance of the parties, by their lawful agents, who shall then be directed to 
appoint, by joint consent, commissioners or judges to constitute a court for hearing and determin- 
ing the matter in question ; but if they can not agree. Congress shall name three persons out of 
each of the United States, .and from the list of such persons each party shall alternately strike 
out one, the petitioners beginning, until the number shall be reduced to thirteen ; and from that 
numl«r not less than seven, nor more than nine names, as Congress shall direct, shall, in tho 
presence of Congress, be drawn out by lot; and the persons whose names shall be so drawn, ov 
any five of them, shall be commissioners or judges, to hear and finally determine tho controversy, 



Iv SUPPLEMENT. 

CO always as a major part of tlie judges, who shall hear the cause, shall agree in the determina- 
lion ; and if either party shall ncKlect to attend at the day appointed, without showing reasons 
which Congress shall judge sufiioient, or, being present, shall refuse to strike, the Congress shall 
proceed to nominate three persons out of each State, and the Secretary of Congress shall strike in 
belialf of such person absent or refusing: and the judgment and sentence of the court, to be 
appointed in the manner before prescribed, shall bo final and conclusive; and if any of the parties 
shall refuse to submit to the authority of such court, or to appear, or to defend their claim or 
csuise. the court shall nevertheless proceed to pronounce sentence or judgment, which shall in 
like manner be final and decisive — the judgment or sentence and other proceedings being in either 
case transmitted to Congress, and lodged among the acts of Congress for the security of the 
parties concerned ; provided that every commissioner, before he sits in judgment, shall take an 
oath, to be administered by one of the judges of the Supreme or Superior Court of the State, 
where the cause shall be tried, " well and truly to hear and determine the matter in question, 
according to the best of his judgment, without favor, affection, or hope of reward ;" provided, also, 
that no State shall be deprived of territory for the benefit of the United States. 

All controversies concerning the private right of soil, claimed under different grants of two or 
more States, whoso jurisdiction as they may respect such lands, and the States which passed 
such grants are adjusted, the said grants or either of them being at the same time claimed to have 
•originated antecedent to svich settlement of jurisdiction, shall, on the petition of either party to 
the Congress of the United States, be finally determined, as near as may be, in the same manner 
as is before prescribed for deciding disputes respecting territorial jurisdiction between different 
States. 

The United States, in Congress assembled, shall also have the sole and exclusive right 
end power of regulating the alloy and value of coin struck by their own authority or by that of 
the respective States ; fixing the standard of weights and measures throughout the United States ; 
regulating the trade and managing all affairs with the Indians not members of any of the States — 
provided that the legislative riglit of any St.ite within its own limits be not infringed or violated; 
establishing and regulating post-ofBces from one State to another throughout all the United 
States, and exacting such postage on the papers passing through the same as may be requisite to 
defray the expenses of the said office ; appointing all officers of the land forces in the service of 
the United States, excepting regimental officers ; appointing all the officers of the naval force*, 
and commissioning all officers whatever in the service of the United States ; making rules for the 
government and regulation of the said land and naval forces, and directing their operations. 

The United States, in Congress assembled, shall have authority to appoint a committee to sit 
in the recess of Congress, to be denominated "a Committee of the States," and to consist of one 
•delegate from each State ; and to appoint such other committees and civil officers as may be 
necessary for managing the general affairs of the United States under their direction ; to appoint 
one of their nimiber to preside, provided that no person be allowed to serve in the office of 
President more than one year in any term of three years ; to ascertain the necessary sums 
of money to be raised for the service of the United States, and to appropriate and apply the 
same for defraying the public expenses ; to borrow money or emit bills on the credit of the 
United States — transmitting every half year to the respective States an account of the sums of 
money so borrowed or emitted ; to build and equip a navy ; to agree upon the number of land 
forces, and to make requisitions from each State for its quota, in proportion to the number of 
■white inhabitants in such State, which requisition shall be binding, and thereupon the Legis- 
lature of each State shall appoint the regimental officers, raise the men, and clothe, arm. and 
eq\n]i them, in a soldier-like manner, at tlie expense of the United States ; and the officers and 
•men so clothed, armed, and e()uipped, shall marcli to the place appointed, and within the time 
agreed on by tlie United States, in Congress assembled ; but if the United States, in Congress 
•assemblei sliall, on consideration of circumstances, judge proper that any State should not raise 
men, or should raise a smaller number than its quota, or that any other State should raise a 
^rroater number of men than the quota thereof, such extra number shall be raised, officered, 
clothed, armed, and equipi^ed, in the same manner as the quota of such State, unless the Legis- 
lature of such State shall judge that such extra number can not be safely spared out of tlio 
same ; in which case they shall raise, officer, clothe, arm, and equip, as many of such extra num- 
ber as they judge can be safely spared. And the officers and men so clothed, armed, and 



ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION. y 

equipped, shall march to the place appointed, and within the time agreed on by the United 
States, in Congress assembled. 

Tlie United Slates, in Congress assembled, shall never engage in a war, nor grant letters ot' 
marque and reprisal in time of peace, nor enter into any treaties or alUanoes, nor coin money, nor 
regulate the value thereof, nor ascertain the sums and expenses necessary for tlie defense and 
welfare of the United States, or any of them, nor emit bills, nor borrow money on tlie credit of 
the United States, nor appropriate money, nor agree upon the number of vessels of war to 
6e built or purchased, or the number of land or sea forces to be raised, nor appoint a commande" 
in-chief of the army or navy, imless nine States assent to the same ; nor shall a question on any 
other point, except for adjourning from day to day, be determined unless by the votes of 
a majority of the United States, in Congress assembled. 

The Congress of the United States shall have power to adjourn to any time within the year, 
and to any place within the United States, so that no period of adjournment be for a longer 
duration than the space of six months; and shall publish the journal of their proceedings 
monthly, except such parts thereof relating to treaties, alliances, or military operations, as 
in their judgment require secresy ; and the yeas and nays of the delegates of each State on any 
question, shall be entered on the journal when it is desired by any delegate ; and the delegates of 
a State or any of them, at his or their request, shall be furnished with a transcript of the said 
journal, except such parts as are above excepted, to lay before the Legislatures of the several 
States. 

Article 10. The committee of the States, or any nine of them, shall be authorized to execute, 
in the recess of Congress, such of the powers of Congress as the United States, in Congress 
assembled, by the consent of nine States, shall from time to time think expedient to vest them 
with; provided that no power be delegated to the said committee, for the exercise of which, by 
the articles of confederation, the voice of nine States, in the Congress of the United States 
assembled, is requisite. 

Article 11. Canada, acceding to this confederation, and joining in the measures of the United 
States, shall be admitted into, and entitled to, all the advantages of this union ; but no other 
colony shall be admitted into the same, unless such admission be agreed to by nine States. 

Article 12. All bUls of credit emitted, moneys borrowed, and debts contracted, by or under 
the authority of Congress, before the assembling of the United States, in pursuance of the present 
confederation, shall be deemed and considered as a charge against the United States, for 
payment and satisfaction whereof the said United States and the pubho faith are hereby BoJemnly 
pledged. 

Article 13. Every State shall abide by the decision of the United States, m Congress 
assembled, on all questions which, by this confederation, are submitted to them. And tha 
articles of this confederation shall be in\dolably observed by every State, and the Union shall be 
perpetual ; nor shall any alteration at any time hereafter be made in any of them, unless such 
alteration be agreed to in a Congress of the United States, and be afterward confirmed by the 
Legislature of every State. 

Congress directed these Articles to be submitted to the Legislatures of the several States, and, 
if approved of by them, they were advised to authorize their delegates to ratify the some 
in Congress, by affixing their names thereto. 

Notwithstanding there was a general feeling that something must be speedily done, the State 
Legislatures were slow to adopt the Articles. In the first place, they did not seem to accord with 
the prevailing sentiments of the people, as set forth in the Declaration of Independence ; and in 
many things that Declaration and the Articles of Confederation were manifestly at variance. Tho 
former was based upon declared right; tho foundation of the latter was asserted power. The 
former was based upon a superintending Providence, and the inalienable rights of man ; the lat- 
ter resting upon the " sovereignty of declared power ; one ascending from the foundation of 
human government, to the laws of nature and of nature's God, written upon the heart of man ; 
tho other resting upon the basis of human institutions, and prescriptive law, and colouial char- 
ters."' Again, the system of representation proposed was highly objectionable, because each 

1. JobD Quificy Adonu's Jubilee DUconne, 1830. 



n 



SUPPLKMEXT. 



State was entitled to the same voice in Congress, whatever might be the difference in populatioa 
But the most objoctionable feature of all was, that the limits of the several States, and also in 
wliom was vested the control or possession of the crown-lauds, was not only unadjusted, but 
wholly unnoticed. These and other defects caused most of the States to hesitate, at first, to 
adopt the Articles, and several of them for a long time utterly refused to accept them. 

On the 22d of June, 1778, Congress proceeded to consider the objections of tlic States to the 
Articles of Confederation, and on the 27th of the same month, a form of ratilication was adopted 
and ordered to bo engrossed upon parchment, with a view that the same should be signed by 
such delegates as were instructed so to do by their respective Legislatures. 

On the 9th of July, the delegates of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecti- 
cut, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and South Carolina signed the Articles. The delegates 
from New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland were not yet empowered to ratify and sign. Georgia 
and North Carolina were not represented, and the ratification of New York was conditioned that 
all the other States should ratify. The delegates from North Carolina signed the Articles on the 
21st of July ; those of Georgia on the 24th of the same month; those of New Jersey, on the 2Glh 
of November; and those of Delaware, on the 22d of February and 5th of May, 1779. Maryland 
Btill firmly refused to ratify, until the question of the conflicting claims of the Union and of the 
separate States to the crown-lands should be fully adjusted. This point was finally settled by 
cessions of claiming States to the United States, of all unsettled and unappropriated lands for the 
benefit of the whole Union. This cession of the crown-lands to the Union originated the Terri- 
torial system, and the erection of the Nortliwestern Territory into a distinct government, 
similar to the existing States, having a local legislature of its own. The insuperable objection 
of Maryland having been removed by the settlement of this question, her delegates signed the 
Articles of Confederation on the first day of March, 1781, four years and four months after they 
were adopted by Congress.' By this act of Maryland, they became the organic law of the Union, 
and on the 2d of March Congress assembled under the new powers. 

]. The followlDKare tb« names of the delegates from the several States appended to the Articles of Confederation:-' 

Jffa Bampihirt, Josiah Bartlett, John WeQtworth, Jr. 

3la»tac\vieai Bay, John flancock, Samuel Adams, Elbridge Gerry, Francis Ohdb, James Lovell, Samuel Holt«n. 

Rhode Itl'ind, William Ellery, Hi-nry Marehaiit. John Collins. 

Conntcticut, Roger Sherman, Samuel Hunllngti>n, Oliver Wolcott, Titos Hosmer, Andrew Adams. 

A'ns !'*"■*, James Duaiie, Francis Lewis, William Duer, Gonveroenr Morria 

fflK Jtr»ry, John Witherspoon, Nathaniel Scudder. 

.Penns^/rniita, Robert Morris, Daniel Roberdeau, Jonathan Bayard Smith, William Clingai, Joseph Rm^ 

2>ila\eare, Thomas McKean, John Dickenson, Nicholas Van Dyke. 

Maryland, John Hnnson, Daniel Carroll. 

riri7inia, Richard Henry Lee. John Bnnister, Thomas Adams, John Harris, Francis LIghtfoot L«e. 

Ji'orth Carvlina, John Peun, Corneliws Harnett, Joho Wllllama 

AouM CarolttM, Hanry Laurens, William Henry Drayton, Jonathan Matthews, Richard Hutaon, Thomas H^^wud, Jk 

Stofgia, John Walton, Edward Telfair, Edward Lougworthy, 



II. 



THE NATIONAL CONSTITUTION.' 




Wb the People of the TTnited States,^ in order to form a more perfect Union^ establish JuBttee, 



1. Id 1863, the writer made a veiy carefol copy of the ConetltctioQ of the IJntte'l Stntaa, from the original la tho StAta Departnieat ftt 
Washington City, together with the autop-aphs of the membera of the Conv.«tioo who alined it In ortho^aphv, capital Utt^re, and puio- 
taatioo, the copy here ^ven may be relied upon as correct, it buviDj^ been eabsequentiy carafully compared with a copy pabliahed by Mt^ 
Hickey, in Ms oseful little volume, entitled 77mi Obrut.'futMM o/c^ UnUtd Stales of ArMriax, etc., and att«gled,OD ihe SOtb of July, IMS, by 
Nicholas P. TriBt, Chief Clerk of the Statfl Departmeot. 

The moat promlneot Amorican writers apoo conslitutional law. ar^ the late jQstlc« Story and Chancellor Kent. Jowph Storj waa born at 
Murbleht-'ad, Massachasetta, ia Strpt«mber, VTT9, and waa educated at Hiirvard University. He studied taw; d&d soon, on enteriDg upon hl« 
prHutice, took a prominent poaitli'U. He wna a membirr of his State Legislalurt;, and uf tba National Coag^aas^and was cbieQy iDstramcDial Ui 
(.'fleeting the repeal of the Embargo Act (pa^e -JOS). He waa only thirty-two yeara of age when PreBidsnt Madiion made him an asaociate of 
th>- Supreme Court of the United Statea. From that time he diaearded poliuca. In commercial and conatitatioBal law be woa pt^rleac HL« 
C'."nffl«n Caries on iht Conatitvtion of Iha United &atfi, publlahed In thre* voloinesi in 1^33, will ever be a standard work, Jud^e Story died at 
Cumbridge, Maasacboaetts, I» September, 1845, at the age of eixty-tiix yeura. Hia own worda, applied to another, may be appropriately aaid 
of him : " Whatever subject he touohsd was touched with a master's hand and spirit. H>.- pmployed his eloquence to adorn his lenrnfng, and 
\i\i learning to give solid weight t>j hia eloquence. He was alwayq inetructiveand interesiing, and rortly without producing an instantane'ud 
convictioD, A lorty itmbitlon of excelle:ice, that stirring spirit vTbii:h braatbiM the breath of Heaven, and paat« f>jr Immortality, du»tain«d bis 
genius In Its perilooa course." 

3. Previous to the Revolution, thisa waru lhre« furini of ^'^Teraitient t:i th« CuLonio, nam«ly Ck*H*', Propri4tary, uid /'r^nciaA I'h* 



-y^ SUPPLEMENT. 

insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote 
Object). the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves 

and our Posterity,' do ordain and estabUsh this Constitution for the 
United States of America, 

ARTICLE I. 

Section 1. All legislative Powers herein granted shall bo vested in a Con- 

LtguUitive Powers, gross of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of 

Representatives.' 

Section 2. The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second 

Year by the People of the several States, and the Electors iu each State 

EouM ofncpreatnU- gi^j^n j ^■^ Q„i,iiflcations requisite for Electors of the most numerous 

Branch (jf the State Legislature.' 

No Person sli;ill he a Representative who shall not have attained to the Age of twenty-five 

Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall 

^""'i^Znkut^'e^.^'^'' uot, when elected, bo an Inhabitant of that State in which ho sliall be 

chosen.* 

Representatives and direct Taxes sliall bo apportioned among the several States which may 

be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, 

Apportionmmtv/Kep- which shall bo determmed by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, 

reatntatioea. including those bound to Sen-ice for a Term of Years, and eicludmg Indians 

not taxed, three-fifths of all other Persons.' The actual Enumeration shall 

be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and 

withiu every subsequent Term of ton Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct. The 

Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Tho\isand; but each State sliall 

have at Least one Representative ; and until such enumeration shall bo made, the State of New 

Hampshire shall be entitled to chuse three, Massachusetts eight, Rhode Island and Providence 

Plantations one, Connecticut five. New York six, New Jersey four, Pennsylvania eight, Delaware 

one, Maryland six, Virginia ten, North Carolina five. South Carolina five, and Georgia three.' 

When vacancies happen in the Representation from any State, the Execu- 
' ^ ' ■ tiYQ Authority thereof shall issue Writs of Election to fill such Vacancies. 
Speaker, how The House of Representatives shall chuse their Speaker and other Offi- 

appointed. cers; and shall have the sole Power of Impeachment. 

Section 3. The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two 
^/nlt'eachSiUle''' Senators from each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof, for six Y'ears; 
and each Senator shall have one Vote.' 



clinrt«r gavi>rniii«nU wuro MauachuaottB, CoDrtuctlcut, and Rhode Hand. Tb«y liad lo^ntr to nmke Ihwi not inccDiiit«Dt with tliot* of En^ 
Und. Tho proprletrtry gov„riiinonl8 were M«ryl»nd. FoQutylvluiia, and Prlawiir*. Their govt-mora were appoinlwl by their projirietoia, and 
ttieso and the j.rupriet'.ra ue.inlly ma.le the laws. Th« proTlnilal were N«w Hampshire, New Y.)rk, New Jertey, Virginia, North Carolina, 
Soath Carolina, And Georgia. In these the goveniur and his council were appointed by the crowo, and theee, with cboien repreaentativea uf 
the people, ntiide the laws. 

The Union U older than the Conitltutlon. It vn» Tormed In tho first Continental Congroea (page S^S), by the representative* of thirteen 
separata hot not Independent nor eoverolgn provlDce*. for they had ever been subject to the Prilish cmwn. Then the inhabitants of thoe* 
colonies were floleuinly leagued at Olio people, and two yeare laUT ^we pafe JSi') thvy dvilared thentSeWea erllcctively Independent of 
Great Britain, and recognlied the supremacy of the Continental Congress as a central government. See Curtli's Bittvry o/l/i* Omtlilulion, L 
2^, 40. The plan of Independent Sta:e goveinuionu then adopted having failed, a national one was fanjie'i, and the trainers of the Constlla- 
Cien, to give enil'hasis to the fact, said in the preamble of the Instrument, " We the pe'>ple of the Unittd STaies," instead of " We the people 
of Macsachusetis, New York," et cetera. So arguad the Supreme Court, See IT'Aea/en'a 3. C. R*porit, t 304. 
I. Six objects, It la seen, wore to be obtained, each having a national breadth of purpuee. 

3. The luembera of the House of Kepreaentatlvea are elected to seats therein f 'r two yenre, and they hold two reguhir aeaalona or sltlinga 
dnring that time. Ra<'ii full term Is Ca1l«d a Congroaa. Sontitora are elected by the State lagialaturea, to aerve for aiz years. 

s. There la a Seuute and Mouse of aepr<>aentatlvea, or Asaembly, In each State. Any poraon qualified to vote for a member of hia Stau 
Assembly, may vote for a meuiber of the National llouau of Hapreaentativea. 

4. A poraon born In a foreign country, may be elected a repreaentative after he baa been for seven years a cltiten of the Lnited Statea, 

5. It llaa beau de>-ided that thia does not restrict the IM>TCer of Impoaing direct titxea, t ■ Statea only. The Congreaa of ttie Onlteil 0Mtea 
baa power to ,lo a-, but only for the purpuae of paying the national deb la and jiroviding f.r the national welfare. Sea Kent's c'oatiaentariea 
on tit Conitita.'ioii, abri.lgcl edition, page 3.^0. Olrect tatee had been laid three tlnivs by the National Congreaa, prvrlous to tho tireal L'lvii 
War that broke out in IbGI, namely, in ITVS \t>\^. and IbU. The ".Hlier persona" here meutloned were alaves. In making the ap[>-<rtlou. 
meut, every five alaves were accounted three pertons. The Thirteenth Amendment of the CoDatltuticD (eee page 766) ivodera this aentence a 
^ad letter. 

L The apportionment la made aa anon aa practicable after each ennmeratlon of the Inbabltanta la comploted. The ratio baaed on the em. 
tm of 1790, was one Repreaentative for every 3:1,000 peraona. Tho ratio according to the cenana of ISM, was one for every 137,S16 peraona. 

7. ThIa givea perf<.it e,)uallty to the States, in one portion of the legislative branch of the Oovemmeot, The email Ctatea of Rhode laland 
said Dolawate have aa touch power la the National Senate aa tlie large ones of New York and Ohio, 



THE NATIONAL CONSTITUTION. jj 

Immediately after they shall be assembled in Consequence of the first Election, they shall be 
iiii'ided as equally as may be into three Classes. The Seats of the Senators 
of the first Class shall be vacated at the Expiration of the Second Year, of Clasnif cation of 
tlie. second Class at the Expiration of the fourth Year, and of the third Class Senatart. 

at the Expiration of the sixth Year, so that one third may be chosen every 
»?cond 3'ear;' and if Tacancies happen by Resignation or otherwise, during the Recess of tho 
legislature of any State, the Executive thereof may make temporary Appointments until the next 
Meeting of the Legislature, which shall then fill such Vacancies. 

No person shall he a Senator who shall not Iiave attained to the age of 
thirty Years, and been nine Years a Citizen of tlie United States," and who Qualification of 
shall not, when elected, be an inhabitant of that State for which he shall be Senators. 

chosen. 

The Vice-President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, „ . . „ 
but shall have no Vote, unless they he equally divided.' the Senate. 

The Senate shall choose their other Officers,' and also a President pro 

tempore, in the absence of the Vice-President, or when he sliall exercise the 

Office of President of the United States. 

The Senate shall have the sole Power to Irv all Impeachments:' When Senate a court for 
. . ^ ' , T, .1 1 ,, 1 ,-.',■ \ ,.o . TTT, trial of impeachments. 

Sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath, or Affirmation. When 

the President of the United States is tried, the Chief-Justice shall preside : 

and no Person shall be convicted witliout the Concurrence of two thirds of the Member* 

present. 

Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to Judgment in case of 
removal from Office, and Disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of 
Honor, Trust, or Profit under the United States : but the party convicted 
shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment, and Punishmeut, accord- 
ing to Law." 

Section 4. The Times, Places, and Manner of holding Elections for Sen- 
ators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legis- Elections of Senators 
lature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such ""■'^ Representatives. 
Regulations, except as to the places of chusing Senators.' 

The Congress shall assemble at least once in every Year, and such 
meeting shall he on the first Monday in December, unless they shall by Law Meeting of Conffreat. 
appoint a different day.' 

Sectio.v 5. Each House shall bo the Judge of the Elections, Returns, and Qualifications of its 
own Members, and a Majority of each shall constitute a quorum to do 
Business ; but a smaller Number may adjourn from day to day, and may Organisation of 
be authorized to compel the Attendance of absent Members, in such man- Congress. 

ner, and under such Penalties as each House may provide. 

Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings, punish its 
Members for disorderly Behaviour, and, with the Concurrence of two thirds^ Rules of proceeding. 
expel a Member. 

Each House shall keep a Journal of its Proceedings, and from time to Journal of Congress. 
time publish the same," excepting such Parts as may in their Judgment 

1. Tbi6 is n wtBc provisioo. It leaves representfitiveB of the people In that branch, at all times, familiar witli tho legielatioa thereof and 
tiierefore more etScient than if an entirely new delegation ehoiild be elioaen at the end of six years. 

3. This was to allow a foreign-born citizen to malie himself familiar with our iuslitutionB, before he should be eligible to a seat in thai 
highest legislative haU. 

3. He ia not a representative of any State. By this arrangemen t, the eqnality of the States is preserved. 

4. Secretary, clerk, sergeant-at-arms, door-keeper, and postmaster. 

5. The Honse of Kepresent-ilives, it will be observed, accuse the alleged offender, and the Senate eouetitutes the conrt wherein hs is tri^d, 

6. This was a modification of the British Constitution, giving greater eiciusive jerisdiction to the National Judiciary. In Great Britaia, 
the Hnnse of Commons accuses, and the House of Lords (answering to our Senate) tries the offender. The latter is also Inveeted with power 
to punish in every form known to the laws, by ordering the infliction of fines, imprisonments, forfeiture of goods, banishment, and death. 

T. This provision was to prevent the mischief that niicht arise at a lime of intense party excitement, when the very existence of th» 
National Congress might be at the mercy of the State Legislatures. The place of choosing the Senators Is where tho State Leglelatare ahall 
be in session at the time. 

S. This secured an annual meeting of tie National Legislature beyond the control of State legislation. The second, or last eeeeion of ever^ 
rongress (note 3, page 366), expires at twelve o'clock at noon nu the 4th of March. 

9. The object is to preserve, for the use of the sovereign people, and make public for their benefit, every act of Cungresa. 



X SUPPLEMENT. 

require Secresy;' and the Teas and Naj-s of tlic Members of cither House on any question shall, 

at the Desire of one tiflth of tliosc Present, bo entered on the Journal.' 

, ^ Neither House, during the Session of Congress, shall, without the Con- 

Adjournment of ^.i,.,^ , , .„ 

Congress. sent of the other, adjourn for more than throe days, nor to any other Place 

tlian that in whicli the two Mouses shall be sitting.' 
Section G. The Senators and Representatives shall receive a Compensation for their Servicse, 
to be ascertained by Law, and paid out of the Treasury of the I'nited States.' 
Compensation and They shall in all cases, except Treason, Felony, and Breach of the Peace, be 
pHvilegee itf members, privileged from .irrest during their Attendance at the Session of their re- 
spective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same ; and for any 
Speech or Debate In either House, they shall not bo questioned in any other place.' 

No Senator or Representative sliall, during the time for which he was elected, be appointed 

to any civil Office under the Autliority of tlio United States, which shall have 

PhiraUty of oMcee been created, or the Emoluments whereof shall have been, increased during 

prohibited. g„(,ij time, ; and no Person holding any ofEce under tlie United States, shall 

he a Member of either House during his Coutmuanco in office.' 

Section 1. All Bills for raising Re%'enue sh.^11 originate in the House of 
Bills, hmc originated. Representatives : but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments 
as on otlier Bills.' 
Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before 
it become a Law, be presented to the President of the United .States: if he 
^""^ ''i"'.^"'^" approve he shall sign it, but if not ho shall return it, Tvith his Objections, to 
that House in whicli it shall have originated, who shall enter the Objections 
at large on their Journal, and proceed to reconsider it." If, after such Reconsideration, two thirds 
of that House shall agree to pass the Bill, it shall bo sent, together with the Objections, to the 
other House, by which it shall likewise be reconsidered, and if approved by two tliirds of that 
House, it shall become a Law. B\it in all such Cases the Votes of both Houses shall be deter- 
mined by Teas and Nays, and the Names of the Persons voting for and against the Bill shall be 
entered on the Journal of each House respectively. If any Bill shall not be returned by the 
President within ten Days (Sunday excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the 
Same shall be a Law, in like Manner as if he had signed it, imless the Congress by their Adjourn- 
ment prevent its Return, in which Case it sliall not be a Law. 

Every Order, Resolution, or Vote to which the Concurrence of the Senate and House of 
Representatives may be necessary (except on a question of adjournment). 
Approval and veto shall bo presented to the President of the United States; and before the 
powers of President, ggnae shall take Effect, shall be approved by him, or being disapproved by 
him, shall be repassed by two thirds of tlie Senate and House of Representa- 
tives, according to the Rules and Limitations prescribed in the Case of a Bill.' 
Section 8. The Congress .sliall liave power — 
I'mcem vented in To lay and collect Ta.xes, Duties, Imposts, and Excises ; to pay the Debts 

Congress. ^j^^ provide for the common Defence and general 'Welfare of the United 

States; but all Duties, Imposts, and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States; '° 

1. Ther« Are occiuloDs when the public ^ood requires secret Ief;!«Utiou, nml n withboldlug ftv-m the people a kaowlei]^ of measurM dli- 
o«iiise<l «nd iidnpled In Congress, lu lu n time of wnr, of insurrection, or of Tory important diplomatic nefEotlatlons. 

3. The object of this is to luak'e a permanent record of the votes of meuibere, 89 that the constituents of each may kaoMr their action on 
tmoortant c] jesllcns. It is A salutary regulation. 

3. This is to prevent n nii^jority, in either House, fVom Intermptinp, for more than throe (lays, the legislation of Congress. 

4. Formerly the members were paid a certaiu amount per day, with n s.'ecified amount for each mile traTolod In going to and retarain^ 
from the National capital. The present compeiisittinn is a 6xed sum for each Congtvss, witli mileage. 

5 This WAS t> prevent the interruptiun of their duties, during the session of Cougross, and to give thom perfect freedom of spoeeh. 

G. This serves as a checii to the Increase of the power of t1)0 executive over the legislative department ef the Govemtnant, by the means 
of appointment to olTlcb It prevents wide-spread political corruption. A {Mraou hoidin; on otSco, when elected to Con^resa, is compelled to 
resign It before ho can take his seat. 

1. The members of the House of Representntlvos are more immediately elected br the people, and are supposed to better understand tha 
wishes and wanle of their constituenu, ti.,ui those cf the Senate. The Senate, being the representatlvo of tlio equality of the Statea, stands 
aa a checit to legislation that might 'mpose too heavy taxation on the smaller States. 

5. This power is given to the President to arrest hasty or uncoostitutiotial legislation, and to operate ns a check on the encroachment on the 
right* and powers of one department over another, by legislation. It is not nbsolnte, aa the context shows, aa it may te set aside by a vnta of 
two thirds of the members < f the Senate and House of Uepresentjttives, who passed it. 

9. This requirement is made that C'ligrcss iiiny not p tit, with the name of order, resolution, or rote, what, as a bill, the Preeldest baa 
already esfoctf, ns his method of relurulns a bill, with his objections. Is called. 

10. The power of Cungrese to lay and <ollfCt (fajise, &&, for national purposes, extends to the District of Colombia, and to the Terrilorlai 



THE NATIONAL CONSTITUTION. ^ 

To borrow Money on the credit of the United States;' 

To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the 
Indian tribes ;" 

To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, ' and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankrupt 
cies' throughout the United States ; 

To coin Money, regulate the Talue thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of 
"Weights and Measures ; ^ 

To provide for the Pimishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United 
States ; 

To establish Post Offices and Post Roads ; 

To promote the progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors 
and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries ; ' 

To constitute Tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court ; 

To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offences against 
the Law of Nations ; ' 

To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures 
ot Land and Water ; 

To raise and support Armies ; but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer 
Term than two Tears ; 

To provide and maintain a Navy ; 

To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the Land and Naval Forces; 

To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrec- 
tions, and repel Invasions ; 

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the Militia, and for governing such Part 
of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States — reserving to the States respect- 
ively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the 
Iiiscipline prescribed by Congress ; ' 

To exercise exclusive tegislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding 
ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become 
the Seat of the Government of the United States," and to exercise like Authority over all Places 
purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erec- 
tion of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, Dockyards, and other needful Buildings ; — And 

To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carr^dng into Execution the fore- 
going Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United 
States, or in any Department or Officer thereof. 

Section 9. The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the Immigrants, how 
States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by a mt . 

o' the United States, fta weil aa to the States ; but Congress ia not bound to extend a direct tai to the District and Territories, The alipnla- 
tion that the taxes, ice, shaU be uniform throughout the tjnlted States, is to prerent favora being ebovrn to one State orsectioQ of the Repub- 
lic, and not (o nnother, 

1, This ^na to enable the Government to provide for its expenses at a time of domestic insurrection or a foreign war, when the sources of 
revenue by taxation and Impost, might be obstructed. 

?, This power was lacidng, under Ibe ArCielej of Confederation. It is one of the moat important powers delegated by the people to their 
tepresentativea, for it mvolvee national development and prtsperity. 

3, The power of uaturaliiation waa poaaeaaed by each Slate under the Confederation. There was aoch want of uniformity of laws on the 
tubject, that confusion waa already manifested, when the people, by the Constitution, vested the power exclusively In Congress, Thai a 
State is prohibited from discouraging emigration, or casting hinderancea in the way of obtaining citixenahip. By a recent decision of the 
Att<)rney-Gflneral of the Republic, every peraon bom within its borders ia entitled to the righta of citizenahip. It ia a birthrighL 

4, Sioco the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, a State has authority to pasa a bankrupt law, provided such law does not 
impair the ob1i(;ations of contracts within the meaning of the Conatitution (art, L, sec. 10), and provided there be no act of Congress In force 
to establish a uniform aystem of bankruptcy conflicting with such law. 

h. This was to Insure uniformity in the metallic currency of the Republic, and of welghta and measures, for the benefit of the people In 
commercial ofierations. 

C. The first copy-right law waa enacted in 1"90. on the petition of David Ramsay, the historian, and others. A copy-right, or pat«lit-rl;bl 
to an invention, is given for a specified time. A copy-right ia granted for 3S years, and a renewal for 14 year?. Patents are granted for IT 
years, without the right of extension. 

7. Congreaa has power to provide for the pnnishment of offences committed by persons on board of an American ship, wherever th*t ahfp 
may be. 

8. Claueea 11 to 16 incluaive, define the war powera of the Government, such as granting licenses to privateers (see page 377, and note 6, 
page 641), raising and supporting armed forces on land and sea, calling out the militia, Ac, See Article II, of the Amendments to this Con- 
atitution- These powers, used by the hand of an efficient and judicious Executive, are quite sutficient. The President cannot exercise any of 
them, until the power ia given him by Congress, when he Is bound by his oath to take care that all the laws shall be erecnted. 

9. Congress has uuiborlty to impoao a direct tax on the District of Columbia (note 1, page 39S), in proportion to the eeaiitl dlrflctad by tW 
Constitution to b« taken. 



Xii SUPPLEMENT. 

the Congress prior to the Year one thousand ciglit hundred and eiglit, but a Tax or Duty may be 
imposed on sucli Importatiou, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person.' 

The Privilege of the "Writ of Habeas Corpus' shall not be suspended, 
nahea» Corpua. unless wlion in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may 
roqiiiro it. 
Attainder. No Bill of Attainder' or ex post Facto law shall be passed.* 

No Ciii>itation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to 
Tastet. ^]jj, Census or Enumeration hcroiu before directed to bo taken.* 

No Tii.x or Duty shall be laid on articles exported from any State. 
No Preforonco shall be given by any Reg\ilation of Commerco or 
Btgulationa regard- Revenue to the I'orts of one State over those of another ; nor shall Vessels 
mgduttes. bound to, or from, one State, be obliged' to enter, clear, or pay Duties in 

another." 

No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Ap- 
Jlonty, how drmc-n. propriations made by law ; and a regular Statement and Account of the 
Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time 
to time.' 

No Title of Nobility shall bo granted by the United States : And no 
TitltaofnoWity Person holding any Office of Profit or Tr\i8t under tliem, shall, -(vithout the 
proMuted. Consent of the Congress, accept of any Present, Emolument, Office, or Title, 
of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or Foreign State." 
Section 10. No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters 
of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing 
P<»Mrs of SUitee 1*"^ gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of 
dtjined. Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the ObUgation of Contracts, 

or grant any Title of Nobility. 
No State shall, witliout the Consent of the Congress, lay any Imposts or Duties on IraporU or 
Exports, except what may Ije absokitclj' necessary for executing its inspection Laws : and thf 
%et Prod\icc of all Duties and Imposts, laid \>y any State on Imports or Exports, shall be for the 
Use of the Treasury of the United States ; and all such Laws shall be subject to the Revision 
and Coiitroul of the Congress. 

No SKite shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, o» 
Ships-of-War in time of Pe.'ice, enter into any Agreement or Compact with wnother State, or with 
a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will 
not admit of Delay." 

ARTICLE II. 

Stectctiee power, in SECTION 1. The executive Power .ihall bo vested in a President of the 
iMoOT veiled. United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the Term of 

1. Thd object Af this cliiuao wna to oml tho ilnTO'trmlo, or Ihe Importiition of i)egro«i from AfrlcA, to b^coioo iUvm in lh« tjDlt«<f StAt«i. 
after tbo tlrtt of Jnnunry, l^li^. Tho Aniclos of Conf«.lornlloii itlloweil any Stnto to coutlnuo the trnffic ladedDitely, for the SlAtoe were Inde- 
pendent of eiich otbvr, And tho orf;nnlc Inw wni lilout on the enbjeet. The Importation of eliivee Hher the begin ultig of ISOf, wu problbiteii 
BDder loeere pennltloi by Ihe Act of Mitrcb 9, IMll. Act! on tho euhjeet hiivo since been pneeod by Conirrese from time to time. That of IH-.'O 
declitred tho foreign a^ave.trndo to bo pirncy. In July, \SM, Congrosa mnde provieiona for carrying Into etTect n tronty with Orent Britain for 
tho auppreaalou of the elnve-trade. A domeatic elave-trade was kept up until Ihe beginning of the Civil War, In 1H61. It waa Vlrginia'a 
largeat aource of revenne. 

9. Thia la a writ for delivering a peraoQ from falao Imprlaonment, or for removing a peraon from on* court to anothar. Tba ad of au* 
pending tlio privilege of the writ inuat bo dotui by the Executive, In tlie caaee specified, under the authority of nu Act of Co a f r aea. 

3. A deprivation of poerer Ut InhoHt or tranemlt p^oporty, a lose of civil rights, Jtc 

4. Peclitrlng an act criiiiinal or penal, which waa innocent when committed. 
b. Thia waa to aecure nniforiulty in taxn iiild on persona or on lands. 

i. To aecure free tradt. between the Slates, tlint one might not liava an advantage over another, was the obje«t of tb«a« two claooea. 

t. Tills gives to Congress the control of Ihe money belonging to the Republic, and places It beyond the reach of the Executive. 

8. This was to secure eijunllty of rights and privilege* among the citlsens, and to check the bad elTects of foreign laltuenc*a In the bna of 
ariatocratic dlatlnctiona. 

». By Ihia aoctlon the people of tho aovoral Sut«a who, In conventions, riitifled th* National Constitution, Invoated ihe Oeneral Oovern .- 
ED At with the supreme attributes of sovereignty exclusively, while reserving to themselves, or their Tes|>ective cominonweallhs, th* powera 
peculiar to the municipal authority of u Stale, which are essential to the regulation of Its Internal affairs, and the preservation of lu domeell* 
knstitutlons from Intorference by another State, or by the National Oovernmont In a time of domestic tranquillity. The National Govarnmsol 
b hereby empowered to act for the people of the who!e Republic as a nation. Having no sup«rior, it Is soTaralga. Saa Story's C^messntaess* 
n* lAe 0«ss(iluli<^, chapter ajuv. 



THE NATIONAL CONSTITUTION. j-jjj 

four Years,' and together with the Vice rresident, chosen for the same Term, be elected, as 
follows : 

Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of 
Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to 
which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Repre- Preaidential etectort. 
sentative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or ProUt imder the United 
States, shall be appointed an Elector. 

[The electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by ballot for two persons, of 
whom one at least shall not be an inhabitant of the same State with them- 
selves. And they shall make a list of all the persons voted for, and of the ^'''prl^^^t^Iw'' 
number of votes for each ; which list they shall sign and certify, and trans- elected. 

mit sealed to the seat of the government of the United States, directed to 
the President of the Senate. The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate 
and House of Representatives, open all the certificates, and the votes shall then bo counted. The 
person having the greatest number of votes shall be the President, if such number be a majority 
of the whole number of electors appointed; and if there be more than one who have such 
majority, and have an equal number of votes, then the House of Representatives shall immedi- 
ately cliuse by ballot one of them for President ; and if no person have a majority, then from 
the five higliest on the list the said House shall in lilfe manner chuse the President. But in 
chusing tlie President, the votes shall be taken by States — the representation from each State 
having one vote ; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two 
thirds of the States, and a majority of all the States shall be necessary to a choice. In every 
case, after the choice of the President, the person having the greatest number of votes of the 
electors shall be the Vice-President. But if there should remain two or more who have equal 
votes, the Senate shall choose from them by ballot the Vice President.'] 

The Congress may determine the Time of chusing the Electors, and the Time ofchooHng 
Day on which they shall give their Votes ; whicli Day shall be the same " *^ '"'*■ 

throughout the United States.^ 

No Person except a natural born Citken, or a Citizen of the United States at the time of the 
Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; 
neither shall any person be eligible to that Office who shall not have at- Qmilirf^atiuns of the 
tained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident J'residetit. 

within the United States. 

In Case tf the Removal of the President from Office, or of his Death, Resignation, or 
InablHty to discharge the Powers and Duties of the said office, the same 
shall devolve on the Vice President* and the Congress may by Law provide nesort in cane of hit 
for the Case of Removal, Death, Resignation or Inability, both of the Presi- disabiliti/. 

dent and Vice President, declaring what Officer shall then act as President, 
and such officer shall act accordingly, until the Disability be removed, or a President shall be- 
elected.' 

The President shall, at stated Times, receive for his Services, a Compen- 
sation, which shall neither be increased nor diminished during the Period for Salary of the Preai- 
which he shall have been elected, and he shah not receive within that ''*"'• 

Period any other Emolument from the United States, or any of them." 

Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take tho follow- Oath of Office. 
ing Oath or Affirmation : 

1 The Executive ia a co-ordinate but not coe-^ual branch of the Government with the lenisative, for be ia the agent proviied in the Con- 
■titution for executing the laws of A superior, the ConsresB or le(;ialature. 

!?. This clause wna afterward annulled, and Article XII. of the Anlendmenta to thla Constitution waa aabatituted for it. OriginnUy the 
•lectara voted by ballot, for two persona, one of whom, at leaa*, abould not be an inhabitant of the Bnine State wifh themaelvea. The one who 
received the highest number of votea waa declared to be President, and the one receiving the next higbeat number waa declared to be Vice- 
Freeident. For an example, see page 383. 

3. See Anieu.lments to the Constitution, Article XII. By an Act passed in 1*45 (January 33). the electors must be chosen, in each State, en 
the Tuesday next after the first Monday in the month of November of tlie year in which they are to be elected. In the preceding portion ul 
this history, when the election of a President is spoken of, it is meant that electors favorable to such caudidatea were chosen at that time. 

4. For examidee, see pages 476, 501, and 1-Jl. 

6. Provision baa been made for the President of the Senate, for the time being, 9r if there ahall be do such officer, the Speaker of the Hou»« 
tf Representatives, shall perform the executive functions. 

6. The salary of the President was fix.^i by the lirsl Congress at ^25,000 a year, and that of the Vice-President at $3,000, and such they ar« 
at preMQt, The salary for each entire term was so fixed, that the execntive might be independent of the legislative department (or it. 



Xiv SUPPLKMKNT. 

" I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the OfBce of President of the 
United States, and ■will to the best of my Abilitj-, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution 
of the United Slates." 

.Sectiom 2. The President shall be Commander in chief of the Army and 

Duties n/ th f PreH- Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when 

dent. called into the actual Service of the United States;' he may require the 

Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departs 

ments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices, and he shall have 

Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons foi; Offences against the United States, except in Cases of 

Impeachment.' 

Uo shall liavo Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, 

provided two thirds of the Senators present concur ; and he shall nominate, 

ifh jwtrer to maH-e '>°f' ^J' 3"^' ^^''^h the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint. Am- 

treuittx, appoint etix- bassadors, other public Ministers and Consul.s, Judges of the supreme Court, 

ita«tsador$,judges. etc. , ,, , ,^ .. , -r* . , r, , . . . 

and all other Officers of the Uinted States, whose appomtments are not herem 

hitherto provided for, and which sliuU be estabhshed by Law :' but the Con- 
gress ra.iy by Law vest the Appointment of such inl'erior Officers, as they think proper, in the 
President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments. 

The President shall have Power to fill tip all Vacancies that may happen 
May fill vacancies. ^^f„^g the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions whicli shall ex- 
pire at the End of their next Session.* 
Section 3. Ho shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the 
Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall 
Power (o cmwetie j>"'fe'<' necessary and expedient;' he may, on extraordinary Occasions, con- 
Vongreea. vene both Houses, or either of them," and in Case of Disagreement between 

them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, ho may adjotirn them to 
such Time as he shall think proper; he shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers;' 
he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed, and shall Commission all the officers of 
the United States. 

Section' 4. Tlio President, Tice President, and all civil Officers of the 
^'^ "ft^Id"^ ^" United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for. and Con- 
viction of. Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes or Misdemeanors. 



ARTICLE III. 

Section 1. The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, 
and in such inferior Courts as tlie Congress may from time to time ordain and 
establish. The Judges both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold 
JudiciaJ-power, }om> j^j^;^ QSiccf. during good Behaviour, and shall, at stated Times, receive for 
their Services, a Compensation, which shall not be diminished during their 
Continuance in Office." 

1. This was to Insnro unity and efficiency in action, when forelfrn war or domeatic Inautret lion ehonld call for the aerrlcM of the army and 
navy. His Inr,;i- powen as Executive are directed by constitutional tirovialons. Ho is the arm of Iho nation to execute iu biddlnjr. 

S. It is presumed that the Executive ia above the pcranuai, local, or sectional inllueticea that might be brought to l.ear. In these cases, ea 
the courts or on legislative bodies. The Executive, according to a deciaion of the Supreme Court, has power to ^ant a pardon before trial or 
conviction. Sco Brightley's Analytical Distil iif t\t £<]ici 0/ tAc Uniud Slalel, page 7, note (c). 

3. The President is preaumod to be more fully informed concerning the foreign relatlona of the Repnbllc, and the fitossa of men for Iht 
highest offices. The Senate represents the legislative department of the Ciovornment in Irenty.makiug and the appointment of high offloars, 
and Is ft check on the Executive against any encroachments on the rights of Congress in the matter. 

4. Tiiia limitation to executive appointments is to preveut the President from neutralizing the action of the Senate as a co-ordlnats power. 
8. It Is the practxe of the President to submit to Congrcs-i, at the opening of each session, a statement of national affairs. This Is called 

ills Annual Vessjige. Washington and John Adams read their mc^isnges in person to the assembled Congress. Jefferson first sent his msassgs 
to them, by his private secretary. That practice is still kept u|\ 

t;. Tha President, with his better iDfonnatlon concerning national affiiira, can best judge when an extraordiuary session of Congress may bs 
seccssary. 

7. He may also refuse to receive them, and thereby annul or prevent diplomatic relations between the L'n lied States and any country. 

8. See page 3GS, and note I, page 369. This section provides that the Supreme Court fthaii t>e a co-ordinate branch of the National Gov- 
•mment, yet independent of and distinct from both the legislative and executive departments. The powers of the National Oovernoient, II 
will tio seen, ar- thr,.<'foid, namely, /sitis/utiic, ;uJicio/, and <neuiitt. The lirat enncu laws, the second InterproU them, and t-He third 
enforces them. The Supreme Court eonsists of one chief-justice and several associate justices, who hold an annual session at the oatlooal 
aapital, oomcnaDclug on the day when Congrcas meets — firsltWeduosday Iu Oo«eiubor. 



THE NATIONAL CONSTITUTION. 



XV 



Section 2. Tlie judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under 
this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which 
shall be made, under their Authority; — to all cases affecting Ambassadors, To wh<tt cmee it 
other public Ministers and Consuls; — to all Cases of admiralty and mari- e^iends. 

tiaie Jurisdiction;— to Controversies to which the L^nited States shall be a 
Party ; — to Controversies between two or more States ; — between a State and Citizens of another 
State ;— between Citizens of different States;' — between Citizens of the same State claiming 
Lands under Grants of different States, and between a State, or the Citizens thereof, and foreign 
States, Citizens or Subjects. 

In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, otlier puljlic Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a 
State shall be a Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In 
all the other Gases before mentioned, tlie supreme Court shall have appel- jurist! iction of the 
late Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such E.xceptions, and under Sujyreme Court. 
Buch Regulations as the Congress shall make. 

The Trial of all Crimes, except in Cases of Impeachment, shall bo by 
Jury ; and such Trial shall be held in tlie State where the said Crimes shall 
have been committed ; but when not committed within any State, the Trial Sulea retpecting 
shall be at such Place or Places as the Congress may by Law have tnah. 

directed.' 

Sectiok 3. Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levy- 
ing War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving tliem Aid and Treason defined. 
Comfort.^ 

No Person shall he convicted of Treason, unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the 
same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court. 

The Congress shall have Power to declare the Punishment of Treason, 
but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture now punished. 
except during the Life of the Person attainted.' 



ARTICLE IV. 

Section 1. FuU Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and 
judicial Proceedings of every otiier State.' And the Congress may by general 
Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records and Proceedings Sights of ^ates 
shall be proved, and tlie Effect thereof." 

Section 2. The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to .ill Privileges Privileges of citizem. 
and Immunities of Citizens in the several States.' 

A person charged in any State with Treason, Felony, or other Crime, who 
shall flee from Justice, and be found in another State, shall on Demand of Executive requisition. 
the executive authority of the State from which he tied, be dehvered up, to 
be removed to the State ha%-ing Jurisdiction of the Crime.'* 

t. A citizen of the nUtrict of Columbia (Dots l.pa^e 38$) is not a cltizeD of a Stat«, wttbin the mennitig of this Constitution. The Dla- 
trict is under the Immediate control of Congress, and has neither a legislature or governor. 
1. See Amendments to the Constitution, Articles V., VI., VIL, VIII. 

3. At the trial of Aaron Burr (see page 39*), Chief-Justice Marshall said; " Any comhinatlon to subvert by force the Government of the 
United States ; violently to dismember the Union ; to compel 8 change in the admiuis'ration, to coerce the repeal or adoption of a general 
taiv, is a con»iiraey to /cry tear. And if conspiracy be carried Into effect by the actual employment of force, by the embodying and 
assembling of men for the purpose of executing the treaeonahle design which was previously conceived, it amounts to levying war." 

4. The limit as to forfeiture applies only to the real estate of the criminal, which, at his death, must he restored to his heirs or aaeigna 
The dower right of his wife also remains untouched. See Kent's Commtnt^rifs o,i -4mericait Zaio, ii. 4M. This is more humane than the 
English law of treason. It does not punish the innocent wife and children of a criminal on account of his crimes. 

5. A judgment of a State court has the same credit, validity, and effect, in every other court within the United States, which it had in the 
court where it wai rendered ; and whatever pleas would be good to a suit thereon in such State, and none others, can be pleaded in any other 
oourt within the United Slates. — Hampton V. McConnell, 3 Wheaton, 934. 

6. On the 2("th of May, 1790, Congress, by art, gave effect to this section. 

7. Thia is a recognition of nationality— the supreme rights of the people as citizens of the United States. It decrees the right to all funda- 
mental privileges and immunities which any State grants to its citizens, excepting those granteil to corporations, or conferred by special 
loail legislation. It is intended to secure and perpetuate a friendly intercourse throughout the Republic. It seta aside the erroneous as- 
sumption that National citizenship is subordinate to State citizenship. 

8. This Is to aid the claims of Justice, by preventing one portion of tho Republic becoming an asylum for the criminals of anothor 
portion. 



xvl SUPPLEMENT. 

No Person held to Service or Labour in ono State, iintlor the Laws thereof escaping to another, 
shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, bo discharged from 
^ ""or'labor"""^' such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to 
whom such Service or Labour may bo due.' 

Sectiox 3. New States may bo admitted by the Congress into this 

New Stntet. hoa Union;' but no new State shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction 

/urmfd and admitted, gf g^y other State ; nor any State bo formed by the Junction of two or more 

States, or Parts of States, without the consent of the Legislatures of the 

States concerned as well as of the Congress.' 

The Congress shall have Power to dispose of and make all needful R\ile» 
Power o/C<m(!rt«a ''>°'^ Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the 
evtr public lands. United States ; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to 
Prejudice any Claims of the United States, or of any particular State.' 

Section 4. The Constitution shall guaranty to every State in this LTnioD 
Republican gorfm- " Republican Form of Government,' and shall protect each of them against 
merit guarantied. Invasion ; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (wheo 
the Legislature can not be convened) against domestic violence,' 

ARTICLE T. 

The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose 
Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures 
Cmatitutiov.. how to lit) of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing 
amended. Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Pur- 

poses, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three 
fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in tliree fourths thereof, as the one or the other 
Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress ;' Provided that no Amendment which m.ay 
be made prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the 
first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article | ' and that no State, without Us 
Consent, shall bo deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.' 

ARTICLE VI. 

All Pebts contracted and Engagements entered Into, before the Adoption 
Talidity of Delta of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the United States under this 
Ttcognized. Constitution, as under the Confederation." 

1. TbUU the clnuBe of the Conatilullon, on which wan based the provisions of tho FiiRltlve Sitre Law of 1850. S«« |>»pe 501. It applied 
to runaway slaves and ftpprentices. CotigresB jjave effect to it by an act on the 12lh iif February. 1793. and another on the IMh cf September, 
1850. At the time when the Constitution was framed, slavery existed In all the States of the Union, excepting Maasa'buse'.ts. By the 
operation of the Thirteenth Aiueudment of the CooatltutlOD (which tee on page 756) this clause boa no reUtlon to any other persons exceptlnp 
fugitive Indentured apprentices. 

%. The Cont;ress is not compelled to admit a new State. It Is left 10 the option of that body, whether any new State shall be admitted 

3. States have been admltt.'d In threo ways: 1. Oy joint action of the CjDgress and a State, by which a p'rti.in of a State has been mad* 
asoparate commonwealth, as in the case of Vermont, Kentucky, Maiue, snd Virginia. 9. By an act of Congress, creating a Stale directly 
from a Territory of the United States, at In the cose of Teunessea. SL By a jnint resolution of Congress and a foreign State, such State may b* 
admitted, as in the ^ase of Texas. 

4. This provides for the establishment, under the authority of Congress, of Territorial governments, which Is the first step toward tba for- 
mation of a State or States. The first goveroitieatof the kind WAS that of tho NorthwesUm Territory (see page 36d), established In 11$T, 
•nd adopted by Congress uniler the National Constitution of the "th of August, 1789. 

5. No other form of government could exist within the United Stites, without peril to the Republic. Dy this section, the National 
Government Is empowered to assume positive sovereignty as to the fundamental character of the State Government, leaving to the Slate terri- 
torial sovereignty, as to Its municipal laws and ilomestlc Institutions, so long as they are consonant with a republican form of governmenl. 

5. The Slates are prohibited from keeping troops as a standing army, or ships of war. In time of peace. Individually ; iherefore It Is mid* 
the duty of the sovereign power of the United States to protect the States against Invasion and " domestic violence," such as treason, rebel- 
liOD, or Insurrectioa When theae exist In any State, It Is the duty of tho Nnlonal GoveMiment to use Its power In suppressing It. 

7. This artic^o effectually checks any fundamental change In the CouatilutloD, axceptlng Id a way which reoogniiee the source of all true 
sovereignty, the Pkoi>lk, unless it be bysuddeu and violent revolution. 

8. See section 9, page 747. The adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment of the Constitution (see paga 758) renders this section a dead 
Mterr 

9. Here, again, la a provision for securing the smaller Sutes from encroachments on their rights by the larger Sutea. 

10. This was for the security to tlie creditors of the Unile<l States, of the payment of debts Incurred during the Ravolntlon. It was » 
eatlonal and positive recognition of the iiostulate In International law, that ** Debts duo to foreigners, and obll^tlou to other cradltera, sar- 
Tlve a change lu the (Government" 



THE NATIONAL CONSTITUTION. 



xvu 



This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance 
thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority 
of the United States, ahaU be the supremo Law of the Land ; and the Judges Supreme law of the 
in every State shall be bound thereby, any thing in the Constitution or Laws ^"^ dejlntd. 
of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.' 

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several St3t« 
Legislatures, and all executive and judicial OlBcors, both of the United States 
and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support Oat\ of -wham regmr- 
Jhis Constitution ; ' but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualifi- «*> ""<' vihatfor. 
iation to any 0£Bce or public Trust under the United States. ' 

ARTICLE YII. 



The Ratification of the Conventions of nine States shall be sufBcient fbr 
the Estabhshment of this Constitution between the States so ratifying the 
Same-' 



Ratification. 



DoNB in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States present, the Seventeenth Day of 
September, in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty-seven, and of 
the Independeuce of the United States the Twelfth. In "Witness whereof We have hereunto 
subscribed our Names. 

Geo. Washington, 
President, and deputy from Virginia. 



NEW HAMPSHIRK 

JOHX Langdon, 
Nicholas Oilman. 

MASSACHUSETTS. 

Nathaniel Goeham, 
RuFus King. 

CONNECTICUT. 

William Samuel Johnson, 
Roger Sherman. 

NEW YORK. 

Alexander Hamilton. 

NEW JERSEY. 

William Livingston, 
David Brearlet, 
William Paterson, 
Jonathan Dayton. 



PENNSYLVANIA. 

Bbnjamin Franklin, 
Thomas Mifflin, 
Robert Morris, 
George Clymer, 
Thomas FiTzsiMONa, 
Jared Ingeesoll, 
James Wilson, 
GonvERNEUR Morris. 

DELAWARE. 
George Reed, 
Gunning Bedford, jr., 
John Dickinson', 
Richard Bassett, 
Jacob Broom. 

MARYLAND. 
James M' Henry, 
Daniel of St. Thos. Jenifer, 
Daniel Carroll. 

Attest: 



VIRGINIA. 



John Blaie, 
James Madison, 



JR. 



NORTH CAROLINA. 

William Blount, 
Richard Dobbs Spaight, 
Hugh Williamson. 

SOUTH CAROLINA. 
Charles C. Pdjcknet, 
Charles Pixokney, 
John Rutledge, 
Pierce Butlee. 

GEORGIA. 
William Few, 
Abraham Baldwin. 



William Jackson, Secretary. 



1. A clear and poBltlve declaration of the snpremacy ct the National Goremment, realitance to which Ii treaaon. 

2. State officeri are bound to support the Couatitution because they may be required to perform soma aervice ia ^Tlng adact to 1 
.* supreme Irw of the laud," in other words, of the Eepublic. 

3. This is to prevent a political ualoa of Church and State, which la alwsT- nrejodiclal to the heat Intareata trf boih. 
4- See note 1, pnge 360. 



xvm 



SUPPLKMENT. 



AMENDMENTS' 

TO THE CONSTITUTION OF TOE UNITED STATES, RATIFIED ACCORDING TO THE 
PROVISIONS OF THE FIFTH ARTICLE OP THE FOREGOING CONSTITUTION. 

ARTICLE I. 



Conpress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or 
IVeedom in reUginn prohibitinpr tho free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or 



Q^ii Speech, and of ihe 
prew. 



of the press; or the ritrht of the people peaceably to assemble, and to peti- 
tion the Government for a redress of grievances.* 



ARTICLE II. 



JRHtia. 



A well-re^nilaled Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, 
the right of the people to keep and boar Arms, shall not be infringed. 



ARTICLK III. 

No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the 
SoldUra. consent of the O^vner, nor in a lime of war, but in a manner to be prescribed 

by law." 

ARTICLE lY. 

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against 
unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants 

S6arch'V>arranU. ^li^U issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and 
particularly describing the place to bo searched, and the person or things to 
be seized.* 



1. At the firMt Bouloa of tho First Congrou, ho^un Rnd held Iri tb« city of Ne<r Tork, on WodnwidMy, the 4th of March, 1T89, ainny 
»ro«ndmeut« to the Nutiiniil Contlltution wero offored for coii»ldernl!on. Tho Conirrwa proposed ten of them tt» th» lo(rl»UtunM of the »*t». 
Tsl States. Th«>«o were ratified by tU« constitutional number of State L«a;iBlal«rM Id tb* middle of Doceuibe', ITfll. Another wa» prcpoced^ 
on tho Mb of Mnrch, Hd-l, nud wn> riitlSeJ In lT9!l ; And still Another on the li^th of Docouibur, H03, which wna rntllied In mv4. ThM<^ 
with tha othiT tnii, bfcnme ,i piirt of the Nationnl Const tiit!«ii. A thirlMUtb Ameadnicnt waspropotsd by Contrresi in the 1st of May. ISIO, 
bat has never bpun rAlified. It wns to prohibit citiicni uf the rnllcd Stntes nrcuptln);, olulnitnKt roi t-iving, or retitiainn nay title ot nobtllljr 
or honor, or any jircm'nt, penilou, offlco, or onioluuioiit of nny kind whatever, from »ny " person, klnc prince, or f"r«i((n Power," without 
ths consent "I Con^reu, uuilcr tho penally of disfrAnchiaeraent, or cwiiinK to be a ottlien of the United States. 

The Thirteenth Amendment was ndopted by Coni^reis os the 3Ut cf Januiiry, H65, and Its r«tlficalIon by thoTAfinlslte nnmbsr of Suia 
I-wKislatures was Announced on ih« l!*th of DtfConilH-r following. A Fourteenth Ameudmont was proposed by a joint resolution adopted on 
the 13lh of June, Isfit, the object of which wns to roniplele the worlc <lone by the Thirieenlh Amcadmeot, by cnaratitetdni; to a// eitii^na 
an equality of civil and political rights, and tbo payment of the public debt, also (o forbid thi* puymenl, by (he tl*neral or any Staio gnrrrn- 
munt, of any debt or oblliration incurreil In nid of tho rebellion, or nny claim fi>r the loss or emancipation of any slave. This amandaeDt 
was ratified by twenty-two Sutes (five le^s than the required niuiiher), when this n>eord cloaed, in May, ISM. 

The AmundmonU to the C»D*tllution, excepting the Twelfth, are aurhorltntlve declarations socurluff to the poople and the several SuMa 
csrtaln rijcbts, atcalnst nny piwaible encronchraents of Con^u. They form a Bill of Riifhla, 

9. ThU article \f,\\t» an addltiooitl assurance of roli(rlous freedom. See clause 3d, Article VI., of the Coisiltullon. it also secures the 
laraluable riuht of tho freedom of speech and of the press ; and the priTlle([e for tbe people of making their grievances known lo the 
National Rovernment. 

S. This It to protect citltent, In time, of peace, from theoppreealons of military power, anil to oocure anlfonnlty In the rale* for qoarlarlng 
soldiers upon clllsens In lime of war. 

4. The securily of the private ritiion from an InlVlngement of his rights by public officers, herein guaranteed, U la aocoMoAce with tb* 
EngUah maxim tbal " Every man's bouse is hU castle." See pof* lli; 



THE NATIONAL CONSTITUTION. ^^ 

ARTICLE V. 

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a pre- 
sentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land 

or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or 

, , ,, , , . fl , ^ , Capital crimes. 

public danger ; ' nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be 

Xvrice put in jeopardy of Ufe or limb ; nor shall be compelled in any Criminal 

Case to bo a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without duo 

process of law ; nor shall private property be taken for pubho use, without just compensation.* 

ARTICLE VI. 

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and pubhc trial, by 
an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been 

committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, „ 

'■'■'' Trial by Jury. 
and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation ; to be con- 
fronted with the witnesses against him ; to have Compulsory process for 
obtaining Witnesses in his favour, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence. 

ARTICLE VII. 

In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right 
of trial by jury shall bo preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be other- 
wise re-examined in any court of the United States, tlian according to the -*»"« "' eommon Imt. 
rules of the common law. 

ARTICLE VIII. 

Exoeseive baU shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor _., 

creel and unusual punishments inflicted.' 

ARTICLE IX. 

The enumeration, in the Constitution, of certam rights, shall not be con- ^ _^ . .,,.,. . 
, , , ,. , . , , , , , Certain nglUa iefintd. 

strued to deny or disparage others retained by the people. 

ARTICLE X. 

The powers not delegated to the United States, by the Uonatitution, nor 
prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to BigMs reearmd. 
the people.' 

ARTICLE XI. 

The judici.al power of the United States shall not be construed to extend 
to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the judicial powtr 
United States by Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of limited. 

any foreign State.' 

1. In flnch ciiaea offiJDtes ara wltbln the jnrladictioD ofthQ militkry and naviil eonrM-martial. 

9, Theso probibitlona do not relate to State (TovernmeDti, bat to the National Government, according; to ft dedaioa of the Sapreme Cool* 
The aeveral States make their own lawa on theae aubjecta. 

3. Tbege seveTal amendcoente, oonoeraing the operatlona of law throngh the inatrumentality of the conrta, aje ail tntondad to aeenre the 
Kitlaeo n^inat the arbitrary exereiie of power on the part of the jadiciary. 

4. That ia to aay, becauae certain ri|;hta and powera of the people are not anomerated in the Conatitatlon, it ia not to be inferred that Ibey 
\ra denied. 

5. Thia la iimply as ennnciatlon of the broad demoeratie principle, that the people are the trne aonrcaa of ftll political power. 

6. Th la is to limit the judicial power of the National coorte. Previona U> the adoptioo of this ameodinent, the Supreme Court had decided 
(hat the power of the National jadiciary extended to enita brooj^ht by or agaioat a State of tbe Repebiic Now, no peraon haa a right to com* 
neaoe a p«r«oa>\l lolt a^lnat a Ststo, in the Suprcioe t^urt of the United StAtOd, for tbe racovery of propwty loiiad ofid aolj by a Suto. 



XS SUPPLEMENT. 

ARTICLE XII. 

The Electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by baJlo* t^r P'esid^nt and Tics 

President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an iiUiabit*it of the same Stale 

ing the. rlecMon of 'mth themselves; they shall name m their ballots the person voted lor as 

rre»Ldmt atul Vice President, aud in distinct ballots the person voted for as Y ice President, and 
i resident. * 

they shall make distmct lists of all persons voted for as President, and of all 

persons voted for as Vice President, and of the number of votes for each, which lists they 
shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of tho government of the United States, 
directed to The President of tho Senate; — The President of the Senate shall, in the presence 
of tho Senate and IIouso of Representatives, open all tho certificates and the votes shall 
then lie counted; — tho person having the greatest numl)er of votes for President, shall be the 
President, if such number bo a majority of the whole number of electors appointed; aud if no 
person have such majority, then from the persons having tho highest numbers, not exceeding 
three on the hst of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose imme- 
diately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President, tho votes shall be taken by 
states, the representation from each state having one vote ; a quorum for this purpose shall con- 
sist of a member or members from two thirds of the States, and a majority of all the states shall 
be necessary to a choice. And if the House of Representatives shall not choose a President 
whenever the right of choice shall devolve upon them, before the fourth day of March next fol- 
lowing, then the Vice President shall act as President, as in the case of the death or other con- 
stitutional disability of the President. The person having the greatest number of votes as Vice 
President shall be the Vice President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of 
Electors appointed, and if no person have a majority, then from the two highest numbers on tho 
list, tho Senate shall choose the Vice President ; a quorum for the purpose shall consist of two 
thirds of the whole number of Senators, and a majority of tho whole number shall be necessary 
to a choice. But no person constitutionally iueUgible to the office of President shall be ehgible 
to that of Vice President of the United States. 

ARTICLE XIII. 
Section 1. Neither slftvery nor involuntary gur\'itnde, except as a puniehment for crime, whereof tile parly 

i:in,„y^, /v»./.i y.;.,,, ^ball liave been duly convicted, shall esiel within the ITmted btates, or in any pUiCD 

t>lavery joroidaen. ,5ubji;ct to their jurisdiction. 
Section 3. Congreee shall have power to enforce this Article by appropriate legislatioo. 

ARTICLE XIV. ■ 
SECjnON 1. All persons bom or naturalized in the United States, and subject to tho jurisdic- 
tion thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein 
'W* '/>■ tijgy reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge 
the privileges or immtmities of citizens of the United States; nor sliall any State deprive any 
person of hfe, liberty, or property without due process of law; nor deny to any person within 
its jiuisdiction the equal protection of the lawf. 

Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their 

respective numbers, coimting tho whole number of persons in each State, 

ApportUmmenlr^j- g^piuijjjig Imiians not taxed; but when the right to vote at any election 

, , . ' for the choice of electors for President aud Vice-President of the United 

JTQ flCfl u^ 

States, Representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of 
State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of 
such State, (being twenty -one years of age and citizens of tho United States,) or in any way 
abridged except for participation in rebellion or other crime, the basis of representation 
therein shall be reduced in the proportion which tho number of such male citizens shall bear 
to lie whole number of male citizens twentj'-one years of age in such State. 

' The Joint Resolution of tot.fiTe«s, propoeinjj this amendment, was parsed on the 13th of Juu«. 1W6; 
sod on the 20th of July, 1868, the aecretary of State proclaimed that tho ro<iuired number of States bad 
ratified it, to make it a part of the Kotiooai Coiutitatioa. 



THE NATIONAL CONSTITUTION. ^■^\ 

Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or Elector, or Presi- 
dent, or Vice-President, or hold any office, civU or military, under the 
United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath 
as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State 
legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of 
the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given 
a»d or comfort to the enemies thereof; but Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each 
House, remove such disability. 

Section 4. The validitj^ of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, includ- 
ing dsbts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties, for services in 
InvioialiUily of the suppressing insurrection or rebeUion, shall not be questioned ; but neither 
natumal faith. the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obliga- 
tion incurred in aid of insurrection or rebeUion against the United States, 
«r any claim for the loss of or emancipation of any slave. But all such debts, obligations, and 
claims shall be held illegal and void. 

Section 5. Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the proviaiona 
of the Article. 

ASTICLE XV. 

Section 1. The right of the citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or 
abridged by the United States or any State, on account of race, color, or 
JUr/M to vote. pre^o,^ condition of serritnde. 
SBcnoN 3, The Congress shall have power to enforce this Article b/ appropriate legislatioa. 



m. 



THE NATIONAL PROGRESS. 



Here, at the b^clnnini; of the second century of the life of our Republic, let nstnke* 
brief review of tha Material and InteUectual progress of our country during the first hundred 
years of its political independence. 

Tlio extent of tho concodad domain of the United States, In 177fi, was not more than half a 
million square ni'.U-s ; now ' it is mori than three million three hitiidred thousand square nules. 
Its population tluu was about a mil! ion and a lialf ; now it is forty million. 

Tho products of tho soil are tho foundations of the material wealth of a nation. It has been 
eminently so with us, notwithstauding tho science of agriculture aud tho constructiou of good 
implements of labor were gi-eatly neglected \mtil tho early part of the present century. 

A himdred years ago tho Agricultural interests of our country were mostly in tho hands of 
uneducated men. Science was not ajjplied to hu-sliondiy. A sph-it of improvement was 
scai-cely known. The son cojiicd the ways ot his father. Ho worked with no other implements 
and pureucd no other methotls of cultivation ; and ho who attempted a chango was regarded 
as a visionary or an innovator. Very little ossociateil effort for improvement in the business 
of fanning was then seen. The flret association for such a piUT)0S6 was formed in the South, 
and was known as tho "South Carolina Agricultural Society,"' organized in 1781. A similar 
society was formed in Pennsylvania the following year. Now there are State, county, and 
even to%vn ag. iculturo.' societies, in almost every pai't of the Union. 

Agricultiu'al implements were rude and simple. They consisted chiefly of the plough, 
harrow, spade, hoe, hand-ralce, scythe, sickle, and wooden fork. The plough had a clumsy 
wrought-ii'ou shai-e with wooden mould-board, which was somatimes plated with pieces of old 
tin or sheet-irou. Tho rest of the structm-o was equally clumsy ; aud the implement requircil, 
in its use, twice the amomit of strength, of man and beast, that tho present plough does. Im- 
provements in the construction of ploughs during the p,a.«t flftj'' year's, save to the coimtry an- 
nually, in work and teams, at least $1^,000,000. The flrst patent for a cast-iron plough was 
issued in 1707. To the beginning of 1875, about 400 patents liave l>oeu granted. 

A lumdred yeaj-s ago the senl was somi by hand, and tho entire crop was harvested by 
hard manual labor. Tho grass was out with a scythe, and " cured " imd gathered with a fork 
and liond-rake. The grain was cut with a sickle, threshed with a flaU or tho treading of lioi'sos, 
and was cleared of tho chall l)y a large clamshoU-sUnpod fan of wicker-work, used in a gentle 
breeze. Tho drills, seed-sowers, cultivators, mowers, reapers, threshing-machines, and fanning- 
mills of our day, were all unknown. They ore the inventions of a time within the memoi-y of 
living men. Abortive attempts were made toward tho close of the last centurj' to introduce 
u threshing-machine from England, but the flail held sway until two generations ago. J 

Indian com, tobacco, wheat, rye, oats, pototoos, and liay were staple products of the farm 
a hundrivi years ago. Timothy and orchard grass had then just been introtlucod. The cultiva- 
tion of all these has been greatly increa.vd. Then nearly the whole products, excepting tobacco, 
were consumed by the million and a half people ; now forty million ore supported by them 

•VVhcn the word ru»o appears lu this rolallon. It moans the year 187B. 

' W««hlrston, in (i lettKr to Qeneral Hfnry Lee, writtm in tDe Aulumn of 1793. remarks: "The model 
[of a threshlujt luactilue} broujrht ov#r by tbe Kogllsh ftirmer*, may also hv a good one, bat the utility of 
ft amoiiK carrle-B ncj.Toce and Iginrant overseers wi 1 depend absolntely npon the simplicity of constrnc- 
tion ; for i( IhiTO Is suythim,' coiupliM in the machinery, it mi] be no longer in u»e than a mushroom Is in 
existence. 1 have seen eo much of the beginning and ending of new inventions, that I bare almost 
resnlred to ^o on in the old way of treading' uutll I get settled again at borne, and can attend myself to 
tb« management of cue." 



THE NATIONAL PROGRESS. X^-y 

and vast amounts of agricultural products are exjiorttKl to foreiga countries. At tha present 
time these products amount annually, on an average, in round nuinberj a? follows : Indian, 
com, 91)0,000,000 bushels ; wheat, 270,000,000 ; rj-e, 33,000,000 ; oats, 3i')0,000,000 ; potatoes. 
11)5,000,000 ; and buckwheat (introduced within the century), 15,000,000. The Imj' crop 
averages about 38,000,000 tons; the tobacco crop about 3&5,000,000 pounds; flax, 28,000,003.- 
pounds, and hemp, 13,000 tons. To theso agi'icultural products have boon added within the; 
century, barley, cotton, and sugar. Of barley the average crop is about 28,000,000 bushels; 
cotton about 2,000,000,000 pounds, and sugar 130,000 hogsheads of 1,000 pounds each. Thj 
expansion of the cotton culture has been marvellous. In 1784, eight bales of cotton sent to 
England from Charleston, were seized by the custom-house authorities in Livei-pool on tho-. 
ground that so lai-ge n quantity could not have com3 from the United States. The progi-ess of 
its culture was slow until the invention of the gin, by Mr. Whitney, lor clearing the seed from 
the fibre. It did the work of many persons. The cultivation of cotton rapidly EpreatL Fi'oni 
1793 to ISOO the amount of cotton raised had increased from 138,000 pounds to 1S,000,000» 
pounds, all of which was wanted in England, where improved machinery was mauufactm'ing. 
it into cloth. The value of slave labor was increased, and a then dymg Institution lived in vigor 
until killed by the Civil Trar. The value of the cotton crop in 1792 was $30,000 ; now its average 
annual value is about $180,000,000. 

Fniit culture a hundred yeai-s ago was very little thought of. Inferior varieties of apples',, 
peai-s, peaches, plums, and cherries were cultivated for family use. It was not until the begin- 
ni::g of the present centuiy that any large orchards were planted. The cultivation of grapes- 
and I^eiTies was almost wholly unknoNvu fifty years ago. The first horticultural society was. 
formed in 1839. Before that time fruit was uot an item of commercial statistics in our country. 
Now the average annual value of fruit is estimated at $80,000,0(X). Our grape crop alon» 
exceeds in value $80,000,000. 

Improvements in live stock have all been made ^vitbin the present century. The native 
breeds were descended from stock sent over to the colonies, and were generally inferior. In 
1773 Washington wrote in liis diary : "With one hundred m»Uch cows oa my farm, I have to 
buy butter for my family." Now 11,000,000 cows supply 40,(X)0,000 inhabitants with milk,, 
butter, and cheese, and allow large exports of the latter article. At least 235,000,000 gaUou,'-_i 
of milk ai'e sold annually. The annual butter product of our comitry now is more tham 
500,000,000 pounds, and of cheese 70,000,(XX). There are now about 30,001,000 horned cattia ia 
the United States, equal in average quahty to those of any country in the world. 

A hundred years ago miiles and asses were chiefly used for farming purposes and ordinary- 
transportation. Carriage-horses were imported fi-om Europe. Now our horse* of every kindl 
ore equal to thoso of any other country. It is estimated that there are about 10,000,000 horses; 
in the United States, or one to every four persons. 

Sheep husbandry has greatly improved. Tha inferior breeds of the last century, raisedJ 
only in sufiBclent quantity to supply the table, and tha domestic looms in the manufacture of 
yams and coarse cloth, have been supei-seded by some of the finer varieties. Merino sheep, 
were introduced eeirly in this century. The embargo before the war of 1813, and the establish- 
ment of manufactures hero afterward, stimulated sheep and wool-r;iising, and these have boeiE 
important items in our national wealth. There are now about 30,000,009 sheep in the United 
States, California is taJdug the lead as a wool-producing State. In 1870, the wool prodnc* of. 
the Uniiod Statee amounted to 100,000,000 pounds. 

Improvements in the breed of swine during the last fifty years have been very grsBt.. 
They liavo become a large item in our national commercial statistics. At this time there are 
aboak 86,000,000 head of ewine in this country. Enormous quantities of pork, packed and 
in th« form of bacon, are exported annually. 

TlieK brief statiKtics of the principal products of agrioalture, show its development in this 
coimtry, and its importance. Daniel Webster said, "Agriculture f«»d« ; to a great extent it 
clothes us ; without it we should not have inanufacturos ; wo should not have commerce; 
They all stand together Kke pillars in a cluster, the largest ia tha centa-e, and that largest — 

The great manufacturing interests of our country are tho product of tha oontnuT' now 
closing. Tho pohcy of the British government was to suppress manufacturing in the Eaghsh- 
American coloniee, and cloth-making was conflaed to the honsehold. Whun nou-importatioa 
agreements out off suppUes from Great Brftain, tiw Irish fl»x-wlj6el and tli» Dutch woal-wuea 



j;xvi SUPPLEMENT. 

wcro maclo active in families. All other lands of manuf icturjij -n-ero of small aceotmt in thii 
counti-y until the concluding dtxade of the last ceuturj-. lu Great Britain tlie inventions ol 
Hurgrcaves, Arlnvright, and Cromiitou, had stimulated the cotton and woollen miinufactures, 
ar.vl tI;o elTocts finally reached the United States. Massachasotts offered a grant of nionej' to 
promote tho establishment of a cotton-mill, and one was built at Beverly in 1TS7, the flrsl 
erected in the United States. It had not tho improved English machinery. In 17S9 Samue. 
Slater came from England with full knowledge of that machinery, and in connection with 
Mossi-s. Almy and Brown, of Providence, R. I., established a cotton factory there in 1700, mth 
the improvod implements. Then was really begun tho manufacture of cotton in (ho United 
States. Twenty years later the number of cotton mills in our country was l&S, with 00,000 
spiniUes. Tiio business has greatly expanded In Massachusetts, the foremost State in the 
mauufactui-o ol cotton, thero are now over 200 mills, employing, in prosperous times, .TO.OOO 
ixirsons, and a capital of more than $30,000,000. Tho city of L-jwoU wa.s founded by the erec- 
tion of a cotton mill there in 18:32; and there the printing of calico was first begun in tho United 
States soon afterward. 

AVith wool as with cotton, the manufacture into cloth wa.s confined to households, for homo 
use, imtil near tho close of tho last century. The wool was carded between two cards held in 
tholiandsof the operator, and all tho processes were slow and crude. In 1707, AsaTVliitto- 
more, of Massachasctts, invented a carding-machine, and this led to tho establishment of 
woollen mauufactm-es outside of families. la his famous i-e;)ort on manufactures, in 1701, 
Alexander Hajuilton said that of woollen goods, hats only had reached maturity. The busi- 
ness had been carried oa with success in colonial times. The wool was felted by lumd, and 
furs were added by the same slow process. This manual labor continued imlil a little more 
than thii-ty years ago, when it was supplanted by machinery. Immense numbers of hats 
of every kind m'o now made in our country. 

At the time of Hamilton's report there was only one wooUen-mUl in the Unitea States. It 
was at Hartford, Connecticut. In it were made cloths and cassimeres. Now woollen fac- 
tories may bo found in almost every State in tho Union, turning out annually the finest cloths, 
cassimeres, flannels, carpets, and every vai-iety of goods made of wool. In this business, as in 
cotton, Massachusetts has taken tho lead. The value of manufactured woollens in the United 
States, at the close of tho Civil War, was estimated at about ?'J0,000,O00. The supply of wool 
in the United States has never been equal to the demand. 

The smelting of iron ore, and tho manufacture of ii'on, has become an immense basiness in 
our country. Tho development of ore deposits, and of coal used in smelting, are among the 
marvels of our history. English navigation laws discouraged iron m.anufactm'e in tho colonies. 
Only bla-st-fumaces for maldng pig-iron were allowed This product was neaj-ly all sent to 
England in exchange for raanufactm-ed articles ; and tho whole amount of su(;h exportation, 
at the beginning of tho old war for independence, was less th.an 8,000 tons mmually. Tho 
colonists were wholly dependent upon Great Britain for articles manufactured of iron and 
steel, excepting rude implements made liy blacksmiths for domestic rise. During (he war tho 
Continental Congress were compelled to establish m.anufactures of iron anil steel. These were 
chiefly in Northern Now Jersey, the Hudson Highlantls, and Westera Comiecticut, where 
excellent ore w.is found, and forests in abundauco tor making charcoal. The fii-st use of 
anthi-acite coal for smelting ii-on was in the Contmenfal armory at Carlisle, in Pennsylvania, 
in 1775. But cliarcoal wa.s univers;illy used until lS-10 for smelting ores. 

Now iron is manufactunnl in o>u- country in eveiy form from u ur.il to a locomotive. A 
vast munber of machines have been invented for carrying on these manufactures ; and the 
products in cutlei-j-, ftre-arms, railway materials, and machinery of every kiml, emi)loy vast 
numbei-s of men and a gi-eat amount of capital. Oar locomotive builders are regarded as tho 
best in tho world ; and no nation on the globe can compoto with us in tho construction of 
steam-boats of every kind, from tho ii-on-clad war steamer to the harbor tug. 

In tho manufacture of copper, silver, and gold, there h;is been great progress. At the 
close of tho Revolution no manufactures of the kind existed in our country. Now tho manu- 
facture of copper ware yearly, of every kind, jewelry and watches, has become a Large item 
in our commercial tables. 

The manufacture of paper is a vei-y large item in the basiness of our country. At tlio 
close of the Revolution there were only three mills in the United States. At tho begin- 
ning of tho war a dpm;md sprung up, and WiUcox, in his mill near Ph.ladclphia, made 
the first writing-paper produced in this country. He manufactured the thick, coarse 
paper on which the Continental mouey was printed. So early as 1704 the business had sy 



THE NATIONAL PROGRESS. xxvii 

increased that there were ia Pennsylvania alone forty-eight paper-mills. There has been a 
f.teady increase iu the business ever since. Within the last twenty-flve years that increase has 
been enormous, and yet not sufficient to meet the demand. Improvements in printing presses 
have cheapened the production of books and newspapers, and the circulation of these has greatly 
increased. It is estimated that the amount of paper now manufactured annually iu the United 
States for these, for paper-hangings, and for wrapping paper, is full 800,000,000 pounds. The 
supply of raw material here has not been equal to the demand, and rags to the value of about 
?2,000,000 in a year have been imported. 

The m.anufacture of ships, carriages, wagons, clocks and watches, pins, leather, glass, 
Indian rubber, siBc, wood, sewing-machines, and a variety of other things wholly imknown or 
feebly carried on a himdred years ago, now flourish and form very important items in our 
domestic commerce. The se\ving-machine is an American invention, and the first really prac- 
tical one was first offered to the pubhc by Ehas Howe, Jr., about thirty years ago. A jMtent 
had been obtained for one five years before. Great improvements have been made, and now 
a very extensive business m the manufacture and sale of sewing-machines is carried on by 
i-lifferent companies, employing a large amount of capital and costly machinery, and a great 
number of persons. 

The mining mterests of the United States have become an eminent part of the national 
wealth. Tlio extraction of lead, iron, copper, and the precious metals, and coal from the bosom 
of the earth, is a business that has almost wholly grown up within the last hundi-ed yeai's. 
Iu 1754 a lead mine was worked in Southwestern Virginia; and in 17TS, Dubuque, a French 
miner, worked lead ore deposits on the western b.anlc of the Upper Mississippi. Th3 Jesuit 
missionaries discovered copper in the Lake Superior region more than two hundred years ago, 
and that remains the chief source of our native copper ore. That metal is produced in smaller 
quantities iu other States, chiefly in the 'n'ost and Southwest. 

A lust for gold, and the Imowledge of its existence in America, was the chief incentive to 
emigration to these shores. But within the domain of our republic very little of it was found, 
imtil that domain was extended far toward the Pacific ocean. It was imsuspected until long 
after the Revolution. Finally gold was discovered among the mountains of Virginia, North 
and South Carolina, and in Georgia. North Carolina was the fii-st State in the Union to send 
l^old to the mint in Philadelphia. Its first small contribution was in 1834. From that time 
until 1823 the average amount produced from North Carolina mines did not exceed Sr3,.500 
annually. Virginia's first contribution was in 1829, when that of North Carolina, for that 
y^r, was $128,000. Georgia sent its first contribution in 1830. It amounted to $213,000. The 
product so increased that branch mints were estabhshed in North Carolina and Georgia in 
1837 and 1838, and another at New Orleans. 

In 1S48 gold was discovered on the American fork of the Sacramento river in California, 
and soon afterward elsewhere in that region. A gold fever seized the people of the United 
States, and thousands rushed to California in search of the precious metals. Within a year 
from the discovery, nearly 50,000 people were there. Less than five years afterward Califor- 
nia, in one year, sent to the United States mint full .$40,000,000 in goliL Its entire gold pro- 
duct to this time is-estimated at more than $.800,0(XI,000. Over all the far western States and 
Territories the precious met.als — gold and silver — seem to be scattered in profusion, and the 
amount of mineral wealth yet to be discovered there seems to be incalculable. Our coal fields 
seem to be inexhaustible ; and out of the bosom of the earth, in portions of oiu- countiy, flow 
mUhons of barrels annually of petroleum or rock oil, affording the cheapest flluminating 
material in the world. 

Mineral coal was first discovered and used in Pennsylvania at the period of the Revolution. 
A boat load was sent down the Susquehanna from TVUkes-Barr^ for the use of the Continental 
hrorks at Carlisle. But it was not much used before the War of 1813 ; and the regular busi- 
ness of mining this fuel did not become a part of the conunerce of the country before the year 
1820, when 3G.5 tons were sent to Philadelphia. At the present time the amount of coal sent to 
market from the American mines of all kinds is equal to full 1.5,000,000 tons annually. 

The commerce of the United States has had a wonderful growth. Its most active develop- 
ment was seen in New England. British legislation imposed heavy burdens upon it in Colonial 
times, and, like manufactures, it was greatly depressecL The New Englanders built many 
vessels for their o-nn use, but more for others ; and, just before the breaking out of the ReTO- 
lution, there was quite a brisk trade carried on between the English- American Colonies and 
the West Inches, as well as with the mother country. The Colonists exported tobacco, lumber, 
shingles, staves, masts, tmpentine, hemp, flax, pot and jjearl ashes, salted fish in great quanti 



XXviii SUPPLEMENT. 

ties, some oora, live stock, pig-iron, and skin;! anil furs procured by traffic with the Indians, 
TVlialo and cod fishing was lui im;Kirt!Uit branclx of comtaerco. In the former, tliero wore 100 
vessola employe'' "'' ♦Jio begimiing of 177^, and sponu candles and wliiUe oil were exported to 
Groat BriUiin. In exchange for New England products, a large amomit of molasses was 
brought from the West Indies and made into inuu to sell to the Indians and fishermen, and to 
exchange for slaves on the coast of Africa. The entire exports of the Colonies in the ye*r 
1770 amoimte<l in value to $14,263,000. 

At the close of the war, the Britisli government refused to enter into commercial relations 
■with the United States govermnent, Iwlieving that the weak League of States would soon be 
dissolved ; but when a vigorous national government was formed in 1789, Groat Britain, for 
the first, sent a resident minister to our government, and entered into a commercial arrange- 
ment with us. Mcauwhilo a brisk trade had spnmg up l)efcween the Colonics and Great 
Brit.ain, ns well as with other coimti'ies. From 17"v4 to 17!K) thee.xports from the Unitotl States 
to Great Britain luuountod to f :B,000,IX)0, and the imports from Great Britain to ?!S7,000,000. 
At the ivimo time several new and important branches of hidustrj' had appeared iuul flour- 
ished \vith great rapiflity. 

From that time the expansion of American commerce was marveUoiLs, In spite of the checks 
It receivtvl from British jealousy, wars, pii-acies in the Mediterranean Saa and elsewhere, and 
the efTocts of «»nl)argnc4. The toimage of American sliips, which, in 1789, was 2<)l,5fi3, wa-s in 
1870 more than 7,IXK),000. The exports from the United States in 1S70 amounted t>) about 
.J4&1,000,000, and the imports to about $:W.'i,000,000 in gold. 

Tlie domestic commerce of the United States Is immens<!. A vast soa-coost line, great lakes, 
large rivers, and many canals, aflTord scope for interstate commerce and with adjoining coun- 
tries, not equalled by tho.^e of any n.ation. The canal and railway systems in the United 
States are the product c'aiefly of the present century. Sti also is naWgation by st«am, on 
which river commerce chiefly relies for tran-sportation. This was liegim in th.< year 1807. 
The fh"st csumIs made in this countrj- w.>ro two short ones, for a water passage around the 
South Hadley and Moutaguo F;dls, in Massachusetts. These were constructed in 1793. At 
about the same timo the Inland L:x?k Navigation Companies, in the Stato of New York, began 
their work. Tlie Middlesex Canal, counecling Lowell ^^^th Boston liarbor, was completed in 
1838, and the gre.it Erie Canal, 80:3 miles in length, wa.s finished in 183."), at a cost of almost 
^S,0(>0,(X)0. Tho nggTtgat«i length of c^mals buUt in the United States is 3,300 miles. 

The first railway built in tho Unitoil States was one throe miles in length, that connected 
the granite tju-an-ies at Quincy, Massachusetts, with the Noponset Rivor. It was completed in 
1S37; horst<-power was usetL Tho first use of a locomotive in this country was in 1S39, when 
one was put upon a nailway that connected tho co:il mines of the Delaware and Hutlson Ciuial 
'Company with Ilouesdale. Now niilways form a thick netnnrk all over the United States 
cast of the Mississippi, and are rapidly spreading over tEb States and Tenntories beyoml, to tho 
Pacific Ocean. To these facihties for conmierciol oper.itions, miLst be added the Electro- 
Magiietic Telegraph, an Araericjui iuvention, as a method of transmitting intelligence, and 
giving waruing signals to tho shipping and agricultural interests concerning the octUiU and 
probable state of tho weather each ilay. The first line, forty miles in length, was constructed 
l)etwv*n Baltimore and 'Washington, in 18+t. Now the lines are extended to every part of our 
Union, und all over the ci\'ili7.ed worlil, traversing oceans and rivers, and bringing Pereia and 
New York within one hour's space of mtercommuuicatiou. 

Banking in-stitutions aud insm-anco companies .are intiraat<'ly coimected with commerce. 
Tho first Iwmk in the Unit<id States was established in 1781^ as a firuvnoial aid t-o the govern- 
ment. It was calleil the Bank of North America. The Bink of New York and Bank of 
Massachusetts wore established soon afterward. 0> tho rocommondation of Hamltou in 1791, 
a nation.al bank was established at Phihulelphia, with a capital of $10,OOJ,000, of which sum 
the government sulwcribed $3,000,00t). Various banking systems, under State charters, have 
«uicol)een tried. During tho Civil AVar a system of national banking was established, by 
which there is a imiforra paper currency throughout the Uniou. The mmiber of national 
banks at the close of 1803 was 01; the num'v.ir at tho closo of 1374 waj not far from 1,700, mvolv- 
iug capital to the amount of almost f .■■>o0,00O,000. 

Fire, marine, and life insurance companies have flourished greatly in the United States. 
The first incorponited company was ostablishiyl in 1792, in Pliiladelpliia, and known as tho 
■" Fire IiLsuraoco Company of North America." Another wa.s established in Pro\-idence, Rhoiio 
Island, in 17',>9, and another in Now York, m 1810. The first life insurance company was char- 
tered in Massachusetts in ISSI, and the "Njw York Life Insurance andTrast Company'' was 



THE NATIONAL PROGRESS. Xxix 

sstablished in 1829. All others are of recent organization. A, a nile, the business of insurance 
of erery kind is profitable to th3 irisiirers and the iusursLl. The amount of capital engaged in 
it is enormous. The fire risks alone, at the close of 1S74, amouut3d to about 8:200,000,000. 

Our growtli in population has been steadily incr.>ased by immigration fi-om Europe. It 
began very moderately after the Revolution. Prom 1781 to 1791 the average number of 
inxiuigi'ants a j^ear was 4,000. During the last ten years the number of persons who have 
emigrated to the United States fi-oui Europe is estunated at over 2,000,000, who brought witli 
them, in tho aggregate, ?200,000,000 ui money. This capital and the productive labor of the 
immigrants, have added much to the wealth of our country. This emigration and wealth is 
less than dm-iug tho ton yeai-s preceding the Ci-s-il War, during which time there came to this 
country from Europe 2,S14,.j3J persons, bringing with them an avereige of at least $100, or an 
aggregate of over $281,000,000. 

The Arts, Sciences, and Invention have made great progress in our country during the last 
hundred years. These, at the close of the Revolution, were of little account in estimating the 
advance of tho race. The practitioners of tho Arts of Design, at that period, were chiefly Euro- 
peans. Of native artists, C. VT. Peale and J. S. Copley stood at the head of painters. There 
were no sculptors, and no engravers of any eminence. Architects, in the propjr sense, there 
were none. After tho Revolution a few good painters appeai'ed, and these have gradually 
increased in numbers and excellence, without much encouragement, except in portrait- 
ure, until within tho last twenty-five yeai's. We have now good sculptors, architects, 
engravers, and hthographers ; and in all of these departments, as well as in photography, very 
gi'eat progress has been made within the last thirty or forty years. In wood engi'aving, 
especially, tho improvement has been wonderful Forty years ago there were not more than 
a dozen practitioners of the art in this country ; now there ai'e between four and five hundi'ed. 
At the head of that class of artists stanrls the name of Dr. Alexander Andei-son, who was the 
first man who engi-aved on wood in tho United States. Ha died in 1870 at the age of ninety- 
five years. In bank note engraving wo have attained to gi'eater excellence than any other 
people. It is considered tho most perfect branch of the ai't in design and execution. 

A.ssociations have been foraied for improvements in the Arts of Design. The first was 
••rgauized in Philadelphia in 1791, by C. W. Peale, in connection with Ceracchi, the ItaUan 
sculptor. It failed. In 1S02 the American Academy of Fine Arts was organized in the city of 
New York, and in 1807 the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, yet in existence, was estab- 
lished in Philadelphia. In 1826 the American Academy of Pine Arts was supcrsed3d by tho 
National Academy of Design, in the city of New York, wliich is now a flourishing institution. 

In education and Uterature our progress has kept pace with other things. At tho very 
beginning of settlements, the common school was made the special care of the State in New 
England. Not so much attention was given to this matter elsewhere in tho Colonies. The 
need of higher institutions of learning was early felt ; and eighteen years after tho landing of 
the Pilgrims from the May-Flower, Harvard College was founded. ^Tien the war for inde- 
pendence began there were nine colleges in the Colonies, namely, Harvai'd at Cambridge, 
Ma-ss. ; WUliam and Mary at WiLhamsburg, Va. ; Yale at New Haven, Conn. ; College of New 
Jersey, at Princeton ; University of Pennsylvania, at Philadelphia ; King's (now Columbia) 
in the city of New York ; Brown University at Providence, R. I. ; Daitmouth at Hanover, 
N. H. ; and Rutgers at New Brunswick, N. J. There ai'e now about 300 colleges in the United 
States. 

At the period of the Revolution, teaching in the common schools was very meagre, and 
remained so for fuU thu-ty year's. Only reading, sijelling, and arithmetic were regulai-ly 
taught. The Psalter, tho New Testament, and the Bible constituted the reading-books. No 
history was read ; no geography or grammar wero taught ; and untU the putting forth of 
Webster's Spelling Book in 1783, pronunciation was left to the juagmant of teachers. That 
book produced a revolution. 

As the nation advanced in wealth and intelligence, the necessity for correct popular educa- 
tion became more and more manifest, and associated efforts wero made for tho improvement 
of the schools by providing for the training of teachers, under the respective phases of Teachers' 
Associations, Educational Periodicals, Normal Schools, and Teachers' Institutes. Tho first of 
these societies in this counti-y was the ' ' Middlesex County Association for the Improvement of 
C/ommou Sch 3ols, " established at Middleto^vn, Connecticut, in 1799. But httle of importance 
■was done in that direction until within tho last forty-2vo years. Now provision is made in 
all sections of tho Union, not only for the support of common schools, but for traiaing-schooU 
lor teachers. Since the CivU War, great efforts have been made to establish common school 



xxx 



SUPPLEMENT. 



systems iii the late slavo-labor States, that should include among the beneficiaries the colored 
population. Much has been cloue in that regard. 

Very great improvemeuts have been made in the organization and discipline of the public 
schools in cities within the last tliirty years. Proe schools are rapidly spreading their bonRfl- 
cent influence over the whole Union, and in some States laws have been made that compel all 
chililren of a certain ago to go to school Institutions for the special culture of young woraen 
in aU that pertains to college education, have been estabhshed within a few years. The pioneer 
in this work is Vassar CoUege, at Pouglikeepsie, N. Y., which was first opened in the year 180."). 
Besides the ordinary means for education, others liave been established for sixscial purposes. 
There are Law, Scientific, Medical, Theological, Mihtary, CommerciaJ, and Agricultural 
Schools, imd seminaries for the deaf, dmnb, and blind. In many States school district libra- 
ries have been established. There arc continually eulurging means provided for the education 
of the whole people. Edmimd Burke said, " Education is the cheap defence of nations." 

Our literature is as varied as the taste's of the people. No subject escapes the attention of 
our native scholars and authoi-s. At the period of the Revolution, books were few in variety 
and muubei-s. A larger portion of them were devoted to theological subjects. Booksellers 
were few, and were only found in the larger cities. VarioiLs subjects were discu.ssed in pam- 
phlets — not generally in newspapers as now. The editions of books were small, and as stereo- 
typing was mikno\vn, they became rare in a few years, because there was only a costly way 
of reproduction. 

In the year 1801, a new impetus was given to the book trade by the formation of the 
" American Company of Booksellers " — a Idnd of "union." Twenty years later competition 
broke up the association. Before the "War of 1812 the book trade in the United States was 
small. School books only had very large sales. Webster's Spelling Baok was an example of 
the increasing demand for such helps to education. During the twenty yejvi-s ho wsis engaged 
on his Dictionary, the income from his Spelling Book supported him and his family. It was 
published in 1TS3, and its sales have continually increa.sed to the present time, when they 
amount to over 1,000,000 copies a year. Other school books of every kind now have an im- 
mense annual circulation. The general book trade in this country is now inunense in the 
number of volumes issued and the capital and labor employed. Readers are rapidly increasing. 
An ai'dent thirst for knowledge or entertaumient to bu foimd in boolis, magazines, and news- 
papers, makes a very large demand for these vehicles, while, at the same time, they produce 

^vide-spread inteUigence. The magazine 
literature, now generally healthful, is a 
powerful coadjutor of books in this popu- 
lar culture ; and the ne^vspaper, not al way* 
so healthful, supplies the daily and weekly 
demand for ephemerals in literature and 
general Imowledge. To supply that de- 
maud required great improvements in 
printing machinery, and thece have been 
Bupphed. 

The printing press at the time of the 
Revolution is shown in that used by 
Franldin, in which the pres-sure force was 
obtained by niaans of a screw. The ink 
was npphed by huge baUs ; and an expert 
workman could fimiish about fifty im- 
pressions an hour. This was improved by 
Earl Stanhope in ISl.*), by substituting for 
the screw a jointed lover. Then came 
inking machines, and one man could work 
olT 250 copies an hour. Years passed on, 
and the cylinder press was invented ; and 
in 1847 it was perfecte<l by Richard M. 
Hoe, of New York. Tliis has been fur^ 
ther improved lately, and a prmtmg press is now used which wUl strike off 15,000 newspapers, 
printed on both sides, everj- hour. 

Tlio newspapers prmted in the United States at the beginning of the Ri-vohition wore few 
In number, small in size, and very meagre in information of any kind. Tliey were issued 




PRAKK11N"3 PBIXTCSO pre?s. 



THE NATIONAL PROGRESS. XXXI 

weekly, semi-weekly, and tri-weekly. The first daily newspaper issued in this country was th» 
"American Daily Advertiser," established in Philadelphia in ITSi In 1775 there were 37 news- 
papers and periodicals in the United States, with an aggregate issue that year of 1,300,000 copies. 
In 1870 the number of daily newspapers in the United States was 54:2; and of weeklies, 4,42.j. 
Of the dailies, 800,01X1,000 were issued thsit year ; of the weekUes, 000,000,000, and of other 
serial publications 100,000,000, maldng an aggregate of fuU 1, .500, 000, 000 copies. To these 
figures should be made a large addition at the close of 1875. There are now about forty news- 
papers iu the United States which havo existed over fifty years. 

In the providing of means for moral and reUgious culture and benevolent enterprises, there 
has been great progress in this country during the century now closing. The various rehgious 
denominations have increased in membership fully in proportion to tho increase of population. 
Asylums of every kind for the unfortunate and friendless have been multiplied in an equal 
ratio, and provision is made for all. 

One of the most conspicuous examples of the growth of our republic is presented by the 
postal service. Dr. Franklin had been Colonial Postmaster-General, and he was appointed to 
the same ofiBce for one year by the Continental Congress iu the Sununer of 177.5. Ho held the 
position a httle more than a year, and at the end of his official term there were about 50 post- 
offices in the United States. AU the accounts of the General Post-Offlce Department during 
that period were contained in a small book consisting of about two quires of foolscap paper, 
which is preserved in the Department at Washington City. .Through all the gloomy yeai's of 
the weak Confederacy the business of the Department was compai-atively light ; and when the 
national government began its career in 1789 there were onl}'' about seventy-five post-offices, 
with an aggregate length of post-roads of about 1,900 mUes. The annual income was $38,000, 
and the annual e.xpenditures were 833,000. The maUs were carried by postmsn on horseback, 
and sometimes on foot. Now the number of post-offices is over 33,000 ; the aggregate length 
of postroutes 356,000 miles ; the annual revenue .?33,000,000, and the annual expenditures $39,- 
000,000. 

We may safely claim for our people and country a progress in all that constitutes a vigorous 
and prosperous nation during the century just pass^nl, equal, if not superior t<J that of any 
other on the globe. And to the inventive genius .^ild eldll of the Americans may be fairly 
awarded a large share of the honor acquired by the construction of machinery which has so 
largely taken the place of manual labor. In that prograsa th» Aajerican citizen beholds a 
tangible prophecy of a brilliant future for his country. 

We have confined our statements concerning the progn'ess of our country since 1776 to 
the period of one hundred years ending in 1876. Since then that progress has been still 
more remarkable. The census of 1880 shows the number of the population to be more 
than fifty million, and the jjroducts of its great industrial interests vastly increased in 
quantity and value. Our public debt is rapidly diminisliing ; the sentiment of national 
unity is pen'ading every portion of the Republic more and more, and emigration (which 
in 1 $81-83 amounted to about one million persons) is adding wealth and strength to the 
nation. The United States now (1883) is the freest and richest nation ou the face of the- 
earth. 



I :isr DE x. 



A. 

Abanal-fa Indiana, Tribes of. 1". 2'2. 
Abbboromrie, General, his expedition. 191. 
Aboi'iffina'-a of Ainericj, 9. SS. Taken to England, ^S. 
Acadia, settlement of. 60. 121. Annexed to the British 
realm, 136. The name of, changed to Nova Scotia, 132, 
liinedition against. 18.5. 
AcccJiannoek Inditnis, 20. 
Ac^077iac IndifiTis. 20, 
Act of Supremacy^ 75. 

Adams John, defends Cant. Preston. 223. Member of 
the first Continental Congress. 5S3. Sugge5t9 the 
appointment of Washlnicton as Commander-in-Chief, 
238. On the Comuiittee' to draft the Declaration of 
Independence, 2.M, 252. 5S9. Siffn-r of it^ 602. Chair- 
mail of the Boai'd of War, 23-i, On the- Committee to 
confer with Lord Howe, 257. C')mmissioner of the 
Treaty of Peace. 843. First Miniittr to Great Britain, 
S-J9. "Vice-President, 8W. Ee-elncted.877. President 
of United States, 8S2, 8S3. Death of, 457. Notices of, 
^%X 5S9. 
Adams, John Quinct, his letter to Jeffer^ion on tho 
embargo, 403. Envor, 419. Commissioner at Ghent. 
443. Secretary of State, 447. His treaty with Spain. 
451. President of the United States, 454. Notice of, 
454. 
Adams, Saj^cel. 219, 221. 227, 284. 
Adams, William. British Commissioner, 443. 
Addison. R. C . Commissioner at Panamx 
Adtniraity^ Massachusetts Board of, 807. Continental 

Board oi. SOS. 
AQua yueva. 4^?5. 

AU-la-ChapeUe, Peace of, 13S. Conference at, respect- 
ing Cuba. 522, 
-4A/?t(r?»./,Staie<if.44S. 

Alabama Indians, In the Creek Confederacy, 30. 
Alabama, Confederate cruieer, 641. 
Alabama^ Secession of, 547. In possession of Union. 

Army, 605. 
Albany, 144. Dutch Fort and Store House at, 72,140, 

Walloons at, 73. 
Albemarle, steam ram, 704. 
Albert, Prince, and the World's Fair, 517. 
Aleutian Islands, 11. 
Alexander, Sia William, Earl of Stirling, SO. See 

Stirling. 
Alexander, son of Massasoit. 124. 
AlgerinA Pirates, SSI, 444. 445. 

Algiers, The United States at war with, 890. 445. 
Decatur at, 445. Peace between the United States 
and, 861. 
Algonquin Indians, Discovery of the. 17. Their tribes 
and territory, 17, With Samuel Champlain, 59. In 
tho Indian confederacy to exterminate tho white 
people, IS. 
Alien Law of the Vnit^d States. SS6. 
Allatoona Pa^s. 699. 

AlUghxuty Mountains, Extent and name of the, 19. 
Allkn, Etdan, Colonel, 284 At Montreal, 240. Notice of. 

240. 
Allen, Colonel, in the Indian war in 1S13, 416, 41S. 
Allen, Captain, of the brig Argus, 429. 
Atnboy, New Jersey. 
Ambbistbe, Kobebt C, 44S, 461. 
Amelia Idand^ 44S. 



America. Discovery of, 34. Oriein of tho nam^ 41 
First colony in, 42. Intercourse of, with the Cl« 
World. 11. 
American Agriculture, 457. Association. 228. Col- 
onies, cost of. to Enjrland, 206. Commerce, protftcted 
in 1601. 390, 391. Manufactures, 447. System 45S 459 
Party, 531. 
Ames, Fisher, Notice of. 8S0. 

Amherst. Jf.ffeet. Lord, his expedition aeainst Louis- 
bursh. 196. Captures Ticonderoga. and Crown Point 
199. 200, At Quebec, 203. Notices of, 196. 199. 
Amidas, Philvp, his expedition to America. 55, 
x\.\iPUDiA. General, 4S1, Surrenders Monterey, 4S4. 
Amsterdam, Henry Hudson sails from, 59. Charter to 

merchants of, 72, 
Andastes Indians, 19. 28, 24. 
A.XDEnsoN, tluHN. (Major Andre}.825. 
Anderson. Egbert, Mnjor, 549, 552. 
Andre, Majur, Arnold's bargain with, 325. Captured 

and executed; memorial to. 326. 
Andros, Sir Edmund, airives at Boston, 129. Impris- 
oned, 180. Governor of New York. 147 ; and of New 
Jersey, 159, 160. Usurpations by, 155, 156. 
Androscoggin Indians, 22. 

Annapolis, The Continental Con^iress meets at, 5S8. 
Anxawan, Famuuft New England Indian, 21. 
Atitietani. Battle of, 639. 
Anvillr, Duke D., 13S. See D'Horville. 
Apiiche Indians, ;-i3, 

Appalachian Indians, Moore's expedition against the, 
16J, 170. ' 

Appalachian Mountains, 19. De Soto crosses the, 44. 
App-nnattox Cvitrt- House, 719. 
A'piiday Island, Indian name of Rhode Island. 91. 
Aqjiinu-gchioni. A. name given to ihe Five Nations, 2"J. 
AunrTjiKOT, Admiral, besieges Charleston, 309, 310. 

Attacks the French fleet 830. 
ARntTHNOT, Alexander, 44S, 451. 
Akchdale. JuiiN, Governor. 165, 167. 
Argall, Samuel, Captain, his piracies, 58. Capture 
Pocahontas. 70. Deputy-Governor of Virginia, 7* 
Story of him and Dutch traders, 72. 
" Argus''' brig, 429, 430. 
'^ Ariel"' schooner, 420. 
Arista, General, at Matamoras, 4S1. 
ArA-a7is<t8 liidians. 32. 
Arkansas, State of. 451. Add..-d to the Union, 46- 

Secession of. 547, 675. 
Arlington, Earl of, 110. 
Aemibtbad, Major, At Fort M'Henry, 437. 
Armstrong. .Ioiin, General, 193. Author of the Newbury 
Address, 849. Secretary of War, 426. Notices of, 34&. 
426. 
Armstrong. John. Colonel, 193. 

Army, United States, condition oC 257, 261. Dis- 
banded, 350, 6S1. 
Army, British, in America, number of men in the, 25S, 

Sums ■.iranted for the, 206. Stjite of. 2S5. 
Arnold.^ Benedict, Gov. of Rhode Island, 153. 
Arnold. Benedict. General, at Fort Stanwii. 27S; Lake 
Champlain. 234.261 ; Penn's House. 162 j Philadelphia, 
2S7; Quebec, wounded. 241. 242: Kid<relield. 2V0; 
Saratoga. 282. Reprimanded bv Washinjton, 325. 
Treason of. 324, 325. 326. Escapes to the Vulture. 326, 
Depredations committc^I by, in Virglnuu 330; and in 
New England, 340. 



XXXIT 



INDEX. 



Articles of Co!{federaUon, 206, 267, »53, 855. 

AenBUBTON. Lord, 472. , ~ , . <>oo 

AsiiF GciuTal. im. -Miss and Colonel Tarlolon, 882. 

AahUy River. 9-i. 99. 

Atsiiiibnin Jmliaus.S\.S2. 

AsToft. .loiis jAcnii, his irmling station, 4 19 

AthaiMHca) Judian«. 17. 

Atkenion. IIknky, Gciioral,46.'J. 

Atl,t,it<i, mo. TOO. Battle a^ 701, 70S. 

Athintic fal'U.-ii^ 

Attij^-o. D.-fiat ol t-anta Anna at, 497. 

AttitinJer. ISill of. G19. 

Attiunani/irou fll'lidlls. 23. 

ATTVCK9, TKisl'va. 221. 

^iiuiMdr. Gc.iriri.x rapturod by Leo, 838, 887. 

AfSTiN. Ann. t\u' (Jnakiri-ss, 123. 

l«t?^'i, o'."l^ G™>™''uf: and Martin Kosrta, 5ia 

Autome'e, Ala., Batllo at, 42S. 

AViiloH, Territory ol'. SI 

ATKRU.L, W. W., Gen., UaWs of, CCO, 097. 

ASEU Connt, 98. 

AvLLuX, bee.U'Ayllon. 

B. 

Bacon, Lord, his expedition to New Foundliind, 74. 
Bacos, Nathaniel, 110,111. 112. o„„ on, 

B.t.NB;.uoE. C-o.n.nodore. Protect? Am. Com. 890,891, 

Caiitiired bv Tripulitans, 891. Notice of, 891. 
Baldwin, AimAiiAM 860. 629. 
Balfouk. Colonel, ot Clmrleston, 337. 

1%',^Z" M^'vlM'^thn Smith on the site of, 67. 
^Oen "4» apr.o"leUe». 436,437. Congress meet* at, 
■>6> Jilaisaehusetts tr.K.ps attacked in, 0S6. 

^!^.^'^£:;X.::^;^%^.. Na.i„na,872. OfNe. 

York 372. Of North Auienea, 329. Si.!. 
Banks.'n. p.. Gen., 024. Commander at New Orleans, 

iJ.^'vSI'.t': e^nSed to pay fines, in Virginia, UO. 

B<,rl,an/ P «r«. T^he V. B. at vear with. 390 

RahilaV Kour.BT, Governor of New Jersey, 160. 
bIrol": Commodore, 420. His tribute to Commodore 

Baklow, ARTiirK, his espedition to America, 55. 

BtaNEv' Comno'iore, hi. flotilla, 486. Notice of. 430. 

Bai-.re, Colonel, 217, 225, 2S2. 

Barron. Commodore, 401. 

Barrx. Captain. 80d 

Barton, William, Colonel, i!il. 

Babtkam. ,Ioiin, 210. 

Bassktt, Ki<UAR;..3f.6. 

Bavabi.. J AMES A.. Envoy, 419, 448, 542. 

Bear Tribe of Indi^iM. 15. 

Beaufort. V. 8. Army takes possession of, 5Sa 

BIAUMABCUAIS. M., 26G. 

B«albboabp, p. G., General, 5.^8, 601, 603, 7ia 

Bedell, C«lonel,-a40. 

Bkdforo, Gunning, jr.. 350, 628. 

Beektnan's .Stramp, 143. 

Beees, Captain. 120. 

Belooeb, Governor, 136.1 li 

Belgium, Treaty with. 409. 

Belknap. .Iebemt, Dr.. 57. 

nmi .loiiN SeereUirv of War, 4>4, S4I. 

2^\ch'.rch removed from Deerlleld to Coiighna. 

waga, 135. 
Bellemont, Earl of, 194- 
Belt, Wampum. 13. 
Be^i»'» Ileivhli. Battle of, 281. 

BENNET, KhMABD, 109. 

Bent<mmU: Battle near, 714. 

SB:;^E^E;:^;«^"L,]^,«3,miio,iii,ii2. 

S^^'i/^'Wan'^'bttl-., Newport,and Somer, wrecked 

on the, 6?. 
Bermuda Ilumlred.mX. 
Bernabi). Governor. 220. 
Bethlehftn. U\ Kayoltf at, 278. 
Beverlt, K<MiEP.T. Major. 112. 
Bible, the. The Suitnte book in Conn., It* 

BlDPI.B. KOWA«l> •^^ 

Bu>i>LE, Captain, SOi. 



Big Bethel. Battle at, 562. 

J/S o/ «i!//i(<i of the Continental Congre»^ WO. 

BiLLlNOE, KnWARD, 100. 

BiLLop, Captain, 257. 

BlNKilAM. Captain, 407. 

Birmingham Meeting //<>u««, 278. 

Slackfeet lninan».»X 

Black Hawk, 18,82.40.8. 

Black lldick War. 403. 

Bliick ItiH-k fillage. burnt. 42T. 

Blackstonk, William, Uev., 89. 

Black Ifi/rrior, Steam Shiji, 619. 

Blaib, John, 850, 869. 

Blakeley, Captain, 440. 

Blennebiiasset, .397. 

Block. Adbian, 72. 82. 

Blockade Ruunera. 70a 

Block llorue. Burnet's 192. 

Black Island, Oriein of the name 01, ST. 

BLOEMABT, S-AMtlKL, 139. 

Bloody Creek. Connecticut, 128. 

Bloody Marsh. Florida, 173. 

Bloody Pond. 190. 

Bloomfieli), Joseph, 410. 

Blount, William, 355, 856. 

Bluiheb. 431. 

Blvtiik, Captain, 480. „, -, . ,™ 

BoardTot Admiralty, See Admiralty. Of Trade, 188, 
1S4. Of trade an.l plantations, 134. Of war, appointed 
by l^oucrees, 294. 

Bolivar, General, 4.57. 

Bonaparte, Napoleon, Emperor, 899. His decrees a« 
Berlin. 400; Milan,402;andRamboiiillet, 40b. freaty 
with, 3S6. 603. 

"Bonhomme Ilichard." 807. 
1 Booksellers in the American Colonies, li9. 

BooNF. Daniel, 800. 

Boom, Wilkes, Assasain, 720. 

B.1SCAWKN. Admiral, 189, 195, 196. 

Boston, Mass, Norwegians explore the recion near, 
35 Founded. US. Expedition from, to Port Koyal, 
135, 180. Uevoliitionary proceedings there. 221. 
Boston, Port Bill, 225, 226. Boston Neck,229. Forti- 
fied by Gage. 229. Cannonaded, 217. Evacuated by 
the British. 247. _ , ^^_ „ ^. ^ 

BosguET, Colonel, 19, 19^ At Pittsburg, 205. Notlc« 

of, 205. 
BownoiN, Governor, 8i$. 
" B'Wf r." United States Brig, 43a 
Bovo, Colonel. 295. 

BRri>nocK?EiiwARn. General, 1*4. Meeting with the 

Governors of the Colonies, 1S5. ExpedlUon to Fob- 

Du Quesne, 1S6, De.ath of, 1S6. 

BRArrORn, William, Governor, ll.\ 115. y, ^„,,^ 

Brauroro, William, Editor of the New York Gatetti, 

150 
Bkap'street. Colonel. 1". l?*«,*«J'''(ISi"' ^'"" 
Braqo. General. 6)2. 681. OSS, 663, 665, 606. 
Brandyirine, Battle of, 27.3. 
'■ Brandi/icine," frigate, 458. 
Brant, j'osKPH. 290,291. 
Bra.HliearCity. 6S4. 
Bkkaklt, Davih, 856. 
Breeds Hill. 234. 
Brent. Charles. 4S9. 
Beewstbr, Kliieb, 77, 116. 
Bekvman. Cidonel.277. 
Bridg^rater, Battle at, 4.3.3. 
Bristnl, England, Cabot sails from, 40. 
British Agents among the lndians.S,3. Fleet, depre- 
dations bv the, ill llie United States, 430 ; and In ISH, 
4;}0. t)7. ' Fleet on Lake Champlaln, 485. Claims to 
Oregon, 479. 
Brock, Sir Iraac, General, 411, 414. 
Brooke, Lord. S,\ 
Bbookb, Colonel, 487. 
Brook/ield. Connecticut, 126. 
Brooklyn. New York, Walloons at, 78. 
Brown, Jacob. 356. . . t»_ 

Brown, Jacor, General, at Chippewa, 488. At Pret- 
eott,420. At Sacketfs harbor, 426, 482. Notice of, 
43:3 ' 
Brows, John, Raid of, 68a Notice of, 68a 

Brows'. Major, at''Fort Brown, *3«. Mortally wounded, 

492. 
Bbown, General, (BrlUsh), 886, 887. 



INDEX. 



XXXV 



Browne. John ajstd Samtiel, 119, 

Buchanan, James. Secretarv of State, 478. Elected 
President. 530. Notice of, 530. Cabiuet of, 682. 

BiTCKNER, General. 596. 

Bfena Vista, Battle of,4S5. 

BcELL, Don CariuB. 591. 595. 603, 606, 633. 

Bufato, New- York, burnt, 427. 

BuFOBD, Abraham, Colonel, his troops slaughtered by 
Tarleton, 313. 

Bull, Brought to America by Columbus, 41. 

MulVs Run, First b.ittle of. 56S. 

Bunker's Hill, 2U. Battle of, 236. 

Burgesses, The Virginia House of, 106. 

BuTiGOYNE, John, General. '234. At Fort Edward, 276, 
277. At Lake Chamj-Iain, 272. At St. John, 271. At 
Ticonderog:a, 275. Surrenders at Saratog*a, 2S1. Dines 
with General Schuyler, 2S1. Notice of, 2S2. 

Bfrke, Edmund, 217, 221, 2S2. 

Burlington, Count Donop at, 262. 

JBcENKT, Peter H., 499. 

BuRNSiDE, Ambrose E., General, 559,606. Headquarters 
of, 607. Takes command of the Army, 6S1. Is super- 
seded, 631, etw. 

_BuRNS, Anthony, Fugitive Slave, arrest of, 519. 

-Burr, Aaron, in Arriold^s expedition to Quebec, 241. 
Vice-President, 3SS. Duel with Hamilton, 361, 896. 
Proposed invasion of Mexico, 396. Tried for treason, 
398. His conduct towards Blennerhasset, 3&7. Notice 
of, 897. 

BuRKixoTON. George, Governor of North Crnliana, 171. 

Burroughs. Rev,, The. execntnd as a wizard, 133. 

Burrows, Lieut., Capiuixi the British brig ■■Boxer," 
482. 

BusHNELL, David, his torpedo, 252. 

Bute, Lord, 213. 

Butler. Benjamin. F.. 4S3, 579, 609. Commander of New 
OrleiiUB., 6 11, 6-j2. 63o. lielievod of the Department of 
the Giilf 65R, 6SS. 691. Colored troops under, 696. 

Butler, John. Colonel, 27S, 290. 

Butler, Pierce. 350. 

Butler. Walter N.. 291. 

BuTLKR, Zeuulon, Colouel, Notlce ot, 290. 

BraoN, Admiral, 305. Succeeds Lord Howe, 292. 



c. 

Jabot, George, 444. 

Cabot, John, Notice of, 60. 

Cabot. Sebastian, his commission from Henry VII. 46. 
Sails for America iu 1497, 46. His second expedition, 
in 149S, 47. Discovers Labrador, Newfoundland and 
portions of New England, 41. Explores the coast from 
Labrador to the Carolinas, 47. Navigates the northern 
coast of Hudson's Bav. Explores the coast of Brazil, 
47. Discovers the Rio de la Plata. 47. Notices of, 47, 60. 

■Cadwalader, Lambert, Colonel, 355. 

■Cadwallader. John, General, at Trenton, 263, 263. 

Cahokiu, captured by Major Clarke, 303. 

Cahokui Imfitrn^, 19. 

■Caldwell, Rev. Dr., 334. 

Caldwell. James, 221. 

■** Caledonia''^ Tiie, one of Perry's vessels, 420. 

Calef, Mr., of Boston, 133. 

■Calhoun. John C., his views of the war of 1912, 409. 
Secretary of War, 447. Vice-president, 454, 459. No- 
tices of, 45S, 459. 

<7rt^i/(>r;j?a, Conquest of, 487. Discovery of Gold, 497. 
Admitted to the Union, 501. Excludes slavery, 499. 

■Calumets, Indian, 14, 

Calvert, (■harles. 15:5. 

<^alvert, GEOR'iE, Lord Baltimore, SI. 

Calvert, Leonard, S2, 151. 

Cambridge, Eugbnd, Meeting at, respecting the Ply- 
mouth Colony, lis. 

Camhridfie, Massachusetts, founded, 113. The college 
founded at, 121. Provincial Congress at, 230. 

Camden, New Jersey, 93. 

Campbell, William. Colonel. 319. 

<^ampuell, Colonel. (British), 291, 292, 294. 

Camp Douglaff, Prisoners at, 710. 

Canada, Attempted conquest of, 131, 136. Pitt's scheme 
for conquering, 199. Measures for the conquest of, 
203. 204. End of French dominion in, 22. Address of 
Congress to trie people of, 239. Proposed invasion of, 
194. HulTs invasion of. 410. Wellington's troops 
sent to, 482 Revolutionary movement In. 471, 472. 

Canary Islands, Columbus delayed at the, 39. 

Canby, E. K. S., General, 691, 6S6. 



Cancnchet, Treaty of Peace with, 125. His perfidy and 
death, 127. 

Canonicus, Narraganset chief, 21. 90, 91, 115. 

Canterbury^ Archbishop of, 121. 

Cape Ann, colony at. 116. Bajudor, 36. Breton, 137, 
13S. Charles, ori2in of the name, 64. Cabot passes, 
46. Cod, origin ot the name. 57. Farewell, 46. Fear, 
origin of the name, 55. Of Good Hope, origin of the 
name, 37. Ileiilopen, 93. Henry, origin of the name, 
64. May. 35; purchase of, and origin of the name, 94. 

Capital of the United States^ 8SS. 

Caramelli, Uamet, 392,395. 

Carcass, described, 236. 

Cardon, Lord. 166. 

Carleto.v, Sir Guv, Governor of Canada, 878. At St. 
J'hn's. 240. At Quebec, 241. His propositions for 
rec )nrili!iiion. 345. 

Caklislk, Karl of. Commissioner to America, 1778, 286. 

Carnifex Ferrt/, B.attle at, 5TS. 

Carolina, Amidas and Barlow off the shores of. 6EL 
Colonies founded n, 63. Origin of the name, 50, 55, 
9S. The colonies of, 97. 163, 164; Separated, 171. 
Grant from Parliament to, 206. Opposes taxation, 223, 

CaroliJHi, Fort^ 9S. 

'■Caroline,'''' steamboat, 472. 

Carpenter's //all, Philadelphia, 2SS, 5S3. 

Carr, Sir Robert, 123. 

Carroll, Charles, of Carroll ton, 252, 602. 

Carroll, Daniel, 356. 

Carroll, John, Archbishop, 354. Notice of, 354. 

Caktebf.t. Sir Geohoe. 9S, 159. Purchases New Jersey, 

Carteret, Philip. Governor of New Jersey, 94, 159. 

Carteret Count;/ Colony, 9S, 164, 165. 

Cartip.r, James, his expeditious, 4S,49. 

Caktwrioht. George. 123. 

Carver, Joun. tiuvi-rnDr, 77, 7^. His interview with 
Massasoit 114. Death of, 115. Notice of. 73. 

Cascades, Oregon, Attacked by Indians, 52S. 

Casco Village, attacked by the French and Indians, 131. 

Casev. General. 616. 

Cass. Lewis, General, at Detroit, 424. Candidate for 
the Prebidency, 1S4S, 49S. 

Castillon, General, deserts Colonel Walker at Rivas, 
525. 

Casting. Baron de, 134. 

Castine. Admir.il Griffith seizes the town of, 1814, 4aS. 

Castle William, 220. 

Castro, General, 4S7. 

Caswell, KiraABD. 356, 5SS. 

Catawba Indians^ 20, 27. Allies of North Carolina Col- 
ony, 168, 170. 

Oitaicha Hirer, 27. 

<^nt /fdand. See Gnanahama. 

Cattle, First, in Connecticut, S6. Newfoundland and 
Nova Scotia, 47. 

Caughnatcaga, The church bell at, 135. 

Cayuga Indiana^ 23. 24. 

Cedar Mountain^ Battle at, 624. 

Census, 371, 8S8. 

Cent, U. S Coin, 372. 

Champe, Serjeant, attempts to capture Arnold, 326. 

Champlain. Samdbl, his expedition, 59. Discovers 
Lake Champlain, 59 ; and Lake Huron 59. His pub- 
lications. 59. 

ChamplaiTu, Lake, discovered, 59. 

ChiincellorsDille, Battle of, 649. 

Chanco, 106. 

Chandler, Notice of, 426. 

Charles I, of England, 74, 107. 116. 

Charles IL, of England, 109,110. His Gifts to Lord Cul- 
pepper, and the Earl of Arlington, 110. Grants a new 
charter to Connecticut, 155. 'Declares the Massachu- 
setts charter void. 129. Makes judges independent of 
the peo[ile. 110. Reproaches Governor Berkeley, 112. 
Gives New Netheriand to his brother James, 144. 
Death of, 113. 

Charles IX.. of France, 49, 51. His commission to Co- 
ligny, 50. 

Ckarlestow, Sonth Carolina, founded. 99, 117. French 
and Spanish expedition against, 169. Seige of, 309, 
311. Captured by the British, 312. Evacuated, 348. 
at Oglethorpe, 100, 703. 

C/utrl€sto>rn, Mass., 2S6. 

Charter of liberties, 'WnUam Penn's, 162, Of New 
York, 147. 

Chatham. The Earl of. 21S. His conciliatory measures, 
231. His deuuuciaiions iu the House of Lords, 28S> 



XXXVl 



INDEX. 



nu letter to Sfljre, 22^. Ilis opinion of the Conii- 

iifntfll empress. 2*2S. DoatU oi; 2S6. Notice of, 211. 

6fe I'iti. 
CiiASR. Salmon P.. Secrt'tary of the TTe!i*nry.&&l. Notice 

of. 560, 679. (.hlef-Justico of United States, 782. 
Ckuttanougti, 6ii6. 6^2. 
CiiArNOKY, C'lumnodnre. 420, 42S. 
CiiEHSKMAN, General Motiik'oinery's Aid, 242. 
ChepiUtemc, Buttle of, 1^17, 4W. 
Cheraw Judiiins. 20. 
Ch«rry Vtiliei/ tlovuetflted, 290. 
'• Cherub '' ^ltKH^-^>f•WHI■. 4^U. 
Oitruf'iifico, General Scott iit, 493. 
OnESTNUT. Jamfs, M6. 
C Aastipea tit Jiai/ exjiltjrod by Oaptnln John Smith, 

67. Gusnotd in tbo, 64. Indians on the, 20. 
" Ch49iiptuki " frigate, 401, 4'JD. 
Cht^f^r, pi'un«ylvaiila. William Penn at, 97. 
C?ter'aii^r>-(t^'/r'i.^fi described, 274. At Charleston, 811. 
Chert/ iVttiH^. idH. 

iVi^tcini; Tclxircn invented by white people, 14, 
( htC'iffo, ^Vi^:^VJlnl at, 543. Convention nt, 710. 
Chirk\ih'tminy Jiiver, 06. 616. Battle uf the, 620. 692. 
*' Chickamaui/a''' Confederate pirate, 714. Battle of, 

666. 
Chick'.U(iw Bar/on, Battle at, 618. 
O hickiiAiiw Jnfiians, 29, iH\ 44. 
Chu'kii^aw Iiii-er\20. 
CmoKRLEY, Sir Hksby. 113. 
Chihi^ Scandlnaviun, born on lihode Island, 85. 
Guilds, Colnntl. at Puebhi, 494. 
Chimney Point, 1S9. 
Chippexca Indiiins, 17, 18, 24, 205. 
Chippewa, Battle of. 488. 
Choctaw Indians, 29, 80. 
Chowayi Indians, 23. 
Chowan Jiit^er, 97. 

Christians, Indian, converted by French Je8ult8.22. 
Ch/'i»(i<j}i Conimitision, 728. 
Chp'i.stiiia, in Oelewaro, 98. 
CnitoM»;LK, WiLHAH. Mayor. 319. 
Chrt/Mfer't FUM, Battle of, 427. 
CiK'Kcii Uen.i.vmin. Captain. \'i1. Death of, 127. 
Chitrchof Enijland- in the reign of ChiirU-s II., 110. 

Kstiiblished in Marvlfind, 154. In North Carolina, 

16^. In South CaroUna. 169. 
Church and Slitte. in Miissaulmsetts, 118. 
Churchmen, persecuted bv Purit-ans, 119. 
Cincinnati SociHi/, inslitiiti-d. 352. Order of the, 852. 
Cipher Writing of the Ni*\v York torios, 309. 
Citfj Uall of New Yorli, 306. City Hall Park, 148. 
Civilization, New peri<)d of, in America. 52. 
Claiuornb, WiLLUvM C. C, Governor, 440. Notice of, 

441. 
Clan^. Indi.in. 17. 
Clarhni'On, Lord. 9S. 
Clarendon County Colony^ 98. 
Clark. Aiiraiiam, 356, 602. 
Claukk, Geokuk K.. General, bis operations In South 

Carolina and Geortria. 314, 316, 819, 836. His expedi- 
tion neainst the Indians, 308. Captures Kaskaskia, 

and Cahokia, 3o8. Notice of, 303. 
Clarke, Captain, his tour of exploration with Captain 

Lewis, in 1S04. 479. 
Clay, Grf.f.n. General, at Fort Meigs. 41S, 419. 
Clay, Hrnky. United States Conimissioner at Ghent, 

448, Norninnt.e<i for the Presidency, 454. Secretary 

of State. 454. His compromise biil. 4^1. Nominated 

for the Presidency. 47S. Notice of, 500. 
Clay. Lloutenant-Colonel, 4S6. 
Claybohnr, William, S2, 151. 
*' Clermont^ Fulton's first steamboat, 399. 

ClBVEL-INW, BRNJA.UIN, 319. 

Clinoii, Qeufral. 467. 

ClIS'IMAN. ■\Vn.LiAM, Cll. 

Clinton, De Wtrr, 416. Ills part in tho Erie Canal, 457. 
Notice of. 457. 

€linton. Sir Hbxry. General, nt Boston. 2:14. 236. Joins 
Sir Peter Parker, 24S. On Long Island. 2r;.3. At New- 
York, 272. Captures Forts Clinton and Montnonu-rv, 
2S.3. At Monmouth, 2S7. His moontl^rlit dispatch, 
2S3. Ills maraudini: expeditions, 296. Sneceed- Howe. 
237. Evacuates Khode Island, and pn>ceeds to the 
Carolinas. 806. 809. In Xew Jersey, 820. Deceivt-s 
Washington, 320. At the Seipe of' Charleston. 309. 
Seudfl ernissai'tes to the Pennsylvania mutineers, 32:^. 
8*-'9. 

OusToa, Jauea, General, at Tioga Point, 804. 



Clinton, Qrorgb, Governor. 2S7. Vlco-PresldeDt, 896, 

40-1. With (Joneral Knox. .<150. Notice of, 350. 
Clvmer. Gkokue. 356. 6it*i. 029. 
Conn, HowELU General. 715. 
CocKBunN, Admiral, His marauding expeditions, 430, 

440. 
Cod Fishery, 47,116. 
ConnisGTON, Willia-m, 91. 
CoPFEK, (lenerai, in the expedition against the Creekt, 

42S. Notice of, 42^. 
CoFFKY, Colonel, 675. 
Coins and Currencj of the United States, 872. Copper 

coins. 372. 

COLDEN, CAnWALlAPER. 215. 

CoLiGNY, Admind. 49. 60. Sir Walter Raleigh stndieft 
tho art of war with, 52. The friend of Huguenots. 49. 

CoLLKi>o», JaU£6, Governor, 166. 

Ctn.LKToN. Sir John. 9'?. 

Collier, Sir George, 297. 

Colonies, American. History of the, 51, 52, 104. 174. 
Ameriian population of the, 179. New England, pro- 
posed Union of the. 121 : the Union dtssolTed, 1S2. 

Cofony, The earliest lu America,, 42. 

Colorado, 673. 

Cohimhia^ l>l6lrlct o^ 353. 

Columbia Jtiver, 279. 

Columbia, S. C. Fall of, 712. 

CoLUMnus. I'nKiSTuPUEK, 37. nis Toyace to Iceland. 87. 
Queen Isabella llts out a fleet for" liiiu. 87. He sails 
from Palos. 89. His voyages and discoveries, persecu- 
tions and death, 41. 

Comanche Indians, HB. Territory of the, 45. 

Comhahee liiver, D'Ayllon at the mouth of. 43. 

Commerce of the American colonies. lle»tTictions fra- 
posed on the. 212. American, 3^1. 3^2. 390, 891; Pro- 
tected. 391 ; Injured by England and France, 4tX). 401 ; 
Injured bv pirates, 463. Of Great ilrltain and the 
United Stales. 867. 

Committee of Safety of Massachusetts, 234. Com- 
mitlees of Correspondence, 226. 

Como, Witchcraft at. 182. 

Company of Free Traders, 96. 

^^Concessions,"' The. of Berkeley and Carteret, 159. 

Co7ifederat'ion, American Articles of. 266. 267, 853, 856. 

Cotifederativn of New I%ni:land colonies, 121. 

Confederates, Finances of, 679. 

Confederacy, Excitement In. 545. 

Congaree Indians hostile to the South Carolina col- 
onies, 170. 

Congress, First Continental, at Philadelphia, 227, 228. 
Second Continental. 215, 283; Appoints a Committ** 
to confer with Washington, 289; Measures of. 245; 
Armed Mnriuo of. 807: Coiumilteo on Naval Affairs 
807; Conliiioutnl Naval Board of Marine Coinudttee, 
and Board of Admiralty uf, SOS; Kesolutlon on Inde- 
pendence, and Conimitiee on the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence. 251; C.tmmlttco for conferring with Lord 
Howe, 259; Sends an embassy to France and to other 
European courts, 266; Uojects Lord North's Concilia- 
torv Bills. 2S6. Of the United Sutes, resolution of the, 
to allow military olHcers half pav for life. 849 ; Klslmnda 
the arruy, 850; Efforts of, at N'ew York. 862 ; Recom- 
mends the appointment of 5 day r>r thi;iiK9givIntr and 
prayer, 370; Measures of the,' respecting Revenues, 
866.367: Extraordinary Sessions of, 475.' Provincial, 
at Cambridflre, Massachusetts, 2:io ; Maktss salutary 
ehani^o in postal arrangements, .'S07 ; c»einis steam ves- 
sels to co.iBt of China and round Cupe Horn, 615; Re- 
construetitm policy of. 726; Passes tenure of oHice bill, 
729; Imp«aches the President, 729, 782. 

Congress Mexican, Assumes provisional authority, 497. 

"Congress."^ frigate, 414. 

Connerticut, Orlgiu and sitrniflcatlon of the word, 85. 
Settlement of. 62. Pequod Indiana in, 21. History of 
the Colony of. 154. Constitution of, 154. Charter of, 
155. Takes part in the war against King Philip. 155. 
Refuses to surrender its charter, 156. Joins the con- 
federacy of colonies, 121. Grant to, from Parliament, 
206. 

Connectierut Hirer, Discovered by Block, 72, 62. Col- 
ony at the, 85, SG. 

CanoncJiet, 21. 

Connor, Commodore. Sails for the Gulf of Mexico, 460. 
Captures Tampico, Tab-aseo, and Tuspan, 4S5l At 
Vera Cruz, 4S9. 

''Cojtstelhition." frlpite, 3S3. Captua'S the frigate L* 
Insurgente, 3S5. Action of the, with tho ft-lguie La 
Vengeance, 8S5. 



INDEX 



XXIVU 



Constitution of the XTniUd States, ■Washington sug- 
peets a convention on the suhjoot of a; history of 
the, fl65; articles of the, 859. 860, 361. Amendments, 758. 

ConHtitntitm of (iovernment, PilsrriBi, TS. 

*■ Constitution,'''' frigate, 882,415, 440. Action of the, with 
the Onerriere, 434. 

Continental, Army, 23S. Congress: see Contrress. 
Money, 245; Depreciation of, 293, S2S; Counterfeited, 
293. 

CoNTRECCEUR, M., ftttacks tho Ohio Company's men, 
1S2. 

Conireran, Battle of, 1S47. 493. 

Convention on the Articles of Confederation, 856. At 
Albany, 1754, 1S3. 

CoNWAT, Thomas, General, 255. 

Conway, IIknet Seyuoue, General, his motion in Par- 
liament, a46, 847. 

CooDE, The insurgent, 153. 

CopLET, John Singi.kton, 309. 

Copley, Lionel, Royal Governor, 153. 

CoPi'iN. Pilot of the Mayflower, 78. 

Copp'H mil, 295. 

Cooper, Ashley, Lord, 93. 

Cooper Jiiver, Origin of the name, 99. 

GoBDOTA, Frakoisco FERNANDEZ DE, discovers Mtxico, 
43. 

Core* Indians. 17, 20, 57. Conspire against the North 
Carolina settlements, 168. 

Corinth, Battle at, 635. Evacuation o^ 604. 

CORNBURY, Lord, 149, 161. 

Cornplanter, 26,304. 

Cornstalk unites with Logan against the white men, 
20. His bravery and death, 20. 

Cornwallis. Charles, Lord, on Long Island, 2f)3, 254. 
Captures Fort Lee, 259. Pursues Washington, 260. At 
New York, 262. At Princeton, 263. At Charleston, 
811. In South Carolina, 813. At Sander's Creek. 315. 
In command of the British Armv at the South, 815. 
At Charlotte, 318. At 'WiunsboVough. 319. Suc- 
ceeds Phillips. 8oO. Pursues Morgan, 882. Abandons 
North Coi'olina, 384. At Wihiiington and Petersburg, 
8S8. His operations in Virginia, 8SS. Sun-enders at 
Yorktown. 841. His crnelty^ 31S. Notice of, 313. 

Corpus C/iristi village. Mexico. 4S0. 

CoRTEZ, Fernando, his experiition to Mexico, 43. De- 
thrones Montezuma, 10. Notice of, 43. 

C-ORTOEEAL, Gaspee, his expedition to America, in 1500, 
^ 47. 

Cosby, William. Governor, 150. 

CosTA Rioa declares war against Nicaragua, 1856, 526. 

Cotton, Rev. Mr., IIS. Comes to America, 86. 

Cotton, Cultivation of, in the United States, 368. 

Council of I'lymouth, 117, 120. 

Council inr/ian, how coniposed, 16. 

*\'ountess of Scarborougn.'''' captured by Paul Jones, 
307. 

Counties, Origin of, 73. 

Cowpens, Battle of, 331, 882. 

Cows brought to AmericA by Columbus, 41. Taken to 
Virginia. 68. 

CoxK, Tench, 369. Notice of, 363. 

Craig, Major, 345. 

Ceaie, Dr.. his anecdote of Washington's escape from 
death, 1 S6. 

Crampten, Mr., British Minister, dismissed, 528, 529. 

Craney Island, 430. 

Craven, Lord, 98. 

CeaveN; Charles, Governor of South Carolina. 170. 

Cbaw'ford, William H., Minister to France, 429. Secre- 
tary of the Ti-easury, 447. Nominated for the Presi- 
dency, 454. 

Creefc Indians, 29, 80, 108, 168, 427, 428, 455, 45«l 

CYeofes, Oriein of the, 41. 

"Orescent (Viy," steamboat, 512. 

Crimea, the. Enlistments in American cities, for the 
English Army in, 62S. 

Cetttrtden, George B., Colonel, 693. 

Cbittknden. William L., at Cuba; executed, 508. 

Ceoghan, Major, Notice of. 420. 

Ceomwell, Oliver, 155. His supposed intention to mi- 
grate to America, 120, 130. Opposed by Virginia, 103. 
Notice of, 108. 

Cross of St. George, 144. Of St. Andrew, 144. Pine, 
erected by Dc Soto, 44. Planted on the shore of Gaspii 
inlet. 48. 

Crow Indians, 82, 38. 

Croipn J\>int, 199. Champlaln at, 69. Johnson's expe- 
dition against, 185. 



CRroBB, Lientenant-Colone], 8S5. In South Carolina, 313 

815. 
Cuha, Discovery of, 40. Fears of Invasion of; G08. 

DiiHculties about settlement of, 520. 
Culpepper, Lord, Grants to by Charles II,, 110. 
Cplpeppek John. 99. The revolt le4 by, 164. LafH out 

the city of Charleston, 165, 
Currency, National, Of the United States, 872. f 

CiJRTiN, Governor, calls out Militia, 653, 
Curtis. S. K., General 691. 
CrsHiNO, Caleb, 540. 
CrsniNG, Thomas, 5S3. 
Gushing, William, Judge, 369 

CUSHMAN. KOBEBT. 77. 

*' C'yanc," frigate, 440. 



Dacrbs, Captain. 414. 

Dade, Francis L:, Major, massacred, 467. Notlca ot 

467. 
Pahcotah Indians, 31, 32. 
Dale, Sir Thomas, arrives at Jamestowii, with euppUes, 

69. Governor of Virginia, 70. 
Dahlghen. Admiral, 6SS, 673. 
Uatton, Georgia, R.iid at. 632. 
Danters, Witchcraft at, 183. 
Dare, Elkanor. her daughter Virginia, 66. 
Dartmouth College, 173. 
Daughters of Liberty, 216. 
Davenport, JonN,&s. 
Davie, William Kichaedbon, Colonel, 818, 856. Envoy 

to France. 855. 
Davis, Jefferson, Secretary of War, 523. Notice o/ 

547, 569. Elected President of Confederacy, Wb 

Flies from Richmond, 713. Tatea prisoner, 722, 
Davis, Jefeeson C, £91. 
D'Uanville, 133. 
D'Ayllon, Lucas Vasqttkz, 42. 
Dayton, Jonathan, 356, 629. 
Deane, Silas, Member of the first Continental Congress, 

533. Chairmau of the Committee on Naval Aflairs, 

807, 803. American Agent iu France, 266. On th« 

American embassy to France. 266. 
Dearborn, Henkv. 390. <. ommands the Army of the 

North, 412. At York. Canada, 425. Notice of, 410. 
Debt of United States, 679. In 1868, 784. 
Decatur, Stephen, Commodore, 415. In the Mediter- 
ranean ; at Algiers; at Tunis, 445. His exploit at 

Tripoli, notice of, 892. Captured, 440. 
Declaration of liights, 215. 
Deerfield, 126. Attacked by Rouville, 135. 
De Hart, John, 53S. 
De Heister, 253, 2.M. 
De Kalb, Baron, in the Southern campaign, 809, 814 

Death of, 316. Notice of. 316. 
Delancey, James, Governor, 183, 185. Favors a Stamp 

Act, Ml. 
Delaware, Settlement of, 92. Colonies, 144. Swedes 

in, 62. Yields to the Dutch, 147. An iudependeui 

colour, 159. 
Delaware liau, Verrazani anchors in, 43. 
Delaware IndiauK^ 17. 21, 161, 363. 
Dk la Warr, Lord, Governor of Virginia, 68. At James* 

town, 69 Character of; death of, 69. 
Delft-JJav6n, Holland, Puritans sail from, 77. 
De'Monts, 53. 
Deseret, the country of the Mormons; signification oi 

the name, 504. 
De Soto, Ferdinand, 44,45. 
D'Estaing ; see Estalng. 
Detroit, Capture of, 424. 
Devens, Charles, General, 685. 
De Vries, Captain. 93. His plantation, 140. 
Dexteb, Samuel, 3S9. 
Dickenson, John, Cbairmao of the convention on th' 

Constitution of the United States, 855. His letters 

318. 
Dibskau, Baron, Fate of his expedition, 189, 190. Death 

of, 190. 
Dime, United States coin, 372. 
Dinwiddle Court House, 717. 
DiNwiDDiE. Robert. Governor. ISSt His letter \f> St 

Pierre. ISl. His independent compamoa, Idl 
Direciory, The French, 388, 3S4. 
DoBn^, Governor. 185. 
Dobb's Ferry, 357. 
Dollar, American, 372. 



XXXVIU 



INDEX. 



Dnminion, The Old: soo Old Domlnioa 

Donihon, Fort^ Victory at, 697. 

DosGAN. TnoMAS. governor, 147. 

f><»NicilAN, Colonel. 4^S. 4>9. 

Doxoi', Count, nt Burllnirton, 262. Death of, 295. 

I'OIT.I.AR. STKl'nKN A., 541. 

dinver. attiickod by the Froncli and Indians, 16S9, 130. 

DovvNiR. Commodore, 4S4. Death of, 4.35. 

J)li<ifl, WT. 

DiiAEH^ Sir Francis, BC. At St. Augustine, 67. Dis- 
covers the tobacco-plant; introduces it into England, 
70. 

DBrMMOND, General, 4.32, 433. At Burlington Heights, 
438. At Fort Erie, 494. 

DRD.M.MOND. William, Rev., 111. Esecuted. 97,112. 

DuANE, William .1.. refuses to withdraw the Govern- 
ment funds from the United States Bank, 405. 

DrcHE, Jacob, Eev., 22S, 

Dudley. Joseph, 129. 

DtTDLEY, Thomas, 117. 

DrxBAR. Colonel, 1S6. 

DcrxMOEE. Lord, 2S7. 243, 6S9. 

DuTONT, S. F., Commodore, 6S2, 609, 671. 

DcSTAN, Mrs, captured by the French and Indians 
134. 

DtiTcn, The, their maritime enterprise, 71. East India 
Company of. send a ship to the Hudson River, 71. 
Purchase Manhattan Island from the Manhattan 
Indians, 21. Settle at New Amstenlam, 62. In New 
Netherland. send a friendly salutation to the .Massa- 
chusetts Colony, lis. Their frienilly interr<iurse with 
the Puritans, S5. Oppose Captain Holmes, $5. 
Purchase Lone Island, 114. Claim jurlsdicti'>n upon 
the Connecticut, 121. Settle in South Carolina, 99. 
Taiie possession of New York. 147. 

Jiuteh Eimt Inilia Compniiy, 69, 71. 

Duti^li Weil Inrlia Compnnu, 72,93,139,144. 

Mutch Pointy Connecticut, S5. 



■Eagle, American gold coin, 372. 

Eaelt, General, 695, 69S. 

East Inilia Company send tea to America ; notice of 
the, 224. 

£tist Jerwy, 160. 

Eatox, TnEopHiLrs, Governor. SS. 154. 

Eaton, "William. Captain, Consul at Tripoli, 892. 

£clJ<i, Indian, 23. 

Eden, William, 2S6. 

JCileiiton, North Carolina, First popular assembly ot,93. 

£,lisfo Islam!, 609. 

Eihiaitinn. fostered by the Massachusetts Colony, 
121. In the colonies. I7S. 

Edwards, Jonathan, 210. 

Effingham, Governor. Character of, 118. 

Elba. Bonaparte at. 431. 

EUctors for President and Vice-President of the United 
States. 861. 

Eliot, John, Rev., 123. 

Elizarrth, (Jueeii of Enfrland. 51, 76. 

mizaheth Miinds diseoveml. 57. 

Elizahethtown, ^^'W Jersey. 159. 

Ellet, Charles. Jr.. (.'uloiiel, 005. 

Elliott, Susanna. Mrs.. .30.5. 

Ellieon'a Mill, Battle at. 619, 620. 

Ellsworth. Colonel, tjikes first secession flag, 564. 

Ellsworth. Oliver, 8;>0, 859. Envoy to France, 1799, 
855. On the Judicary of the United States, 80S. No- 
tice of, 859. 

Elm, Penn'8 Treaty. 96. 161. 

Eniaiiciiiution, Proclamation of, 689, 640,680. 

Exdicot, John. 117. 

England, see Great Britain. 

" EnterpriKe" brl<;, 4.30. 

'• E/iervier^' hi\i:, 440. 

Erie Indians. 19, 23. 

Erie ('anal, 4.50.457. 

Erie, Lake: See Lake Erie. 

Einiii^l'au.. Battle at. 42*. 

Erskinr, General, at Trenton, 263. 

Erskink. Mr,, British Minister to tho United States, 406. 

EjfOjiuH Indians, 14i{. 

EminimauT Indians. 17.5^9. 

'• Esser" frisate, 414. 4.30, 4:il. 

EsTAl.vo. Count d'. sent with a fleet to America. 2S6. 
Hl> fleet disabled by a storm, 2S9. In the West Indies, 



292. Off the coast of Georgia, 805. At the eicgo of 

Savannah. :i05. Notice o£ 299. 
Estramailiira. Cortez died at, in 15M, 48. 
Ett'liemin Indians. 22. 
Eutaw Sjiringa, Battle oi; 383. 
Eterett. Edward, Mass., W2. 
EwELL, General. 617, 654. 
Ewino, James, General, at Trenton, 263. 
Exeter, New Hampshire, founded, SO. 



FairfifM. Connecticut, SS. 

Fair Oai-s, Battle at, 619. 

Falls of the James Hirer, 105, 108. 

Famine in the Virsrinia Colonv, 69. 

FARRAorT, Commodore, 6in. 6^0, 682, 6T8, 708. 

FAUcnET. M., succeerls M. Genet, 37S. 

Faclkner, Miyor. 480. 

Facst. John, his printing oflice, 62, 

Fai/etteville, Encagenient at, 675, 

Federalist Partu. 377. 

"Federalist:' Ttie. 861. 

Felucca Gun.hoat,AQ\. 

Fendall. Governor, 15.3, 

Fenian Brotherhood. 723. 

Ferdinand an<l Isabella, 3S, 60. 

Ferguson, Adam. 2s6. 

Ferguson, Captain. 836. 

Ferguson, Mrs., her attemjit to bribe General Reed, 
256, 

Ferguson, Patrick. Major, at King's Mountain, 17S0, 
819. Death and grave of. 319. 

Fernando de Taos. Massacre at, 439. 

Ferrab, Nicholas. 107. 

Few, W iLLiAM. 8.5.5, 850. 

Fidelity, The Order of. 852. 

Fillmore, Millard, Vice-President, 495. President, 601. 
Notice of. 501. Cabinet oi, 602. Close of admlutstra* 
lion of, 613. 

Fine Arts in America. 209. 

Finances of the United States, 679. 

Fisher, Mary. Quakeress, arrives at Boston, 122. 

Fisheries, 340, Prohibitory Act of Parliament respect- 
ing the. 2:n. Ditlieulties between Great Britain and 
the United States respecting the, 611, 523. 

Fishing Creek. 27. 

FiTzsiMONS, Thomas. 866. 629. 

Fire Xations. The. History of. 23. Captain John 
Smith's friendly relations with, 67. Allies of Governor 
Winthrop. 131. Attempts of James IL to Introduce 
French priests among them, 147. Their treaty of 
neutralltr. 186. 

Flag Culpepper, 248. Royal, of Great Britain, 144. 
Union, 245. Of the thirteen stripes, unfurled by 
Washington at Cambridge, 144. 

Flaf/. Secession, 6,56. 

Flathead Indians. 33. 

Ytax. American. 206. 

Fleming. Captain, Death of. 269. 

Flet<:her, Benjamin, Governor, 149, 156, IM. 

Flint Hirer, De Sot.> on the honks of the, 44. 

Floating Batteries described, 201. 

Florida, Discovery of; origin of the name, 42. Norvaee, 
Governor of. 43. 44. Melendez's expe<iltion to, 50, 51. 
Oclethorpe's e.vpeditlon to. 172. Ce<led to England, 
204. Restored to S|iain, 849. Ceded to the United 
States. 1SI9, 4.51. State of, added to the Union, 478, 
Secession of, 647. 

FooTE, A. IL. Commander, 695. Wounded, 605. 

Forts: — Adams, 874. Amsterdam, 139. Andrew, 173. 
Bower, 43S. Brooke, 467. Brown, 4S1. Butler. 677. 
Carolln.t. .5L 9~. Casimir, 142. 14,3. Clinton, 2S3, 824. 
Cumberlanil, 19S. Darilug, 694. Dearborn. 412. De- 
fiance. 874, 416. Deposit, 410. De Russy, 677, 
Dieao, 172. Donelson, 695, Drane, 467. Du yucsne, 
27. 1S2. 1>,5, 1S6. Edward, tS9. 190, 191, 192, 275. Erie. 
433, 4.34. Fisher, 713. Forty Fort, 29". Frederica. 
178. Fronteiiac, 19S. Gaines, TOO. Oali)hln. 886. 
George, on Lake George, 19S. 414, 425, 426, 427, 
GeorL'e, New York CItv. 24S, .351. Granbv, 2.35. Grls- 
wold, :M0. Hamilton. 2.%3. H.irrlson. 4l6, llattems., 
6Si'. Henrv. .59.5. Iliu'lnnin. 643. Indepemlence. 20, 
22". Jackson. 610. KInff. 467. La Favette. 29$. 586. 
Leavenworth, 4S.3, 4S6. Le B.r>nf, 1-il. 1.00.2.59. Ly- 
man, 1S9. Mackinaw. 411. Maeon. 607. Maiden, 4Ht 
Meigs, 41S. Mercer, 274, 27S. MiUllu, 274. U'Uenrr. 



INDEX. 



XXXIX 



437. Mimms, 427. Monro?. CIS. 695. Monteomery 
238. Mi.rgan, 438. Moosn, 172. Motte, 8-35. Moultrie. 
249, SIO, 468. Nassnn. 72, 93. 94. Necessity, 1S8! 
Ni.iaim, 199. SOU, 427. Ninety-Sis, 816, 335, 336. 
Outaric, 1S9, 192. Oranae, 72, 139, 144, 14S, Oaweao, 
1S9, 192. Pembei-ton, W3. Pe])pcrell, 1S9. Pickens, 
5S(). Pillow, 605, 6S2. Pitt. 19^. Powhatan. 691. 
Presqno Isle, Ibl. Prince George, -585. Putnam, 2s3, 
324. Kecoverv, 374. Eepuljlic. 617. St. Frederick, 
189. St. Philip. 440, 610. Sandusky, 419. Schuvler, 
27S. Simon, 173. Stanwix. 273. Stoailman, '717. 
Stephenson. 419. Sto.ldart, 303. Sullivan, 240. 
Trunibilll, 840. Venanso, 181. WasPer. 073. 674. 
Warren. 587. Washint'ton, 25S. Watson, 83.5, Wayne, 
374, 416. William. 1?3. William Henrr, 191, 194. 
Forrest, N. B., Guerilla Chief, 632, 6S1. ' 
Foster. General, 671. 

Fox. Ciiari.es, his opposition to the measures of Great 
Britain. 282. His remark respecting the battle of 
Guilfoiii, .3.33. 
Fox, George, visits his Quaker brethren in America, 

94. JJotice of, 122. 
J^u'x Indians^ 17. Conspire ag.iinst the English, 205. 

See Sacs and Foxes. 
France, First American embassy to. 266. Alliance of, 
with the United States, 283. Fleet of, sent to America, 
236. Secret treaty of, with Spain, 306. Depredations 
by, on American commerce. 3S2. Fleet of, attacked 
by Arbnthnot, 8.30. War with United States, 836. Its 
commerce, 401. Nerotiation with United States, 406. 
United States Minister to, 429. Claims of the United 
States against, 468. 
J^rnnei^, I^mperor of. 727. 
Francis I., his exiiedition to America, 47. 
Franklin, Ben.tamin, 210. Ills plan of Coloni,iI Confed- 
ei-ation. 188. A Colonel, 198. At Boston, on the sub- 
ject of the InTasion of Canada, 239. Circulates in Eng- 
land the State-papers of the Oonlinentai Congress, 2-30. 
On the Committee to confer with Lord Howe, 257. On 
the Conimitte to draft a Declnratiou of Independence, 
251, 252. On the embassy to France, Issues commis- 
sions to Nival OlBcers.SOS. Commissioner on the Treaty 
of Peace, 848. The Pope's Nuncio makes overtures to, 
rcspectiiJK an Apostolic Ticar in the 7'nited States, 
853. Member of the Convention on the Articles of 
Confederation, 856. Hi? proposition respectine prayers 
at the Convention, 859. His account of the falher of 
Cotton Mather, 1.34. 
Frankli.n, General, 625, 6.^. 
Fbankli.v, Sir John, Search for, 509, 510. 
FriitU-lin, Battle at, 705. 
Frankfort, Capture of, 688. 
Fraser, Geneial, 276. 
Frederick the Great, his opinion of Washln-non 

269. 
Freuebioe III, of Prussia, 431. 

Frederickshiirg, 625. Buttle of, &31. Battle near, 602. 
Fret Ijutit'lti&ns. Growth of, 114. 
Freedom, Ideas of, in Massachusetts, 118. 
Fremont, John I'haeles, Colonel, his exploits in Califor- 
nia, 487 ; at Los Angeles ; at 8an Gabriel ; deprived of 
his commission. 487. Senator from California, 499. 
Notice <if. 437. Esploraticms of 515, 674. 
Frknou, Parker H., Colonel, 427. 

French Colony on Sable Island, 57. Acadia, 121. 
Possessions in North America, between the Penobscot 
and St Croix, 129. In Carolina, 65. Eevolution, 877. 
Settlement, the earliest in the New World, 63, 59. 
Spoliations, 468. 
French, The, in Canada, discover the Algonquins, 17. 
First visit of. to the Sioux Indians. 83. E.arliest Ex- 
plorers of the Middle and Upper Mississippi, 3L Sub- 
jugation of, in North America. 2il4. Assailed by the 
Natchez Indians, 29 Their expedition against Charles- 
ton, 169. 
French and Indian War, 19, 104, 18S, 179. 
Frenchtawn, burned. 430. 
Fresh Water River, 65. 
FilonisHER, Sir Martin, his expedition, 63. The Bhip 

used by, 60. Notice of, 51. 
^Froiic,"^ brij:, 41.5. 

Fhomtenac. M.. Governor of Canada. 181. Burns Sche- 
nectady, 1.30, 181, Eepelled by Schuvler, 149. 
Fry, Joshua A., Clolonel. 182. IJeath of, 138. 
Fugitive Slave Laic. 507, r)21, 527. 
Fulton, Pobert, Notice of, 89S, 399. 
"FiiK/lamental ConMtutions." The, of Shaftebury and 
Locke, 164, 166, 167. 

51 



I FuncTal Ceremonies, Indian, 15. 
Furs, Trade in, 73^116, 139, 140. 



Pyre Algonquin, t6. 



G. 

Gaemden, CnRiSTopnEB, Lieutenant Governor, 812. 
Gage, Thomas, General, A Lieutonant-Colonel at the 
battle of Monongabela, 186. Governor of Montreal, 
308. Eaters Boston with soldiers, 220. Governor of 
Massachusetts, 226. Sends his secretary to dissolve 
the General Asseuiblv of Massachusetts, 227. Fortifies 
Boston. 239. Notice of, 229, 

Gaines, Epmund P., General, Arrests Aaron Burr, 39a 
At Fort Erie, 733. His expedition against the Serai- 
noles; .joined by General Jackson, 448. Assailed by 
the Seminoles, near Withlacooohee, 467 Notices of, 
448, 467 

Gallatin, Albbet, Member of the House of Kepresenta- 
tives, 359. Secretary of the Treasury, 390, 406, Envoy, 
419. United States Commissioner at Ghent, 1314, 438. 

G-ALLOWAT, Joseph, 260, 688. 

(raheeton. Pirates arid slave-dealers at, 448. 

Gambiek, Lord, British Commisaioner at Ghent. 1S14 
4;33. 

Gansevooet, Colonel, At Fort Staniiix, 278. 

Oaranfffila, 26. 

Gardiner. Colonel, 295. 

OoHj'C Inlet, 48. 

^'Ga.ipe,'" schooner, 22S. 810. 

Gates, Horatio, General, His appointment as Adjutsn* 
General, 233. Succeeds General Thomas, 261. Super- 
sedes General Sehuyler. 277 At Bemis's Heights, 27a 
Bursoyne surrenders to, 231. Chairman of the Board 
of War, 294. His flight to Charlotte, 316. Trial of, 
830. Notice of, 814. 

Gates, Sir Tuo.«a3, 63. At Jamestown. Eetnrns to 
Kngland. 

Geioee, E.MILT, 837 

Genet, Ed-mund Charles. Minister from Franco to the 
United States, 877. Fits out privateers, 377. EecsUed, 
in 1798. 373. Notice of, 377. 

George I, of England, 136, 137. 

George II, of England, Accession of. 187. Charter 
granted by, for the proposed Georgia Colonv, 100. 

George IIL of England. Accession of. 212. 'His insan- 
ity, 98. Leaden statue of, at New Tork, pulled down. 
252. 

Geoege, Prince of Denmark. 136. 

^■George Waahington,'' frigate, 891. 

Georgetown, Burnt, 4.30 

Georgia, Settlement of, 99. Colony in. founded by 
Oglethorpe, 62. Colony of; origin of the name, 100, 
Invaded by the Spaniards, 172. Eeceives Parliamentary 
aid, 209. Claims of, to Cherokee lands, 461. Contro- 
versy in. concerning the Creek lands, 455, 456. Beces. 
8io.n of 647. Quiet in, 673. 

Gerard, M, French Minister to the United States, 387. 

Gennana in North Carolina, 163. 

Geury, Elbeidge, 356. Envoy, 385. Vice-President, 491. 

Germaine, George, Lord. 282, 346. 

Gennantoicn, Battle of 375. 

Gettj/eliurg. Battle of, 665. 

Gibson. C. W., Major, 68:3. 

Giddinos, Major, at Cer&lvo, 436. 

Gilbert, Edward, 499. 

Gilbeet, Sir Humphrey, 52, &3, His expedition to 
America; notice of 52. 

Gilbert, Sir John, 68. 

Gilbert, Raleigh, 63. 

GiLMAN, NlCUOLAS, 3.i6, 629. 

GlLMORE, Q. A.. General, 607, 673, 

Gist, General, 847. 

Glendals. Battle at, 621. 

Gloucester, Virginia, fortified by Cornwallls, 840. 

Goats, The first, taken to Virginia, 68. 

Godfrey, Thomas, 209. 

GODVN. Samuel. 92. 1.39. 

GoKFE, William, The regicide judge, 12;S, 126. 

Gold, Thirst for,, in tht Virginia Colony, 67, Dli, 

coverv of, California, 407. 
Golden Circle, Knights of, 656, 637. 710. 
Goldifboro\ Raid on. 671. Battle at, 714 
Goldsrnitlis am.)ne the Virginia colonists, 67, 
Goee, CHRlSTOpriER, 232. 
Qeorqes, Sir Fernando, 63, 79, 129. Assoclatsd with 

John Mason. 79. 
GoRHAM, Natuamibl, 356, 859, 



INDEX. 



xl 

OCNOLX,. Ba.t,.«.om.w 57, «3, ». Hl« dl»coverlo»; 
G.^t»^c«L, JJ^vrkmish Coa,mUs,o„er at Ghent, 
G,t?'B.;KS. DOM.N.O Dt Surprises ami captures Fort Car- 
C;;;.';,^„««^ Thrc. f.>rm» of, in America, 2U. 
GBiFFENHEin. Count, loS. 

Ga^NT, J"'^'',St;'m;h?\<i ni» reply to Kail, 262, 
Gkant, General (B'' ]*^,'j,;f 595 ',,,,k'e« vigorous pre- 

Gba!CT, ll.V«i*F.9 fc., '"""^'Y; Tflnlies^ee river. 601. 034, 

pni-atiou» for »^'-'^'">';.''lr,.' J'l.urf mTV.W OTs. Com- 

rella^luS 780. 'E^l^cteV'Vriidon. of the O. S. 738. 

H'^irs'i™:'ki,?'?-at Boston, by Preston's men, 221. 

»£S«o5^»S?S 

States, 899. Injures tl^c ••^■{'»:^--;i", , „„ u„i,e,l 
SUtes, 401 Navy of. ■*,'*; /^ Clainw of, to terri- 
etates, 409 : Treaty of 1 . .ice. M«. ^. ,^^ 

tory in >-'f l}^^""'!! % ,-„^ki.inst' .^1 1. F.-iendly 
BUn.lar.l "f;,!-": ,„,',„, V.,.;*' ]!« Bvuipatliv wiih re 
'b!J(illn!yf 'lieman'dV'^ii- " 'MHeol, and SUdoll, 

(^t UorB>du>6 Bend, General Jackson at .he, 1*41, 

Orwi KauaKha BUer, Battle, at the, 19 

Island, 2(5. General appointed Brigadier- 

Gebk-nb, ^*^"^'?,'",r„ S It Trenton, 259. Ac- 
General, 28S /I *-'„>;" •j'^uh.tieWani 2.9. At 
corap»mes ^a *»>^'J« J;^ 'J.^.^^, his operations, 
Sprliiglleld, 3i0. °".,,,V.,.lkln. his retreat from 

house ^■^8-„.t,'^''f',,:,t,.r to M. Lu7.erne, 884. At 
Uobttrk-s n.l i^-^^^; ;'.^\,%ifo Pursues Stewart, 
'a^r ' At\hl totlf ^- ^u^ _5prin,s, <««. Ee«^^^^^^ 
^.elliseuce of the capture of ComwalUs, M5. Takes 
possession of l*urleston, 84T. 

£;:««;S"S^M-ndi?fE.peditton,290. 

SS;^^^v:'i;;'oiln.^El;S-"-of the ConUnentalAnny, 
18S, 190. 19^. 284. 

8!sir;^;-eii-^e'f?^;s^t"^-i- 
s:;ri;^i^'!T!;":.^.x;;— toMe.eo,43. 

<?rot:<i<o>i, Battle near. 626, 

g;:*^;;;r,;^S?';dki^';^'tlXs>s ..rst landm. m 

of his InniruaL-e, is 
Gu'lforiK Battle of, 3»3. 

l^^^sl^l^lil:;^^-''!!^^^ .a„e of Arnold, 
Owi»«,VlLUAa M., Senator, 4»». 



.!.» „n tl,« Articles of Confederation, 1797, 86S. 
ventlon on tne '^".V"^';?,,,' , ,,,„ rnited Stales. Ono 
Signer of the (:''»» '.l'''°"f,'^it,, "Ml "cretary o, 



L.anoB, ot*. "•", 

His duel with Burr, 



H. 

Babm» Corjmt. SuspeMlon of writ of. 656 
Barrtts Sluf, M. 

ll:;i""H""u""«iw, condemn, person, accn«d of 
wltchcratU 182. 



witchcraft, l»i. , „,g 

Hill. Nathas. Captain, executed, 26S. 

'^^n-^'o't^-^I^^Z^ favorite : 



His Scheme respetiiim ■ ■•.■■_.■ 
nereement with .leUerson, 3i4. 

nSfpniir Jon>-! -IT-nis supposed Intention to m.gr.u 

to America, 120. 

tn^l!i^^^her^-?t,ri;?til;oS'230,28.. 
Hancock. General, bM. I>s9 

llANSrOEU, CllAlll.ES, eXeCBtcd, U-. 

IlARBY. Commodore. 4.50. 4<n. 
//,/;'/«m y/eiCf/i**, Waslimsilon at. 2o7. 
((:;;X'oe;Sf S^'E^l^lSn agam^t theIn.Uana. 

1 /y'S*--, rerry. Insurrection, 4aS. In ISCl. 557, 629. 

I llARPKB, John, a., 409. 

I ll:^S;;;ri^(:' -^ U.^t'Iln'te new foand hmd of Vlr- 

I Harbison, Ben.'ami-s, ot Boston, 289. 

^^lfld*l?a.erS^^^S;^on.'«^%..tU o. 
sJ^h^'^^UiB. Convention at, «1 

UABiLET, I)AV1I>. 848. 
HaBVARO, EllESEiEB,22.S.3. 

Harvard, Joun, Kev., V.l. 

ff:;^^;''s^Bj'!irN,U^.>^ In;peach.d.20T 
ii": "•;, Colonel, 'Dc^h of 269. 
IliUUras Iniliitm, 20, 55, m. 

{^;;^;;:i:^h^i;'yofiiu;lnsremovedto.«. 

Jlamrhill, Massaehusetts, Ui. 
IIAVILANI), Colonel. 208 
JIam-de-6n,ce, Maryland, 83,480. 
Uawlev, Jesse, 4,^6. 
Havsk, Isaac, ( olonid. 887. 
Hatne, Robert \ ., 46.), 4W. 
Haves J.. General. 690. 
n«'ARn>.W,, his plantation, 178. 

ireadffElk. Maryland, 840. 

Heald, Captain, 412. 

Heath, Sib Kouebt 97, 9S. Highland*. 9B». 

Heath William. General, JSJ- '"'."' ,,F. 

3^^i:;^fnii^op^^;ai^^---. 

m'nihU of Abmkam.W^ 
Uenoebsos. General, 4s>». 

Henbv IV.. of Castile ami Leon, 8». 

Henrv VU-r',,^"?::!'];,!'- defies the Pope; Defender 

"orrhe'Fiia.,75. ftevival ofan obsolete sU.ute of, 
2.21. Punishes «ilehenat 18^.^ ContinenUd Con- 

Uenbv. Patrick, "'f "1"^^^^^^ .J^," His regiment at the 
gress, 22S. His elomunce. 287. "'» [J* , ^,,6 Cn- 
feattle of the pf^»' B"''S';;r^„nS».loB. 866. I>e- 
vention on the xUticles "f ^»"'^'';™^' France. 8S^ 
clines the appointment of l.nvoy lo xr» ■ 
Notice of. 214, 

Henrv, Judge. 241. , ..g 

UERKiiEB. General. At Oriskany, 2.8. 
Hebbera, President. 4sl. Marauders, 296, 297. 

^■:;r;:i<:^"^."T™;;;o;\r^»^i^-> ^-^ 

Burgoyne. 2sl. 

i^^r::^.^^L;g^n;io,;28.«. 



INDEX. 



Xli 



Bigh Hilk of Santee, 837. 
HighUinders in Georgia, 171. 

IIii.L. A. P.. Gfuenii, G19. 693. 

llH.L. D. H^ GeniM-uI, 619, 620,671. 

in lion Head, TII4. 

Hind, IAN, T. C. 63T. 

lllXMAN, Ciiptiiiu, 30S. 

Hi-o-kii-too. Seneca Chief, 25. 

iroH'irk's Ilill, Bailie of, 334. 

Ifoboken, Slaughter of Indians at, 141, 

lIuBoMOK, a fainons New England Indian, 21 

Jlocheltiga, Cartier at, 4S. 

IIoKB, General, "iM. 

Hood. J. B., General, 700, 702, 705. 

Hooker. J.. General, 616, 6*22, 629. Placed in command 
of the armv, 681, 647. Resigns command of the army, 
C5S. ti6T. 668, 701. 

HoOKEH, Thomas. Rev., his colony, 86. 

IlfiLBORNE. Adniirai, 194. 

II'tl('tn<J, Expedition JVuin, to America, 71, 72. War with 
Eiiicland, 147, 327. 

Holmes. Admiral, 201. 

HoLMKS, William, Captain, S5. 

Hopkins, Edwakd. Governor, 83, 155. 

HoPKiNft, EzEK, first Commander-in-chief of the Amer- 
ican Navy. 303. 

HoPKiNsoN, Francis, Notice of, 2S5. 

HopKiNRON. Joseph, aiitb'tr of '■ Hail Columbia," 2S5. 
" Hornet," sloop of war, 414, 42s, 429. 

HoRiiY, Colonel, 336. 

Borse, The first taken to Virerinia, 03. Columbus takes 
horses to America. 41. Taken Irom Cuba to Florida ; 
their fate, 44. Taken by Do Soto to Florida, 44. 

HoTUAM, Admiral, 292. 

Bousatojtic Jniliuns, 1S9. 

Bouf^ti o/ Siirgesnes, Virginia, the beijinning of the, 
106. 

Bouse o/J?f/>r(?se7ift7/a't!« of Massachusetts Colony, 122. 

Houston, William, 8?6. 

Houston, William CuciicniLL, 356. 

Houston, General, at the battle of San Jacinto, 478. 

HowAP.o. JouN Eager, Colonel, at the battle of the Cow- 
[leus, 332. 

Howard, Admiral, 57, 

Howard, O. O., G<>neral, 701, 703. 

Howe, Gkorgk, LorJ, Notice of, 197. 

Howe, Richarp, Lor.l, at Boston, 247. At New Tork, 
252. Prepares to attack New York ; paroles General 
Sullivan; asks Congress to appoint a Committee of 
Conference, 257. His letter to Washington, 253. Meets 
the C'tmmittee appointed by Congress, 257. In Rari- 
tan Bay, 2S7. His fleet disabled by a storm in, 2S9. 

Howe, Roijkrt, Genera!. 244, 292, 298. Suppresses the 
mutiny at Pompton, 829, 

Howe, Sir William, General, 202 2a4. 235. At Quebec, 
202. At New Tork, 252. His Proclamation, 260. 

■ Perplexes AVasbiuirton, 272, At Brandywine, 273, At 
Elkton, 173. Attempts to entice Washington from 
bis encampment, 1S3. Knighted, after the battle of 
Brooklyn, 273. 

Mitamantla, Battle of, 494. 

Hudson, Henry, Captain, his glowing account of his 
discoveries, 71. Fate of, 59. 

HuGEU. Colonel, defeated by Tarleton, 311. 

Bji[/nenotSy the, Persecution uf, in France, 166, Ad- 
miral Coli^ny, the friend of, 49. In North Carolina, 
16S. In South Carolina, 166, Influence of, In Amer- 
ica, 52, 

Hull, Isaac. Commodore, 414. 

Hull, AVilliam, General, 41ii. 411. 

Hulseman, Chevalier, 510. Letter of, 517. 

Humphrey, AleXxInuer, SO. 

Humphrey, Joiix, 117. 

Hunt, Capt,iin, kidnaps Indians, 74. 

HcNTKR, RoitERT, Go^■e^nor, 150. 

" Buntcr's Zo^fge^" 472. 

Hdntbr. General, 593. COS, 672, 673. 

Buron, Laki'i see Lake Huron. 

Huron, King, dies in France. 49. 

Bitron Indunis^ 21, 23. With Samuel Champlain, 59. 

Bnron-Iroqiioiii Indians^ 22-26. Their territory, 23, 
Their LanL'UJige. 12. 

Buron Courtti/.iuvixtWd by the Five Nations. 24. 

Hutchinson, Governor, 222. His famous '"Letters" 224, 
225. 

Hutchinson, CapUnn. 126. 

HiTTCHiNSON, Anne. Mrs., SO, 91, 120. Murder of, 141. 

Butchinson ContfOV6r»p, 83. 



Iceland^ &4, 86. 

Be-aux-Kavx, 2'"3. 

lllinoit Indians, 17, IS, 19. Invaded by the Sacs and 
Foxes, 18. 

Bidnoia, Territory and State of. 890, 44a 

ImpeacJiment of Andrew Johnson, 732. Verdict given, 
738. 

Independence, American, General desire for, tn 1776, 
250. War for, 229. Asserted by tlia Committee of 
Conference with Lord Howe, 257. Acknowledged by 
Great Britain, 348. 

Indiiins alliances against the Colonies, 124. Chiefs 
dine mth Governor Winthrop. 118. Confederacy 
against South Carolioa. 170. Presents received from 
Great Britain, 206. Religion, 15. Treaties, 8C2, 363. 
Treiitv of Peace, 874. Policy toward, 735, 743. 

Indian's, The, 11. Resemblance of, to Asiatics, 11. Ac- 
count of the Aboriginal tribes of, 12. Employments of 
wumen among, 12, 13. Extreme Western, 32, 33- 
Population of, in the United States, 32. Their plan 
to exterminate the white people; slaughter of, 106- 
Troublesome in Oregon and Washington Territory,525u 

Indian War^ 462. 

IndieSy the, Columbus's voyage in quest of a western, 
passage to, 34. The trade of, monopolized by the- 
Italian cities, 36, 

Indigo, American, 206. 

Industry, private, Effects of. In Virginia, and In ny- 
mouth, 70. 

Inooldsby, Richard, 158, 150, 

Intolerance in Massachusetts, 118, 119. 123. In Mary- 
land, New York, and New Englan<l. 132, 133. 

^^ Intrepid,"' The, Tripolitan vessel, 392. 

loica Indians, 32. 

loivd. State of, added to the Union, 478. 

Iron chain across the Budson, 324, 

Iroquois Indians, 24, 31. 

Irvin, Colonel, at Agua Frio, 496. 

Irvine, William. 355. 

Isabella, Queen, Sister of Henry IV., of Castile aB(t 
Leon, 38. Columbus's personal interview with. 88. 

Italian Cities, their monopoly of the trade of the In- 
dies. 36. 

luka Springs, Battle near, 634. 

Izard, General, Succeeds Wilkinson, 482. Notice of* 
434. 

J. 

Jackson, Andrew, General, anecdote of him, when a 
boy. 314. The mother of. 314. His confidence won by- 
Burr, 397. His expedition against the Creeks, in 1318,. 
428. Storms Pensacola, 438. At New Orleans, 488, 
439. His treaty with the Creek Indians, 438. Hi* 
expedition against the Seminoles, 448. Captures Pen- 
sacola, 451. Subdues the Seminoles. 30, 4W, 459, 461. 

Jaokson, Stonewali^ 573, 624, 625, 629. 

Jackson, T. J., 617. 

Jacksonville, Attack on, 608. 

Jackson, James. Notice of, 847,348. 

Jackson, Robert, 314. 

J(ickfionbor(yug/L,, South Carolina Legislature at, 831 

Jahtpa, Generals Scott and Twiggs at, 489, 490. 

James I, of England, Character of; persecutes Porf- 
tans. 76. His |»roposal to contract for the whole crop 
of tobaccoin Viririnia. 107, His acta of usurpation in 
Virginia, 107. l»eath of, 116. Patents granted bv. 
63. 64. e, /. 

James IT, of England. Accession of; his character, 118, 
147. Oppressive measures of. 129. His arbitrary pro- 
ceedinsrs respecting the Jerseys, 160, Driven int» 
exile. 162. 

Jameson Hirer, Origin of the name, 64. English navi- 
gators enter the, 20, 61. Indians on the, 17, 

James, Colonel, 326. 

Jamestown, Virginia, founded, 166. Origin of th» 
name, 64. Cultivation of tobacco at. 70. Famine »t» 
saved by Pocahontas, 69; saved by Chanco. 106, Na- 
thaniel BaeoD at, 111. Destruction of, by Bacon, Hi 

James Island, Fight at, 674, 

Japan o[}enei\ to United States trade, 611, Sendi Em- 
bassy to United States. 612. 

Jasper, Sertreant, 249,305. 

'•Jt/ra." frigate, 415, 

Jay, JonN. one of the authors of the FederollBt, S$L 
Commissioner on the Treaty of Peace, 848, Flrtt 



xlii 



INDEX 



Cliliif Justlcp of the rnited Stfltes. 369. Special Kn- 
Toy to Great Briuiin, 379. His treftty, 8T9, 8s0. Notice 
of. 879. 
Jefff.rson. Thomas, on tho Committee to draft the Do- 
clamtion of ludependence. *2.M. Tarleton's att*-iniit to 
capture, 889. Comniissloner on the Treatv of IVace, 
84b. Sccrctjirv of Foretsn jVffairs. 870. Ills disagn-e- 
ment with ifamiUon. 374. Hit; remarks respectinir 
Aleerine pirack-j^ 8?1 ; and on Coins and Coinitse. 372. 
Via'-Presidonl. 8?3. Tresident, 8<&.8it6. Hiseiiibariro, 
402.408. His account of Logan, 26. Death of» 407. 
Notice of. 3SS.8»Ji. 

jKFFKEYa, Colonel. 112. 113. 

Jesninos. Colonol. 416. 

jBKtVEU, Danikl, of St. Tboma.s, 256. 

Jerney, Gumt from rarliameu' tu, S06, West, ISO. 
Union of tho Jerseys. IW. 

Jtrnetf Printm-Ship. 3.W. 

JesscVf, Bashaw of Tripoli. 392. 

jKsrp. TnoMAd 8.. at Fort Dade; notice of, 4G3. 

JesuitM, the. Origin of. 130. Missionaries, ISO. Their 
infli'.f-nce o\*er the Indiat.s. 22. ISO. 

JoHv. Klnpof Purtufral. his expedition to America, 47. 
Names the Cap* of G<'<>d Hope, ST. 

VoAu Aif 07116," frlgat*. 43S. 

Ji'iis9T()N, ALr.Fr.T Sypsey. 594. 

Johnson, Aj*drew. appointed provisional Governor of 
Tennessee. 099. Elected Vice-PiesiiU-nt. 710. Sworn 
08 President. 720. Cabinet of. 720. Sketch of, 721. 
Total djfirosard of the Interests of freedmen. 72^. Pro- 
claims civil war at an end, 727. Vetoes bill for nt-sro 
euffraffe, 728. Impeachment of, 732. Pronounced not 
guiltvl 78a Retires from office. 735. 

JOHNPTON Jo&EPH K.. 616, 61S. 64.\ 698. 

Johnson. Isaac, and Lady Arabclia, IIS. 

Johnson, Sir John. 273. 378. 

Johnson, Sib Natdaniel. Govern-ir. 169. 

Johnson, Kichakd M., Colonel. 424. Vice-President, 469. 

Johnson, EonERT, Governor, 171. 

Johnson, Thoma*. nominates Washington ns Com- 
mander-in-chief. 23^. 

JoHNStON. Sitt William, his exploit acainst Uieskau, 190. 
His expedltiiin acninst Crown Point, 1&5, 1S9. Ac- 
companies Prideaux tu Fort Niagara, 200. At the bat- 
tle of Quebec. 203. Notice of. STi 

Johnson, William Samuel. 356. 056. 629. 

Johnstone, George, Commiesiouer to America. 256. 

Joufk/oro'', Capture of. 702. 

Jones, John Pauu Commodore. His exploits 306. 807. 
Sails for Holland. 807. His fleet. 308. Coneress pre- 
sents a cold medal to. 80?. Notice of. 806. 

Jones. Sm William, decides aarainst the Duke of York's 
claim to New Jersey. 160. 

Jones. Captain, of the sloop "Wasp.** 416. 

Judiciiiry Vtc CniteJ Afiifen, 36S. 869. 

JrsiONViLLK, M.. Peulh of. 153. 

Jury, Trial Dy» established in the Colony of Ylrglnia, 
106. 



Kane. F.r.iSHA Kent. Fxplorer. Sketch of, 509. 
A'«nM«. Tcrritorv of. Ms Open to slavery. 526. Legis- 

liiture of. &2$. Viokncii and bloodehod in, 529 
JC'irif)-t» Indiana, '2\ 32. 
Kn>tkafki'i Jndianit. 19. 
K'tHk/tskiii captured by Major Clarke, 808. 

Keane, GcDerai 489. 

Kearney, Stei-hen W., Colonel, at Santa F6, 4S6. At 

San Gabriel, 4^7. Notice of, 4>>6. 
Keaent, Pmur. 619. Death of. 627. 
"AV^ir^ti/r/^^O' American man of war, 70S. 
StO«, Battle of the, 2S5. 
Keith. Sin William, a-lvlscs Stamp Act. 541 
Kendall, Amor. Postmaster-General, 470. 
Kenett'irr Mountain. 699. 
Kennebfic, Sli* -John Popham at, 63. 
SenAin^^Um, Phtbdelpblis 96. 
JCent Ii'ian'i, &2. 

Kenton. Simon. Joins Major Clarke. 808. 
KenlucAy added to the TTnion, 377. Confederates 

retain foothold in. 598. Lost to ConfodcraUs, 59SL 

In possesfiion of Tnion Army, 605. 
Kkppel. Admiral. 1S5. 
XfW^ Crfitk. Skirmish at, 295. 
.Kht. Fkancis S.. 4ST. 
KicJcapoo Indians^ 17, 13. 



Kn>n, Captain, 149. 

KiEFT, SiH William. Governor. 14*i. 141. 

KiLPATKicK. Genei-ul. 651, C>'n 702. 

Kino, Rri-iTS. 856. American Minister at Londoiv 401 

4^4,446. Nollee of, 390. 
Kiim Georgt'^/i War, 136., 
King Philip. 21. Arouses the New Ensland tribe* 

asainst the En-lifh. 22. His hoslllitr to the White 

Men. 125. His war of extermination. 126, 127. De4h, 

22. 12S. His son, sold as a ulave. I2\ 
Kiuo'^ Mountain^ Major Ferguson at, 319, BattU 

of. 319. 
KiniiKton, New Tort. Bm-ned, 2S8, 297. 
King WilUam'n \Vat\ 134. 
Kipi'^n Bay, 25?. 
KiBKi.ANP, Samtel, Ecv. Missionary to the Six Na. 

tions; Notice of, 25. 26. 
Kiitanning^ chastisement of the Indians at, 193. 
Knistevenuv. IndutnA, 17. 
Knowlt<kn. Colonel. Death of, 25f. 
Kiioic-2^othi'.ig»y 529. 
Knox, Henry, General. Takes possession of Fort 

Georce. 350, 351. At Washington's last Interview 

with Ills officers, 852. Secretarv of War, 370, Notice, 

850. 
Kiion^rUU, Saved. 671. 
KNYPUATrtEN. Gener.il. At Brandywlne. 278. At 

Springfield, 820. At Westchester, 259. At New York, 

8U9. 
KoNosi nioNi the name of the Five Nations, 23. 
KosrirszKo. Thadpeus. 886. Notice of, 836. 
Kossuth, Louis, S'isit ot; 510. 



Lahrador^ Dipcovercd by Cabot, 46. Coast of, ex- 
plored bv Wcvmouth.5S. 

la ColU,' ButMo at, 432. 

Liiconia, Territory ut; 79. SO. 

La Fayette. General, His first lnter\-iew with Wnsh- 
in^'lon. 272. At BraDdywiu.-. 272. 4:>8. At Bethle- 
hem, 273. At Monmouth, 2>5. In Uhode Island, 2S9, 
Olttains aid from Fi-ance. for the Americin cause, 306. 
His return from France. 821. In Virginia, 880, 389. 
Pursues Coruwaliis. 339. Visits the United Slates* 
458. Lays the corner-stone of a ironument to De 
Kalb. 316. Notice of. 273. 

l.nie C/iittupIaiUi Discovered. 59. 

Lake Erie^ Battle near, 190. Indians on, 39. 

Lake linrmi , Discovered, 59. Indians on, 17. 

Lamb. John, Colonel. 242. 270. 

LaiicdfitAt: Mus&achuseits. Burnt, 127. 

Lander^ Oeti,, 615. 

Lauds, Public, of the United States, S72. Indian, 
ceded to the United States, 24. 

Lank, Ualph. Governor, 55. 

Lane. General, At Puebla, 494. 

Langpon. John. 856i, 639. 

Languiigefi. Indian. 12, 

Lansi.ng. John J.. 356. 

La Place, M.. 234. 

Laturop. Captain. 126. 

Lacpmnniekr. Ills expedition to America, 50. 

Laurens. Henev, Commissioner on the Treaty cf 
Peace. 84S. 

Laurens. Jo«in. Colontl. 329. Death of, 34S. 

La Ve«.a. General, 4S2. 4^, 

Lawi;en<:e. Governor, E.\p(H]itIon against Acadie, 18.\ 

Lawrence. Jamks. CapUiin, Notice of. 429. 

Lawrnkcf, KiruARp. Colooe', 111, Executed,112. 

'■ Later,' nee'* ship, 420, 

Lear. Touias, Colonel, Cop »ul- Gen era! In thcMedltt-r- 
ran>\in. 395. C"oinpelIed tc purchase bis freedom, 445, 

Lepyaru, William. Colonel, 840, 

Lee, Arthur, American Ambas^arlo^ to France. 266. 

Lek. Charles, General, A C.\plain at IMconderoga, 
w*mnded. 197. Major-Gen> ral. 23S. At Boston. 2^9. 
At New Y(.rk. 24S, At North Castle, 259. At Mon- 
mouth. 2^^?. IliR letter to Wwyne, 29?, 

Lee, Charles. Atfjrney-Gcneral, 1796, 838. Notices 
of, 24S. 2S«. 

Lee, Henry. General, His exploit at Paulus's Hook. 
94. 29!>. With General Marion. 38-'. At Fort Ninety- 
sis. 387. Suppresses the Whiskey Inaurrectton, 875. 
His funeral oration on Washing'toDf 8S7, Votico oC 
8:^ 



INDEX. 



xliii 



Lbb, Robfrt E.. Gra.'nl. 53?, SfiS. 019, 623, 631, CtS, 

6i2, 600, 71S. Sarrencler of. 719. 
Leb, Ki:HiRD Hexby, His Rcaolution od American In- 

depfnileuco, 250, 2,'il. Notice of, 250. 
Lek, W. H. F.. General, 64«. 
Leisi.er. ,jAct)B. Governor. 131,148, 
I.EiTcii, Miijnr, Death of, 25S. 
Le Motnk, James, 50. 
L(nr)i Leitnpe Indians, 17, 20, 31. 
Lf.o-v, Poxce de. Gent^r.il, At Braceti,493. 
■' L^:opar<l " fi-isate. 403. 
Leslie, Generiil. 832. At daarlestun, 847. 
*' Li;i'(XnV^ s!onp-of-war. 440. 
Levi, M. Successor to Montcalm. 203. 
Lewis, A>tieew, General, Notice of, 244, 
Leots, Colonel, At Frenchtown, 416, 418. 
Lewis and Clarke's E.Ki)edition, 395, 
I.ixcixion, Delaware, 92. 04. 430. 
LnwiHton, New York. Burnt, 427. 
Ltxhizton, Battle of, 232. 2:i3. 
I.iil'Un, Netherlands. Puritans at, 77. 
Z /'//.!/ Prison, 662. Plan to blow np, 689. 
■' liherty" sloop. 220. 

T.i}>erUj-poli ^ At Plymonth, Massachusetts, 79. 
Liijiinia^ Agricultural settlement of, 60. 
Lincoln, Abkaiiam, Slcetch of. 54^?. Elected President, 
M4. Inaugurated, 551. Calls for troops, 560. Deliv- 
ers Emancipation Proclaaiation, 640. Visits City 
Point. 720. Ee-elected, 710. Murdered, 720. 
LlNoonx, Earl of, 113. 

LfNcuLN, Benjamin, General, At Boundbrook, 270. 
Commands the Southern Armr, 204. At Charleston. 
296. Besieges Savannah, 306. At Charleston. 309. 
Surrenders to Clinton. 311. .^t the siege of York town, 
342. Suppresses Shay'e Rebellion, .3,'i3. Notice of. 295. 
" Vlnnurgentti " frisr.ate. Captured by ^'Constellation,^'' 

3S5. 
■' Lit/I/'. Bel!," sloop of war, 407. 
Little A'oc/i-, Arkansas, 675, 676. 
Little Wolnlah M.ijorCl.'irke at the, 303. 
LiviNGSTO.N, Edward Author of the penal code of 
Louisiana, 451. His defense of General Jackson, 443. 
Notice of, 451, 4.52. 
Livingston, PortBKT; Patroon. 149. 
LrviNOftTON. Uobert U. IMs connection with Robert 

Eulton, 390. Notice of 366. 
LrvTNoSTON William, TIi> Address to the An:|lo-Amer- 
ican Colonies. 22s. Mi '.uber of the Convention on the 
Articles f>fConfederatio:i, 3,56. 
Llotd, Thomas. 162. 
LooKK, JoiLN His '■Fundamental Constitutions." 99, 

164 
London. Company, Send Henry Hudson on an expedi- 
tion to America, 59. Send (.'aptain Newport to Uoan- 
oke Island. 64. New charter of the. 6S. Third char- 
ter of the, 70. Dissolved, ?1, 106, 107. London Crys- 
tal palace in 516. 
LONGSTKEET, James, Gcueral, 619, 620, 6.52. 667, 670, 6S9, 

717. 
LooAN. John. Mingo Chief, 20, 36. 27, 
Long Ixlautl. 59. Granted to the Earl of Stirling, 144. 

Battle ot; 254. 
Lonu hland, iTiflimift. 21, 141. 

J.onij Jnhnul Sound. E.Kplored bv Captain Block, 72. 
Lonrj ParUanimt, The, 182. Confirms the charter of 

Rhode Island, 157. 
Lonls of Trndt; 1.34. 

L'Orlait, Naval expedition fitted out at, .303. 
Lookout Mountain, Events at, 66;J. Battle of, 6G5. 
Los Anoklos, Stockton and Eremont take poBseseion of, 

4S7. 
IvOtttry authorized by Con^ross, 393. 
LotTDON, Lord, 191, 192, 198: 194. 

Louis XIV., of Hraneo. rc-vokcs the Edict of Nantes, 166. 
James II., of England, llecs to the court of, 130. Ac- 
knowledge,^ t 'Ijarles Edward, as kin^ of England, 134. 
Louislmrg, Captured, t;:6, 1;,;S, 19C. 
l^nUlitna. Ced.jd to Franco In 1300; sold to the Tnltcd 
States, by Napoleon, 204, Territory; Stale, 4.^1, Ad- 
mitted to the IViiioo, 409. .Secession of, 517. Opera- 
tions !u, G4L , 
T.oL-rs Piin.iepi!. Driven from Iho throne of France, 510. I 
LovELl. Mi.5rsFnJT.o, Ocuti'.il, 609. j 
LiruLow. Oapt.a:o. Death of. 429. 

LucwEiT Pmi.ir. 165. ICT. I 

tumhi'i I.anr-, r>atf..; .^f, 1S3. 

Luihf^nnra, Persecuted and slaujjlitor.'id bi' Meloudcz. 51. ' 
LirzEENE, M., aeacrnl Orceno'a letter io, 331. 



Ltfoed, Persecnted by the Pilcrims, 119. 
Ltsiaji, General, At Fort Edw,ard. 1S9, 191. 
Lyon, Natiiasiel, General 572, 578, 566. 



MoCiELLAN, Georc.e B., General, 562, 563. Takes com- 
mand of U. S. Army, 671, 5S6, 612, 618, 620. P.etreat 
of, 621. Wants more men, 62S, 62S. Eelioved of his 
command, 631. 

McClekNjUjd. John .\.. General, 696, 613. 

McCooE, A. McD.. General. 594, 701. 

M'Cldt.e, James, In Convention on the Articles of Con- 
federation, 356. 

M'Clure, General, At Fort George, 427. 

M'Ceea, Jane, 277. 
! McCotTN, General, 600. 
i MoCrLLOCK, Een., Genera], 573. 

McDonald, Donald and Flop.-\, 24S. 

MoDougall, General. At I'eekskill, 270. Secretary of- 
the Continental Board of .\dmiralty, -"OS. 

Mi^DowELL, Charles, .\t King's Mountain, 319. 

Ml TlOWELL, iRVLN, 567. 61S. 

MePiiERSON, General, 643. 

M-Hen-rv. Jajies. a56, 3S4. 

Macomb, General, At Plattsburgh, notice of, 434. 

Macdonough, Commodore, Notice of, 4.34, 485. 

Madison, James, 356, One of the authors of the Fe'ler- 
alist, 361. His view of the Revenues of the Uniteil 
States, 367. Secretarv of State. 390. President of lh« 
United States, 404, 415. Notice of. 40.5. 

Magaw, Colonel, At Fort Washinston, 25S, 

M.4G0FFIN. Governor, encourages secession, 575. 

MAGRrDER, Colonel, 562. 

Maine, Discovered. 55. Indian tribes of, 127. Settle- 
nK>nt of, SO, 122. A pari of Massachusetts until 1S20, 
129. A State, 452. Boundary of, 462. 

Maine, The first that was found by Miles Standish, 115. 

Ma/pern ffilln. Buttle of, 622. 

MancliK'^ter, Burnt. 427. 

Manhattan Indians, 21. 

Manhattan Island, Sold to the Dutch tiv the Manhatta» 
luilians. 21. Purchased bv Minnit, 139. Origin of th» 
name, 49. The fort at the southern extremity of, 72. 

Manlv, Cajitain, 303. 

Manahoac Indians, 17. 

Manassas, Evacuated bv the Rebels, 613. 

Manning. John, The traitor, 147. 

Mansjiftd, Battle near, 6S4. 

Mans'field, Lord, His decision respecting slavery, 533. 

Mansfield, Captain, 431. 

M.iNSON, M. D., General, 6.3.3. 

Manteo, Indian Chief, Lord of Roanoke, 55, 66. 

Manu/aatures, American, 177, 17S, 216, 447, 45S. 

Mariana, Territor.v of, 79. 

Marine Committee of Congress, 308. 

Marion, General. 204. In South Carolina, 814. Exploits 
of,, 317, 31S, 319. .320, 385. Refuses to drink wine, 317. 
His first appearance at Gates's camp, 818. Anecdote 
of him and a British oflicer at Charleston, 820. His 
camp destroyed, 320; his brigade defeated. In his ab- 
sence, 345. 

Markiiam. 'Wiluam, 96, 161, 162, 163. 

Marlboroiigli, .Massachusetts,- Burnt, 127. 

Marriage (■onlract,''. Restraints on. by Andros, 1.30. 

Marsh, Colonel, Exi)edition against Port Koyal, 1.35. 

Marshall, John. Envoy to France..3Sfi. Annonnc»s tha 
death of Wiisbington, 836. .^.diijininters ihe o,'iii.i of 
olliee to President Monroe, 446; Adiims, 454, 101. No- 
tice of, 3,51. . . . , 

Martha's Vine^arcl, Dioeovcrea, uT, 58. Clirlstlon In- 
dians at, 123. 

Martin, AirjiANUER, In the Couventibn on llie Articles 
of Confederation, utill. 

Martin, LrruBK, In the Convention on Iho Articles of 
Confederation, :i.".(l 

" MAtiTT JoHJJSON." tti.i assumed namo of Ai-thur Lee, 
266. 

Manjland, setlleinonf of. 30-32. Origin of tho nami" 0% 
81. Tbo first seiiliHJiont in. 62. 'li.e Seneca Indi. 
anBmnko war upon the i Mlonisus, 62. I tO. Declaration 
of Right?, in lil39. 151. Civil wav iu. •I'olei-ation .■let; 
r.n asyliKn for porsceutod <;iiiiielii>ie« and P'.iiitans, 
1.51. I'olv.inl Kovcnimeuc of; •ivil Tf.ai' in, 152. 
Uir*invy <,t', 1,51. 

Mason. G-ri.nor. in the C'oiiveniiou on Cne .JLvilcles of 
Com'cd'.-ratiou, SC)ii. 



xlir 



INDEX. 



Masos, J»nN, merchant ami naval commander, 79. 
GoT^rnor..f Portsmouth, England, 80. Controversy 
111' the heirs of, l-.'9. 
JIasos, Jous. Cajitnin. exterminates the Pequods, 87. S3. 
Wasos, .Ia.mes h.. author of the FuRltlve Slave Law, 
521. Confederate Commissioner, SS7. Ooei to 
Ens-lanil, 589. 
MtHifilcliHSetiM Indiana, 22. 

MuKUH-hmettK, s.ttlement of, C2, History of, 114. 
Colonv; charter, IIT. Character of the colony, 119; 
rapid (.-niMth of the colony, cre.ates alarm in Enjland, 
130. FoHlfteatlons in, 121. Joins the confederacy of 
colonists, l.'l. Government of; commerce of, with 
the West Tndies, 122. Growth of the colonv, 129. 
Controversy of, with tlie htdrs of Oorircs and Mason, 
129. A roval province, 1.52. Cost of Bettlinj;, 209. 
Early ledsialion of, 175. Gnint from Parliament to, 
20B. AsseiiiMv's view of Uixation, 219. k flotilla 
fitted out hv. in 299. Boai-d of Admiralty of, 307. Ue- 
bellion in, 85.1 
■Massasoit, chief of the Wamp.anoaes, 90. Sachem, 114, 

115. His sons, 21. 124. 
MATnKE. CoTTOx, 183. Notice of, IM. 
MATruKWs, Samuel, Oovt-rnor of Vir^'inia, 109. 
MATTiirws, General (British), 297, 32n. 
Miiuritiiu, the, Ori'.-in <'{ the name, 71. 
Mavki:ick, IllcBAUn, 12-3. 

MAWiioon, Lieutenant-Colonel, at Princeton, 26S. 
Maximilian. Empenr of Mexico, deatli of, 72S. 
May, Corselics Jacobsem, First Director of New 

Netherland, 73. 
Mav, Captain, Captures General La Vega, 4S2. 

*^ Jfitt/'F/otcer" Puritan vessel. 77. 
Mbaue, Gkokue G., General. 621, 622. Takes command 

of the army. OSi. 659. 6S1, 692. 
Medtfenbiin/ Vcchtraiion of Independence, 287. 
iledal. Presented by Congress to Washington, nfter 
the battle of Germantown, 275; to General Wayne, 
293; to the captors of Andre 327. Struck by Louis, 
XIV.. after the repulse of Phipps, 131. 
il til ford, Massachusetts, Burned. 127. 
Medioi, Loeenzo pe, Vcsinicius's letter to, 41. 
Mtfting Uoum. Fir.-t,at liartford, Connecticut, 86. 
MekerHn ftuliantt, 23. 
Mnnis. Colonel, 271. 
'■ Jft-A/m/iiw." ship, 401. 

McLENPE?.. Pedko, Governor of Florida. 50. 51. 
Jtemoriiil to Parliavient, Livingston's, 215. 
MempJii^ 6^. 
ME.SDOZA. Cardinal, 88, 45. 
Meiiomonee Tiuiittns, 17, 19. 
Mercer, Hfoii. General, 192. 259. Notice of, 269. 
Mf.rcek. John Feaxcis. 356. 
Mkeeditu, William M., Secretary of the Treasury, 

499. 
Metacomet: see King Philip. 
2ltt<imoi;i», General Ampudia at, 451. 
Mexico. Origin of the name, 693. Civilization and the 
arts ill, 43. Burr's projiosed invasion of, 896. War 
with 4>0. Tho Cllv of. 494. Treatv of Peace, 497. 
Miami fndiana.l'.ii.'a. Treaty with the. 408. Their 
territory, 19. Conspire against tho English, 1768, 
205. 
MliSTOSolIOH.Marragansct Sachem. 21, 87, 91, Vib. 
MiCAXorv, Head Sachem of the Seminoles, 466. 
jVidiiyiin. Peninsula. Indians on the, 18. Territory, 

896. State of. ndmilted to the Union, 4G9. 
Michifjtni Jndiann, 19. 
Micmuc Inditntfi. 2'2. 
Midrlle I'lantntionn. The, 111. 

Mil-ELix, Thomas, General. 254, 267, 26S, 856. His ad- 
dress to Washington, notice of. 352. 
MlLMonxr, Depiilv Governor. 1.34. 148. E.xecuted, 148, 
MlLl.Elt, Colonel. Defeats Tecumlkn,near Brownstown, 

411. At tho battle of Lundy's Lane, 4.58. 
Mili Spring, Victory at. .W4. 
Mine Ititfr. Abatis on. 060. 
Jfinetaree Indiann, 31, 32. 

Mingo JniUanr. 28. Loian, the Mingo Chief, 20. 
Minfiua In'limut: see Mohaick Jndi<inii. 
Misox, General, Driven I'roin Santillo, 4'?6. 
Minti lH<yiana. Their territory. 21. 
Mint. Of the United States. 872. 873. 
MisiTT, Peter. Governor, S,\ 93, 139. 
MiM-M<im,i. The, at 1'lill.idelphln. 2>5. 
Mi»hinr„n, The fo^undation ol Charleston laid at, 117. 
Mi*t»fnniigneii Indians. 17. 205. 
MiMisaiip:, Territory, 388. State admitted to the Un- 



ion, 448. Seulon oC 54*. In possession of tho Union, 

606. 
Miwisrippi River, Events beyond, 684. Volloy oi; 591. 

War in. 565. 
Missouri Indians, 82. 

MUaourl.U. State. 448, 452, 676. P.ald Into, 6T7. Lost 
to Confederates. 69S. 

Missouri Corupromise" The, 452. Repeal of, 626. 
MiTOIlEL, Oemdsv M., Cu6. 
MiTOUELL. Colont'l. 48'3. 
Mobilf. The Dritish repulsed at, 435, 70S. Fleet at, 709. 

Surrender of. 716. 
Mohiliitn Indians. 29, 81. 

Mohaick- Indians. 21, 2-3. Active enemies of the Ameri- 
cans, 26. Ili-a-wat-ha's address to the, 24. Refuse to 
join King Philip, 127. At New Amsterdam, 141. 
Claim sovereigntv over the Kiverlndians. 141. Allies 
of Colonel Williams. 190. Join St. Leger, 278. 
Mohaick Valify, Devastation of the, '290. 
Mofiegan Indians, 17. 21. .^, 80. 
Molinos del Itev. liattle, 494. 
Mo.NCKTo.N, Colonel. 1<.5, 201. Grave of. 2Si 
Money, Continent.il,245. The first coined in the United 

States. I'22. 
Monitor and Merrimack. Combat between, 614. 
Monk. General. 95. 

Monmouth. New Jersey, Battle of, 287. 
Montctm Indians, 17. 

Monroe, James, His treatv with Great Brlt.iin, 401. 
President <if the United States. 446. lie-elected Presi- 
dent, 4.53. "Monroe doctrine." 445. Notice of, 446. 
MosEoE, C.lonel, At F.irt William. Henry, 194. 
Monroe, Major. At Point Isabel, 451. 
Montagnex Int/ians. 17. 
Montauk Indians. 21. 
" Montauk.*' Monitor, 07'2. 

Montcalm, Marqi'is ve. 192, 194. Notice of, 120, 202. 
Montgomerij. Ala. Surrender of, 715. 
Montereii. Battle of. 484. 
Montezuma, id. His deputation to Cortez, 43. 
Montgomery, John. Governor. 150. 
MoNTooMERY, Colonel (British). In the Cherokee couu- 

trv. 204. 
Montgomery, Eichaed, General, 288. a41. Assaults 

Quebec, 24'2. Notice of. 240. 
Montgomery, Coumiodcire. Takes possession of San 

Francisco, 457. 
3fonlreal. Origin of the name. 45. Surrender of. In 

•203. 
Mi>osRS, General. 435. 

Moore, James, Governor of South Carolina, 16S, 170. 
Moore. Colon'd, 108. 
Morarians and La F.ayette, after his being wounded at 

Ilrandvwine. 274. 
Morgan", John H.. Onerrilla Chief. 68-2. 658, 661. 688. 
MoR.-.AN. Daniel. General, at Quebec. 242. At Saratoga 

■282. At the Cowpens831. Notice ot 381. 
Morgan William. 457. 
Morgan Colonel, At Agua Frio, 486. 
Morocco, War of the ITnited States with. 1501. 390. 
Mormons. The. 499, 504. Their movements. 537, 749. 
Morris. GorvERSEUR, 185. 3.56. His reijiarks on Coins 
and Currencv, 872. Ills part in the Eric Canal, 457. 
Notice of, 864. 
Morris Island. 073. 
Morris, Lewis, First Koyal Governor of New Jersey, 

161. 
Morris P.oiieet, Supplies Washinaton with money, at 
Trenton. 203. Aient of Marine; his privateers, 808. 
Ills National Bank, 829. At the Convention, on the 
Articles of Confederation, S.Vj. His views of harmonis- 
ing the money of the United States, 872. Notice of, 
264. 
Morris, Roger, Notice of, 259. 
MoRKis, (.:ominodore. His exploit on the Penobscot 

River, 488. 
MoREis. Malor. Death of, 269. 

Morristoicn, New Jersev. Washington's winter quar- 
ters at, 269, 806. Sufferings of the American troops at, 
806. 
MoESE, S. F. B.. Sketch of, 607. 608. 
MOTIK, Rebecca. Notice »f. 885, S:i6. 
Mori.TRiE, General, 204. 29.V Notice of. 249. 
Mount IIopi Bay, A Scandinavian child born on the 

shore of. 3.5. 
Mount Independence, 276. 
Mount Vrrnon, Leonard Calvert at, W. 
Muin^urdsiitle, Battle at, 688. 



INDEX. 



'xlv 



Miirfi'U%b<yro\ Battle at. 63S, 706. 
Murray, General, 201, 20a 
Murray, W. V.. Envoy to France, 885. 
Mu^koge^ InMans, 29. 

K. 

^akant, 57. Captain Block at, 72. 

Hatisemnrid River, Settlement on the, 97. 

NanU.% The Edict of, 166. 

Xanticoke Indians, Allies of the Five Nations, 17, 20. 

Nantucket, Discovery ol". 57. Christian Imlians at, 123. 

Napoleon: see Bonaparte, 

Harrngiinfiet Indiana. 21. 22, S6. Propose to exter- 
miiiiite the white people, St. Treaty of Peace with 
the. 125. Join Kinsr Philip. 127. 

Narrniiantet Say, Penetrated by Captain Block, 72. 

Narvaez. Pamphilo, Governor of Florida, 43. 44, 

Nasii. Governor. 330. 

Xiinkville, Tenn., Evacuation of, 599. Threatened, 632. 
705. 

J\\it<.-hez Indians, 29, 30. Population of, 31. Language 
of the. 12. 

National. Bank of the United States, 372. Currency, 
372. Debt, 739. 743. 

Kaumkeug Colovy. 117. 

^' yautUuH" brig. 414. 

Kanajo ludiujis.-iSS. 

Xaval Sto7'6tt, Imported from America into Great Bri- 
tain. 206. 

Na'ral Evfitigement in Charleston Harbor. 672. 

Navigation- Act, The, 109, 123. 177. 

Navii, American. Origin of the. 245. 246. 3S2. Kank of 
Commanders, 30S. State of. 407. 414, 445. 

Ironclads, 595. Ships of, 6SG. 

Xavt/, British. 206.445. 

Neal. Captain, Death of. 269. 

Nehrafika, Territory of, ols. Opened to Slavery, 526. 

Kegro Plot, in New York, 150. 

Negro Slacen ; see Slaves. 

Negro Troops. Medal for, 596. 

Neilson. .TrtUN, 356. 

Neosho Indian-s, 24 

Neutral Indians, 23. 

Nevada, Becomes a State, 765. 

Neio AriiKterdam^ Meeting of Dutch deputies at, tn 143. 

New Bernf, N. C. Battle at 606. Seige abandoned. 705. 

New Brnnswick, Origin of the name' of, 5S. Boundary 
of, 472. 

Nriobiirg Addresses,, 349. 

Newcastle. Delaware, 93. 143. VTilliam Penn at, 96. 

Neic England Indians, 17, 22. Invaded by the Five 
Nations. 24. 

New England, Scandinavians visit the coast of, 34. Ex- 
plored by Captain John Smith. Origin of the name, 
74. Prot»oaed union of the colonies of, in 121. Popu- 
lation of, iu 1675, 126. Efl'ects uf King Philip's War in 
129. 

New Era Gunboat, 682. 

Newfoundland, Portuguese settlement in. 47. Seen 
by Cabot, 46. Cod-fishery at, discovered by Cabot, 47. 
Visits CO, by early navigators. 52. 

New France, The name given by Verazzani to the re- 
gions discovered by hira. 4S. 

New Hampshire, Origin of the name, SO. Settlement 
of, 62. 122 A royafprovince. 60, 129. Grant to, 206. 

New Haven Colony, 121, 127. IM. 

New Jersei/, Origin of the name, 159. "Wampum manu- 
factured ^in, 13. Swedes in, 62. Founded, 93, 159. 
Sale of, by the Duke of Yoik. 144. The Dutch take 
possession of, 147. Discontents in 159. Invaded by 
Matthews, 320. History of the colony of, 159. 

New London, Burnt by Arnold. 340. 

New Madrid, Evacuated bv the Confederates, 600. 

New Mexico, A Teiritoiy of the United SLates, 497, 501. 
Claims of Texas to portions of,' 499. Petition of, for a 
civil government, 499. 

New Netherland, 72, T3. Founded 139. Given by 
Charles II. to the Duke of York. 113, 144. 

New Orleans, Ceded to Spain. 204. Battle of, 439. 
Naval battle at, 610. Fe^irful panic in, 611. 

Newport, CnRisTiiPHEii. Captain. 65, 68. 

Newport, Rhode Island, 4S. ' Tern:iy*s fleet at, 321. 
Tower at : see Tower. 

Netc Rf>cheUe, Mrs. Hutcheson takes refuge at, 120. 

Newspapers, In the American o<51onie9; in- the United 
State*, 119. 



Neip Streden, 93. 14;5. 

New Winsdr-, , Washington head-quarters at, 828. 

New York Citi/, Dutch settlement at, 62. Origin of, 72, 

144. EsiieiUtion from, to Canada, 131. Colony at, 139. 

The Dutch taken possession of. 147. Evacuated, 350. 

Great fire at, 471. Crystal Palace in, 516. Pviot in, 

657. 
New York. History of the Colony of. 139. Grants from 

Parliament to, 206. General Knyphausen at, 309. 
New York Bay, 48, 57. 
Nezperce Indians, S3. 

Niagara Foils, Battle at, 433. Village at, burnt, 427. 
Niagara Frontier. Shirley's expedition to the, 1S5, 189 
^^ Niagara''^ ship, 425. 
Niantic Indians, S7. 
Nicaragua, State of, 522. 
NicnoLsoN, Francis. Governor, 14S, 171. 
NiraoLsoN, Colonel, 136. 

Nicola, Colonel. His letter to Washington, 349. 
Nicolas. Father, Removes the Church-1)ell from Deer- 
field, 135. 
NicoLLS. KiCHAED, Colonel, 123, 144. 
Ninetysiir, Origin of the name, 335. Siege of, by 

Greene, 336. 
NisiGSET, 21. At New Amsterdam, 141, 142, 154, 155. 
Nipmuc Indians, 22. 125. 
Nor/o/i\ N'ir^inia, 244, 297. 
North Carolina, Secession of, 547. Events in, 704. 

Sherman's march through, 712. 
North. Lord, His Conciliatory Bills, 296. The news of 

tlie ca[iture of Curnwallis, o45. Retires from office, 

-S45 Notice of, 2'^4. 
North- Easter?! Boundary Question, 476. 
North Carolina, ^^- Colonv, 167. Opposed taxation, 

223 Joins the Uniou 17l! 
North Castle. The American camp at, 259. 
Northjield. Connecticut, 126. 
Northman. 34, 35. 
North Point. Battle oC 437. 
North Virgina. fti. 
North Went Territory. 868. 
Norridgewock Indians, 22. 
Nottowaij Indians. 23. 
Nova Scotia, 58, 182, 13a Origin o^ SO. PortuguCM 

settlement in, 47. 
^ Nora Ctesarea, 93. 
1 Nveces^ The. General Taylor at. 4S1, 
Nullifiers of South Carolina, 463. 
Nuniher Ten Island, 599. Capture o^ 601 



j Oconee River, 23. 

I Oaracock Inlet, 54. 

; Ogdensburg, Capture of, 426. 

' Ogeechee River, 2S. 

Ogilviz. Captain, at Queenstown, 413. 
: Ogleth<irpe. James Edward. General. His voj'age to 
! America, 100. Founds Savannah. 62, 100. His first 
interview with the Indians at Savannah, 30. His 
i colony. 171. Meets Chiefs in Council. 1U3. His con- 
1 test with the Spaniards. 172. Notice of. 99. 
I O'Hara. General, At the siege of Yorktown. 342. 
I Ohio Company, The, Organized, 363. George II.'s 
' grant to, ISl. 

I O.TEDA, Accompanies Vespucins. 41. 60. 
[ Old iJominion, The, Origin of the name, 109. 
! Omaha Indians. 32. 

, Oneida Indiajis, 23. Favor the Americans, in the 
Revolution. 26. Hi-a-wat-ha's address to the, 24. 

OPECQANCAJiouGH, 66. Captures Captain John Smith, 
106. Hostile to the Virginia Colony, lOS. 

Ord, General, 635, 

Orders in Council 400, 402. 

Oregon Indians, 33. 

Oregon Territory, a3. British claims to, 479. Battle- 
ment of the boundarv question, 497. 

Orphan House, Whitfield's, 171, 172. 

Osage Indiajis, 32. , 

Osceola. 466, 4'6S. 

Ostend Circular, 520. 

Oswald. Richakd, English Commissioner on the Treaty 
of Peace. 348. 

Oswego, 192. Battle at. in 1^14, 432, 43S. 

Otis, James. 207. 208. 212, 213, 219. Notice of, 212. 

Otoe Indians'. 32. ,. 

Ottawa Indiaiii^ Tt. Attempt to eiterminat* the 



zlvi 



I N D K X. 



whito poopio in 17t)S, IS, 205 Aid tho Fr^ncb a(raln.-t 
the Sacs oml Foxes, IS. Their war with tho Five 
MatioDA, It-, 36. 

OiUdQitmif IniUaiig. See For Jmiiitns. 

Oystw Pmnt, South Owollno, 89, 16(i. 

OyiUr Jiivcf^ lucursiou of Fruocb and Indlaos at, 134. 



P. 



Packeniiam. General, at New Orleans, 439, 440. 

Paditcah^ (Iji'i. 

Paine, Tiio.MAft. liis " Common Sense," 250. 

Piilo Atto,\K\n\i> of. 4SJ. 

JPalos, Columbus s:ills ham, S4, 39, 40. 

Painunkey Indians, 111. 

Pananm, V'omnjiaftionerB at, 457. Railroad In, 522. 

Piinii-co Jiiivr, the followers of De IJota at the, 45. 

Paper BfofA'ad^s, 444. 

Paper Movey, is6ue<l by Massachusetts, 122, 132. 

PAVl.VKAtT, LnclsMuSEPU, 473. 

Pabeijf,9. General, succeeds Herrera, 4S1. 

PiH'M, treaty of peace at, 204, 84S. The allied armies 

enter, 481. 
Parker, Sir Peter, W3. 261. 

Pariiatnent, its Art «t Supremacy, 7.^. Its appropria- 
tion to Georgia, KIO. Grants by, during the Seven 
Years' War lii America, 206. 
Pa^aniaquofUhj Indinn/i, 22. 
Patbrso.v, W1LLIA.M. 35C, 869. 
Patroom, Account of the, 180. 
Pauldino, Jou.n, 820. 
Pauiuss Hook, 94. 
PAtrw, MtcilAEl., 94, 1.19. 
Pavonio, territory of 94. 
Paicneg ImiiaiUf, 88. 
Paictu^:kt>t Indians, 22. 
Pavxk. General, 416. 
*' /*ea<!()-.I/*Mc?'«" in Pennsylvania, 162. 
Ptace- Party, of 1S12, 410. 
Ptaci!, Treati/of, Guadalupe Hidalgo, 497. 
Pea Ridf/ti, Imttle of. 092, 635. 
•• Peai:ock,~ brii;, 429, +40. 
Peabce, Colonel, at York, Canada, 425. 
Ptitrl Ilirfr. 29. 

Pttra 0/ EitgUind, cannot be arrested for debt, 150. 
Pbbue, K. W., General, 662. 
*' Pg/ica n," sloop of war, 480. 
Pbmberton, Juim C, 643. 
Ptmaijuid Point, 80, 181. Capture of the garrison at, 

180, 1S4. 
P*niacola, abandoned by tho Confederates, 609. 
Peni'Leton. Natuaniel, 856. 
*' Pon'jniii,'^ briij. 440. 

PaNX, William, his charter from Charles 11.; purchases 
part of New Jersey, 05. His voyage to America, bis 
government, 96. His advice to" toe Duke of York, 
respecting an assembW of Uepresentatives. 147. His 
tinrehases of parts of Sew .Icrsey, 160. Ilia arrival in 
Pennsylvania; his treaty with the Delaware Indians, 
. 161. UJs Charier of Liberties; his return to Kngland, 
163. Deprived of his provisional government; his 
rlgbts restored in ; returns to England, 1C3. Phlladel- 
pnla founded br, 162. Suggests a Union of the Colo- 
ales, 1 S3, involved in debt, 209. Ulssons, 1C3, Ko- 
tlce ot 95. 
JPtnnaeook India n«. 22. 

Ptnnnyivania, origin of tho name, 96. Swedes in. 62. 
Illsury uf the Colony of, 161. Mutiny of the troops 
of, 828. 
Penobna-t Indtant, 24. 

PensacoUi, Florida, stormed, 458. Captared, 451. 
Ptoiia Indium, 19. 
PEJ-fKacI.L, Wu.Ln.y, 187. 
PtQuod. Iiuliam. 21, 94, 8T. 

Pbecy, GBPKJr., AcflDg-Governor of Tirginla, 69, 69 
Pbtirt, C'o<:unt-d-jre, eipedition to Japan^ 500. 
Ptn-yt'-i'Itt, *..."i;i1b n'^ar, G84. 
Peek't. Oi.i . SR U., Commodore, His exploits, 4i3, 4Si). 

Ills eipi di 'I'jM ,'<galnBt jdititcs. MH. Notl-o of, 423. 
rERTir. -M. C., (.oininodore. ejptiircs Jamjilco, T»bas> c, 

and 'i'::f-\rtn, 4S5. 
Pttertyirj, a't>eU on, 691. Seise of, 6.13, 717. 
Ptrlh .ln.(V»/,Now J< rsey,orisl" "' ""> name, 160. 
Prr-i"... M'.n'n. ■*«, 119 

PiTmat ViniAiU). Secretary of the Board of War. 554. 
Pttrti*, scon bj V oiuuslijs nad *i« ofx. it. 



PMIadtlpMa, founded, 162. 

•• Philadelphia,^* the, 891. Decatur's exploit in firing 

the, 392. 
Philip II.. of Spain, his measures a^inst the French 

Protestants in America, 50. 
PniLii', King; see Kiso Pullip; notice of, 124. 
PuiLLiPS. Genera!, .tolns Arnold ; death of, 830. 
i*uiLHPRn, Mabv, Sliss. 269. 
Piiicps, >-iK Willi VM. his exjicdltion against the French, 

181. At Queliec. 181. Sent to England, 132. 
•Tha-'ie:' frigate, 481. 
Piankishatc Indians, 17, 19. 
PtcKENS. General, 295, 814, 815, 819. At Nlnetv-sii, 886. 

Notice oC 387. 
Pickeuino, John, member of the Convention on the 

Articles of Confederation. 35& 
Picture M'ritinff, Indian, 18. 

Pikiice. Franklin, in tlie army in Mexico, 498. Inau- 
gurated Prisident. 612. Notice of. 613. 
Pikbi^e, WiLLiA.y. in the Convention on the Articles of 

Conl'ciler.ition. 8.')6. 
PiGOT, General. 2*9. 88.'). 
Pike, Albert, notice of, 692. 
Pike. ZEiin.ox ."d., notice of, 425. 
■' Pi/ffrimx.'* The; vovugeof to America. 77. 78. Names 

of; fabulous story of 7S. Salutation of, by Sainosel, 

114. 
Pillow, Gideon J., 566, 696. 
Pi/vl Knob, 6S7. 
PlNCKNEV, Charles. In the Convention on the Artlclea 

of Confederation, 17S7, 366. 
PiNCKNEv, Chablrs Coteswoeth, In the Convention on 

the Articles of Confederation, 866. Envoy to France, 

1797, 8S.\ Candidate for the Presidency, 898, 896, 404. 

Noti<rc of, 806. 
Pine Tree Monev, 122. 
PiNKNET, William, His Treaty with Great Urltaln, 400. 

Notice of, 401. 
Pipe 0/ Peace, Indian, 14. 
/'/wcfz/rt/ywa. Letters from tho King's commissioner at, 

lis. 

Piraci/, The Earl of Bellemont's effort* to suppress, 

14i'. " in the West Indies, 149. 
PiTCAiRN. Major, 232. 
Pitt William, 19."). His views of tixation. 217, 544. 

Ills scheme for conquering Canada, 199. Resigns hi» 

office as Prime Minister, 213. Notice of; 211 See 

Cdatiiam. 
Pitt William, the younger, 867. 
Phlins o/At'raham, 201, 202, 241. 
Planetarium, r.itteiihouse's, 210, 269. 
P/attsf'Ur[f flay. Naval action in, 486. 
Pleasant mil, liattle near, 686. 
Plymouth Colony, Its Government, 116. Joins tho 

('onfcderacy of Colonies, 121. 
Pli/moiith, Company, 68, 64. Exnlore North Virginia, 

■(8. EniploT Captain J^.hn Smith, new charter of the, 

1620; eupeiaeded bv the Council of Plymouth, 74. 

Consent to the establlahment of a Puritan Colony In 

North Virginia, 77. 
Plymouth, Council of, 74. 
PIvmouth Roi-Jc, 79. 
Pocahontas, The story of, 66. Guardian angel of tho 

Virginia colony. 69. Cajilmed by Captain Argall; 

baptlted; marries John Kolfe, 70. John Uandolph, 

decenilud from, 404. Portrait «, 66. 
" Poietiers,"* ship 410, 
Point ( 'onxr'ori, 64. 
Point /».i{e/,4i-l. 

Point PleaMnt The Shawnoeso Indians subdued at, IP. 
PokonH In.lian.\ 22. 
Poi.K.lAiiES K., I'rcBidenl of the TTnlled Elates, 47 J. 

Proclaims 1'. ace with Mexico, 497. Notice of, 478, 

47'J. 

Polk, Leosioas, General, 6««. 677. 681 

I'osiriBov. Skth. General, 19e, 288. 

Pomj ton. New Jersey Uoops al, O'.'B, S2». 

PONt.r T)E ItEON, Juan. Discovcre I'ionua, 43, 48. 

PoKTiir. Oljiwa Obi'C IS, ^4,805. 

rows, The. His Aposiilic Vicer In the United States, 

868. Bnliioi;4a 
Pope, .iouN, Cestii' Ml. 600, KS. Hi 
PrpiifLM, OE'.'r.i;«, Mca:b*r of ino Pi.'mouth Com. 

panv, 68. 
Popn.iu, Sir .loiis. At Kennebec, 7.''.. Dfath of, 74. 
fnpalr.r liij'i;':, fu Vltg na, 11«, lU. 
PojruaU^., Of tV.o ADiiilc« ic>ioB;r». 179. Inar»»i» 



INDEX. 



xlvi. 



of, In the United States. Ml, US. Of Imiiaa Tribes, 

81, 3'i. 
" Pm'cuplne" schooner, 420. 
Porky, SeeretAry of Virginia, 97. 
Porter, David, Commodoi'o, 430. His Espeflitlon 

asninst pirates, 453. Notice of, 431, 609, 642. 
PoRTKR, FiTz John. 619. 620. 
Port. Hudson, 635. Siirreuder of. 646. 
Port Roya/, Nova Scutin. Founded, 5S. Seized by 

Phipps, 181. Expedition affainst, 135, 136. 
Port Royal, South Carolina, ~ Oi'letborpe at, 100. Lord 

CardoD Bottles at ; claiiued by tht Spaniards, 166. 
Port/iniouth, New Hampstiiri?, Founded, 80. 
Port'igul, Claims of, against the United States. 463. 
Portuguese^ Settle in Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, 

47. 
Porto Rico, Exploring voyages to, 41. Ponce de Leon 

Governor of; his return to, 42. 
Post 0!pC6,of the United States, S73, 507. 
Potomac, Army of The; losses In, 679,571,047,023. 
Potomac River, blockade of, 5S4. 
Potter, Colonel, Death of. 2G9. 
Pottowatontie Iiidians, 17, IS. Conspire against the 

English, 205. 
Porrs, Isaac, and General Washington, 285. 
PoiTTRLNrouET, M, At Port Kovftl, Nova Scotia. 53. 
PowuATTAN, 65. His hlstorv, 20. His eldest brother, 

G6. His daughter, Pocahontas, 20, 66. His hostility, 

and friendship, 70. Death of. 106. 
Powhatan Indiana, 17, 20, 107, lOS. 
Powhatan River, 64. 

Prayer, in the Continent.al Concress. 223. In the Con- 
vention ')n the Articles of Confederation, 359. Mac- 

donoueh's,4S5. 
Preble Jeijediah, General, 230. 
Pbehlb. Commodore, In the Mediterranean, 391. 
Pbiesoott, General (British). Captured; exchanged for 

General Charles Lee, 261, 271. 
Prescott, William, Colonel, 234, 235, 236. Notice of, 

234. 
''Prcfiident'' frii,'ate, 407, 414, 440. 
Press, Freedom of llio, restrained by Andi-os, 130. 
Preston, Captain. 221, 222. 

Provost, Augustine, General. In East Florida, in 
^ 294. At Brier Creek, 295. Prepares to invade South 

Carolina. 296. 
Prevost, Sir George, General, Succeeds General Brock, 

416. At Srtcketl's Ilaibor. 426. At Plattsburg, 434. 
Price, Colonel, In New Mexico, 4S9. 
Prick, Sterling, General. 566, 591, 676. 
PRIDEAUY, (ioneral, 199, 200. 
Prince of Orange, The, Friendly to America, 266. 
Priyic'tofi, New Jersey, Captured by Cornwalls, 260. 

Battle of, 269. 
*' PH/iceton,*'' steamer. 475. 

Prtng, Martin, His Expedition to America, 53, 73. 
Prijitlng, Effects produced by the art of, 63. Forbid- 
• den in New York, by Jaraes II., 147. In tho Ameri- 
■ can colonies, prohibited bv William III.. 153. 
Printing; Press, Tho FirBto'stablished in Virginia,]14. 
Prison Ship, Jorsey. 259. 

Privateeri)ig, 149, Account of, 246. Privateers fitted 
, out by P.obert Morris. 308 ; and by M. Genet, 837. 
Private Jndginent. Doctrine of, at Pljonouth, 116. 
l*ROCTOB, Ooneral, 416. At Fort Meigs, 413, 419. Routed, 
■ 424. 

'• Prophet;' Tho, 403. 
Protestant, Origin of the word, 62. Ueformation, 63. 

Feeling amazed in I-'ngland, by th*^ cruelties of Mf- 

lendez, 5'J. French ProCtStants in Carolina, 55. Prot- 
estantism in Kn;^'land, 75. 
Providence Pia/itation, 91. 
Promdcnce, Khodo Ibland. Founded, 90, Burced, 

127. 
Pubt-ic Lands of the United States, 372. 
Puebla, Tho City of, Captured by General Scott, 490. 
PffLASKt, Couut, '^74. Notice of, Jt05. 
Pulaski. IToH, t:.Ui*jp: of. 003. 
Ptifpii HocX; L-o-ikout mountain, 669. 
P'lncifi Ind'i'inn, 32. 
Pai^ita-iS, iG, 76. Friendly Intercourse of the, with the 

Dutc.n, o5. Ot Nfaasachaactls colony, 113. Sottlo in 

Nftw N<;Uim-iafld, i-ii. 
Pltham, Isr.ici., General, 194, 284. 'i35, 383. In thfl 

Fremdi .ind Indian War, 198. Eaters Boston, 217. On 

Imu^ (ulinO, '^r;l. A* til? honsc of Ruijer Morris, 259. 

His 'Jtplci ' ra. Gr/v^n wh-h. 297. ^'otl«:n of, S53. 
PtfT.'iA,.!, lUfia, Geaowl ^Totico of,&^. 



PtiTNAM, H. P., Colonel, 6T4. 

Ptle, Colonel, Defeated by Colonel Henry Le«, 883. 

Q. 

Quahoag, Englishmen elain at, 126. 

Qnakerfi, Origin of the name, 94. Their tenets, 124 
In Pennsylvania, 94. In Massachusetts Bay. 122. In 
North Carolina, 163, 231. In New Jersey, 160. Com- 
pelled to pay tines, 110. Persecuted, 94, 122, 123. 

Quaker Bill, Battle of, 290. 

Quebec, Alt'onquins at, 17. Founders of 74. Military 
operations at, 201. Sxirrender of. to General Murray, 
203. 

''(?ue&ec^c^"The, 225. 

Queen Anne, of England, 134. Queen Anne's War, 135. 
' Queenstown. Battle of, 413, 414. 

QuiNCY, JosiAH, Defends Captain Preston, 232. 

Quini/iiac Cree^, 8S. 

Quitman, General, 4S8, 494. Notice ot; 494 

Quon-eh-ta-cut^ or Connecticut, 85. 



R. 



Rnifiin River, 417. 

Raleigh, Sir Walter, Studies the art of war, under 
Coliguy, 52. Introduces tobacco into Encrland, 70. 
Historical error respecting. 100. Notice of, 65, 5C. 

Raleigh Tave^f^i, The, 226," 

Rall, Coloni-l, With his Hessians at Trenton, 362 

Ramsay, DArro. Notice of, 312, 617. 

Randolph. Edward, 129. 

Randolph, EoMimD. 356, 359. Attorney General of 
the United States, 369. 

Randolph, .Joh.v. Notice of, 403, 404. 

Randolph. Peyton, 228. 

RanA\ Of American Naval and Military commanders, 
30S. 

RAPEL.rE, Sarah, 7S. 

Rappahamioek .9/a?iort, battle of, 659, 

Rap2>ahannuck River, explored by Captain John Smith, 
67. 

Rarit<t7i Indians, 140. 

Katclipfe. President of the Plymouth Colony, 65. 

Rawdon, Lord, on the Santee River ; at Sanders's Creek, 
815. At Uobkirk's Hill, 334. Embarks for England, 
387. 

Read, George, 356. 

Rebellion, prepai-ations for, 550. 

Red Cross of St. George. 144. 

Red Rii^'er, campaign of. &44. Expedition to, 654, 

Red River. De Soto's followers wander among tributary 
streams of the, 45. 

i?*'/'o;*i7ia^i«?«, the Protestant, 62, Effects of tn Frano» 
49. 

" Regulators,'' the, 223. 

Rehoboth, Rhode Island, founded, S9. 

Reno, General, killed. 628. 

Republican Party the. 377. 

Repuhlicanisrn in Mai-yland, 152. 

Repredentative^ in Congress, 866. 

Resaca de hi Pahna, battle of, 43Q. 

'^Retaliation,^" schooner, captured, 335. 

Rerenue of the United States, 8S8. 

Revere, Paol, 232. 

Revolution, American, history of the. 207. The 8baw- 
uoeao .lid tho British in the, 19. The Lenni-Lenapee 
join the British, 21. Officers and soldiers of th?. oro- 
vided for, 4.')Ji. 

Revolution, English, of 16SS, 162. 

RoETi; C-olone), 169. 

Ehodc Island, csplored bv Scandinavians, 85. Orip-In 
of, P9. 81. Founded, 62, 119. Origin of the nnmc, '.M 
Seal of, 91. Colony of, proposes to join the Confecf 
erocy of Colonies, liil. History of. 157. Charter o.; 
168, Refuses to bo included in Connecticut Colony, 
155. Bd'^ioos toleration in. 151. PorBocutiOD of 
Roman Catholi<'S and Quakora in, 153. Sir Pcli'i 
Parker at 261. F.vacuated by thp Riltteb, SOGl Jo1n« 
the Union, 37J. tfUte ConitUuMon of, 157, 447. 
RLii,?., Ofitirr.'vi, at Chippawa, 433. 

RiEArip. tU'iUN, sailft with Uu^jucuoU-- for America BO. 

Fate of and his party, 50, 51. 

iZ?**, origin of thc> cuiturc of. in South Carolina, 167. 
Richmond, Mc<:lcUan tiu-ua back froiB, €21. £t»uU hi. 



xlviii 



INDEX. 



G79. Seize o(^ 693. Campaign flgaiost, 693. EvacoA- 

tlon of, TlS. 
RiEPESEu. Riron, with Biirjiroj-ne. 2S1. 
IliLEY, iJenfnil, Governor of Oalifornia, 499. 
Jiinff, pri'.Htnu-d by WiiUUrop to Charles H., 155. 
UiN«ooLP. Miijor. 4S2. 
UiNdGOLD, Caplftin, his expedition. 415. 
jfiio del yorte, Curouada's expedition to the head waters 

of the, 45. 
Hio Grande, 4S0, 4S1. Boundary of the Aztec Empire. 

10. 67 S. 
Ripley, General, at Fort Erie, in 1S14, 488. 
RisiNGii, Governor, 143. 

RlTTENHOCRE, Dftvid, 210, 211. 

Jiiver JndiaTUt, Ul>, 14L. 

Roanoke, Lonl of, 56. 

lioaiwke Inland, 55, 04. Attack on, 90. 

Robb, William, at the battle of Kings Monntrtln, 819. 

KoBEHTVAL, Lord, his expedition to New France; arrivcB 
at Newfoundland; his second expedition, 1549. 49. 

BoBiNSOK, John, liev., at Leyden, 77. Ilis remark 
respeetina: Standlsh's slauphter uf Indians, 115, 116. 
HIb fflinily joiii the I'lyuiouih colonists. 116. 

RooiiAMitEAU, Count de, arrives at Newport, 321. Ills 
first interview with Washington, 828. At Dobbs's 
Ferry, S^9. At Torktown, 341. Notice of, 889. 

EocnE. Marquis de Iii, 67. 

Moci'et«, used in war, described, 437. 

KocKiNOHAM, Marquis of, 217. 

RoPSEY, C*6AR, Attorney-General of the UnitedStates, 
406. 

RoLFE. JouN, marries Pocahontas, 70. 

Rogers, C. R. P., Commodore. 40T. 60S. 

Rogers, Major, 194. His expedition against the St 
Francis Indians, 200. 

JRoman Catholia, auricular confession of, 8S. Punish 
witchcraft. 132. Found a colony iu Maryland, 62, SI, 
151,152. Persecuted by Puritan's. 119; and In Mary- 
land, New York, and "New Ensland. 131, 132, 154. 
Provincial oftices in New York" filled by, 147. The 

firevalence of their faiili In Lower Canada, 208, Par- 
iamentary concessions to, 225. 

RoqrE. FkaNCIS de la, see UnltERTVAL. 

Rose, Mr., British Envoy to tlie TTnited States. 402. 

R08KCRAN8, W. S.. General. 5f>S. 634, 637. 662, CG5. 

Ross, General, 486. Heath of. 437. 

Jioxburtj, Miissaehusetts, founded, 116 

RoresEAr, Gtneral, 700. 

Jioyal iitanditrd of England, 144. 

RuGGLES. Timothy, 190, 215. 

Hum, Indians supplied with by the Dutch, 140. 

Rrsii. Benjamin. Dr., his letter to General Wavno, 29S. 

Notice of, 250,251, 
RrssEL, John, United States Commissioner at Ghent, 

44a 
RrssKLL. Lord John, 512. 
iufiHui, England's first maritime connection with, 47. 

Vassalage In, 63. The Emperor of enters Paris, 431. 

Treaty of the United States with, 469. 
f^UTHCRFORD. General. 295. 
RtTTLEDGE, Edwarp, ou the committee to confer with 

Lonl Howe. 257. 
RuTLEDGE, JouN, in Convention on the Articles of Con- 
federation, 856, 859 Defends Charleston, 310. His 
Sroceedinv's after the capture of Lord Cornwallls, 345. 
udjre of the Supreme Court of the United States, 

869. Notice of, 310. 
Mi/9v>ick, the treaty at, 184. 



Saca and Foitm, 17, IS. 

St. Aiti/iifttine. Florida. Ponce de Leon lands near, 42. 
Ribault's expedition arrives at, 60. Founded. 61. 
Spanish military p<»st at. 61. 609. 

SL AnyJi^tiiie. Mexico, General Twijrgs at. 498. 

£1. nair. General, 275. Ills expedition against the In- 
dians, 1791, 374. 

St. CroirSiver, De Monts at the. 5S. 

St. Domingo, discoverv of. by Cidunibus, 40. E.xplorlng 
voyages to, 41. D'Aylluudies ut, 48. The body oi 
Columbus removed to. 41, 

St. Francis Indians, Major Rogers's expedition ogatnat 
the, 200. 

St. JoKn'9, Ncwfonnilland. Gilbert at. 52. 

St. John'fi Jiiver, nameil by Rlbault " River of Moy," 50. 



St. Latcretice Hiver, origin of the name, 4S. Indians on 
the, 32. 

St. Lbgeii, Colonel. In the Mohawk Valley, 27S. Investa 
Fort Stan wis, 27S. 

St. Mary's, Florida, pirates and slave-dealers at. 44S. 

St. Mary'n, Maryland. 151, Founded; legislative As- 
sembly convpiieil at, 82. 

81. PiEERR, M. DB, Governor Dinwiddle's letter to, ISl, 
1S2. 

St. lienit. General "Wilkinson at, 427. 

Sale7it, Massachusetts, colony, 117. The General As- 
sembly of Massachusetts meets at, 226, 227. Witch- 
craft at, 132, 183. 

Safem, New Jersey, origin of the name, 95. 

Safmon Fnlh Yi\i&g6 attacked bv the French and In- 
dians 131. 

SaHillo, General W«iol and Colonel Doniphan at, 4S4, 4s?i. 

Saltunstali-, Sir Kkiiaro, 117. \\9>. 

Samorrt salutes the Pilgrim Fathers, 114. Tear.hea 
I Stundifth how to cultivate Indian corn, 115. 
I San ^7)^»«/(>. 4S3, 498. 
[ Siniitarij Commistfion, 72S. 

Snnderii's CreeA; battle at, 816. 

Sandys. Sir Epwaiid, 77. 105. 

San ifohriel. battle at, 4S7. 

San Juati d' Vlloa, Castle of, 4S9. 

San Luift Potcm, 4s5. 

San Sftlradoi\ see Guannhivmn. 

Santa Anna, Antonio Lopaz pe, 477, 485, 4S6, 489, 490. 
Sketch of, 514, 

'■'■Saratoga.''^ ship, 435. 

Sargent, Winthuop, 363. 

Safico .SicanxiK 8?. 

Sassacvb, Pequod Sachcm, 21, S7, 88. 

Sassamon, Joun, 124. 

Saunkers, Admiral. 201. 

Sava7}nak Indian*!, 80. 

Sararinah, (U-orgia, founded, 63, 101, 108. Siege of, 805, 
Evacuated by the British, S4S, 703. 

Sat-and-Seal, Lord, S5. 

Saybrook, Connecticut, settlement at, 86. Andros's ex- 
pedition to, 14". Colony at, 154. 

Savle, William, his colony • death of. 9&. 

Sayre, Stephen, Chatham's letter to. 22S. 

Scandinavian Voyages, 84. Child born at Rhode Is« 
land, 85. 

Schenectaday, Desolated. 131. 148. 

SniOKiELD, ,i. M., General. 685. 705, 718. 

Schoharie ValUy, Devasiotion of, 290. 

ScAools. Established In Mass., 121. 

Scni'YLKR. PniLip. General. Conveys to Albany the re- 
mains of Lord Ilowe, 197. At lie aux Noix,'240. At 
Fort Edwai'd, 276. Superseded by Gates, 277. Notice 
of, 239. 24(1. 

""^ Scorpion" The, One of Commodore Perry's vessels. 
420. 

ScoiT, Dred, Fugitive Slave, decision concerning, 682. 

Scott, Winfield, General, At Fort George. 426.^ Capl 
tures Fort Erie, 433. Ilis mission to remove the 
Cherokees; his expedition against the Semlnoles, 467. 
On the Canada troutier, in Maine. 472. Plan of his 
Mexican campaiirn. 4sS. At Vera Cruz. 4S5. 489. At 
Cerro Gordo. 4M>, 490. At Cherubusco. 1S47. 498. 
At Chepultcpec, 494, At Mexico. 494.495. Nomlu- 
aU'd President of the United States, 518. Notice of, 
4S5. 507. 

Seabcbj. Samuel, Bishop of Connecticut, 854. 

Sears, Isaac, 232. 

Seaver, Ebenezer, of Massachusetts, 409. 

Secession, Authors of. 540. 

Sedgwick, General, 650. Killed, 690. 

Sedgwick. Theodore, Address of, 510. 

Sedition I.aic of the United Sutes, SS6: 

Seekonk loiter, S9, 90. 

Seviiiiofe Indians, Subdued by General Jackson, 8t 
Deputations of. 44>, 4G6. Treaties of the, with the 
United Stales. 468. 

Semmes. Raphael. Captain o( ^* Alnhama.^'' 641. 707. 

Stiieca Indians. 28,110. Red Jacket Chief of tho 14. 
At Genesee Flats. 304. Conspire ngofnat the Eugltsb, 
205. Ui-'a-wat-ha's address to the. 24. 

" .SVrrt)>i>," ship Caprnr»'d by Panl Jones, 807. 

S<'ttle»)fnt, Era of, in North Aineriva, 61. 

Seveti years' TTcir In America, 179. Cost of the, 204, 
206. 

Seven Pfn(:i, Battlo of. 619. 

Sevikr, Jouy. At King's Mountain, 819. 

SeWA£D, WlLLtAlllI.,6SS. 



INDEX. 



xlix 



Shackamaxon , rennsylvanla, 96. 

''Shades o/ Death,'' The. 291. 

Shaftesbubv. Earl, of, 9S, 99. His "Fundamental Con* 

stitutiouB, " lfl4. 
*'Shannoti,'' frigate. 429. 
SiiARPE, Governor, 184, 185. 
fiuAW, UoBERT G. Jr., Colonel^ 674. 
Shaicmut RIassflchusetts, 69, US. The site of Boston, 
visited by Standish, 115. 

JShaumoem Inifiiin*i, 17, 19. Join the French, in the 
French and Indian War, 19. Aid the British, 19. Con- 
spire against the English, 205. Treaty with the, 363. 

Shays, Daniel, 353. 

Sheaffk, General, 416. At Ynrlc. Canada, 425. 

8uELitY, Isaac, Governor, At King's Uountaia, 819. 

.Sanctions Hopkin'e Expedition against the Indians, 
416. Declines the ni»pointment of Secretary of War, 
447. Notices of, 417,423. 

JShelJy, Gloucester County, Virginia. 66. 

Shenandoah VaUey, 6S9. Carapaiffn in, 697, 652. 

Sheridan Philip U., Genera!, 690, 692, 697. 

Sherman KociER, On the Committee to draft the Declar- 
ation of Independence, 251. In Convention on the 
Articles of Confederation, 356. 

fiHEE.MAN, T. W., General, 5S2. 

Sherman, W. T., General, 599, 609, &42, 669, 6S1, 699, 701. 
His inarch to the sea, 703, 705, 712. 

Shields, General, In Mexico, 493. Notice o^ 498. 

Shiloh, Battle of, 602. 

Ships, Raleieh'f* 55. The class of, used hy the early ex- 
plorers of America, 60. 

SnipPBN, Edward, General Arnold marries the daughter 
of, 824. 

fiHipPEN, Captain, Death of, 269. 

JShirlet, William. Governor, 187, 1&4, 185. His Ex- 
pedition against Niagara. 1S5, 1S9; and against Aeadie, 
185. bucceeds Biaddock; Governor of the Bahamas, 
191. 

Shubeick, Commodore, With Colonel Kearney, at 
Monterey, 4&7. 

Shfte, Governor, 136. 

fiiBLEY, H. B., 593. 

Sickles, Daniel, 650. 

Sieyes, The Abbe, 3S6. 

SiGEL, General. 573, 691. 

Silk, Culture of, in Georgia, 100. 

Silliman, General, At Ridgefleld. 270. 

JSilrer, Bullet, containing Clinton's dispatch to Burgoyne, 
283. Coins, the first, in the United States, 122. 

SiMOOE, Colonel, 339. 

jSiotw) hidiam, 31. 83. 

■Six Nations, Oriirin and History of the, 26. The British 
Government advises the colonies to secure the friend- 
ship of the, 1S8. Neutrality of the. 192, 193. Their 
treaties of friendship. 199, 863. Join Amherst, 208. 
Sullivan's Expeilitiun against the, 803, 801. 

8KENR, Philip, 275. 

Skenesboroug/i^ or Whitehall, 276. 

■Slaves, The natives of America used as, by Columbus, 
41. Indians solrl as, 74. Sold to the Virginia planters, 
by the Dutch, 105. Commencement of negro slavery 
in South Carolina, 9S. Labor by, general in Georgia. 
174. In New England and other colonies, 177. Slave- 
ships from Africa to Savannah, 174. In tlie United 
States, 371. Debates ou slavery in Congress, 452. 
Charles Fenton Mercer's Resolution, declaring the 
slave-trade to be piracy, 593. The Ashburton treaty, 
respecting slave-trade, 472. Excluded from California, 
499. Reopening of, 535. 

Slkmmer, Lieut, 5S0. 

Sliuell, John, Confederate Commissioners, 585, 537. 
Returns to England, 559. 

Sloat, Commodore, Captures Monterey, 437. 

Slocdm, II. W., General, 703. 

Slocqiiter, Henry, Governor, l4S. 

Smibkrt, John, Artist, Introduces portrait-painting 
In America, 153. 

Smilie, John, Member of the Committee of Congress, 
on the War of 1812,409. 

Smith, A. J., 687. 

Smith, C. F., 596. 

8MrrH,E. Kirby,632. 

Smith, John, Captain, 63. His Toyage to America; 
President of the Jamestown colony, 65. Captured by 
Indians; saved by Pocahontas, 66. Remonstrates 
ftgaitist gold-digging; leaves Jamestown in disL'Ust. 
His explorationsand travels, 67. Returns to Englan<l. 
68. His popularity with the Indians, 69. Employed 



by the Plymouth Company ; captnred by a French 
pirate 74. Oflfers his services to the Puritans, 77. The 
Indian capturer of 106. His History of Vireinia. 65 
Notice of, 65. ^ © i 

Smith, Joseph, founds Mormon sect, 504. 

Smfth, T. Kikbt, 684. 

Smith, Persifer F., General, at Contreras, 493. 

Smith, Samuel, General, at Fort Mifflin, 275. Notice of 
486. 

Smith, W. F , General 692, 6S2. 

Smyth, Alexander, General, 414. 

Snak-e Indiana, 33. 

Snorbe, the child of Gudrida, 85. 

SoMERS, Sir George, 63. 

"■ Somers^ the, one of Commodore Perry's vessels, 420. 

Sonora, Colonel Fremont at, in 1846, 4S7. 

Son« of liberty, political associations, 216. Of Massa- 
chusetts, -233. Of New Tork. 248. 

SoTHEL, Setu. Governor, 165. 167. 

Southampton, England. Puritans sail from, 77. 

South Caroliiia, Ciitawbas in, 27. Colony, 163. Occu- 
pied by the British, in 1760,313. Secession of, 546. 
Quiet in. 672. 

South Jfonntuin, battle of, 623. 

Sovth Jiivef\ or Delaware River, 94. 

South Sea, oritrin of the name, 42. 

South Virginia, 63, 63. 

Spain cedes the Floridas to England. 204. At war with 
England ; secret treaty ot wfth France, 806. Treaty 
of. with the United States, 381, 451. Difficulties with. 
519. ^ 

Spaniards chiim Port Roy:i!, 166. Menace South Caro- 
lina settlements, 167. Moore's expedition atainst, 1S9. 
Contests of, with Oglethorpe, 172. 

Sj>anifih voyages and discoveries. 36-45. 

Specie pafjrnents, suspended, 471. 

"■ Speed we'll,''' Puriun'ship. 77. 115. 

Spencer, Joaeph, General, 238, 2S9. 

Spnttsylvania Ccnirt House, battle at, 689. 

Si'AiaHT,* Richard Dobbs, 356, ^34, 629. 

Sjyrtng, at Shawmut, 113. Williams's, at Provldendc 
Rhode Island, 90. 

Springfield Indians,111. 

Sprin^/ield, Connecticut, 86, 127. 

Springfield, New Jersey, skirmish at, 320, 321. 

Squanto, Indian Chief, 74. 114. 

Stamp Act, the, becomes a law, 213. Fate o^ In Amerl. 
ca, 215. Repealed. 217. 

Stanton, Edwik, M.. attempted removal of, 780. 

Standish, Miles, Captain, 73, 115. 

Stark. John, Gent-ral, 198,234, 277. 

Star-SpangUd Banner, origin of the. 437. 

States, State Rights Doctrine. 463.464. Approve th« 
^ Slmvc System, 535, Disapprove it 536. 

State Banis, the public funds iSlstributed among the 
47u. 

Steele, General, 676. 686. 

Stephens, Alexander H., 543. Arrest of, 722. 

Stephens, Samuel. Governor, 98. 

STEifBEN, Baron, in Virginia, 83.3. Pursues Cornwallls. 
339. Notice of, 291. 

Stewaet, Commodore, 440. 

Stewart, Colonel, at Orangeburg, 337. Pursued by 
Greene, 837. 3.33. 

Stevens, General, death of, 627. 

Stewart, J. E. B., General. 619, 690. 

Stirling, Lord, General, 144. 2t3. 254, 261. His skirmish 
with a corps under Cornwallis, 272. Notice of, 254. 

Stirling. Colonel (British), 259. 

StocX'bridge /ndian-'i, 187. 

Stockton, Robert F., Commodore, takes possession of 
Los Angeb's ; at S.an Gabriel, 487. Notice of, 487. 

SxoDKKr, Benjamin, first Secretary of the Navy, 88i 
339. 

Stoneman. General. 648. 

Stone. William. Governor, 152. 

Stoningion, Commodore Hardy at, 437. 
Sfono Indians, depredations by the. in the CirolInaA 
165. ^ 

Stony /''reel: skirmish at, 426. 

Stony Point, capture of, 297, 2981 

Stouguton. Captain. 88, 

Streets o/ Philadelphia, origin of the namea 0^ 19^ 

Streight. A. D., Colonel, 662. 

Stuickeb. General, at Baltimore, 437. 

Strong, CaLeb, 8?^. 
STri-Gi^, General, 6SS. 



1 



INDEX. 



SII.TVESXNT, rr.TER. Ovcniar 93, 141, 142. Cantures 1 

Swcilish fons: oluisitsos the Esopns InJlaus, 14S. 
Sub- Treitfury JfcAwny, 471, 4"5. 

|r;;S'!i:^,'^'ne,.I,«JS. a. nn,„kly„, 2^. p.- 
roltit 2&T. SucceiMls Cincral Chiulcs Lee: Joins 
WashlnsU.n, 201. At Tn-nton, 202. At Bramiyw lue 
2-S Supei-8i-ik-9 Oem-nil SponccT, 2^1). Attbehattlo 
of Qnakci- Hill, 290. Uis exptJItion aiali.Jt I ho Six 
Nations. 803, 8U4. At Tlojja Point ; at C ht-muni:, d»4, 

SUMNKR, GeiuraI,Cl.\ 021. 

A««<(H. tbo, Marv KIsIkts mission to, 1.K), 

SUMNEB, Jr.TUKO. Oenenil, 837, 

Si'MTER TuuM.\s, lii-ncMl, in South CaroUn.a, 814. i.>n 
thi! auavvba; at HangiUij Kopk 815. AtHslnntf 
(^reok, 810. Returua to Sovilli Caroline, l.JD, 81'J. 
Thi' South Carolina Gamecock, 319. 

Sumter, Fort, first enn flr_ed at,5M. 

SHmliif/ialilM Indian*. I', IW. 

SuTl'EB. Captain, of California, gold discovered near the 

Straivte!/, King i'h'lli'p attacks the men of Plymouth at, 

Siif:'v'^"t Caslmir, 142. Siibjusated by the 
Dutch 14.3. In Now Jcrhcy and Pouusylvania, i>2. 

Swx.lixJi i:olony in America, 92. Fortresses, captured 
by Stuvvesant, 14;!. West India Company, 98. 

Swine, tak«n to America, 44 : to Newlouudland and 
Nova Scotia, 47, 5S; to Viiainia, 04. 

Sycamores, at ProvideDce, Khodo Island, 90. 

SvMMES, John C1.KVR6, 808. 

Sj/raouse, New Yorli, great Council lire at, 28. 

T, 

Tnhaco. Yucatan, 70. 

Tdlladega. hattlc at 42S. 

•• TiilUilntKMe^ Oonfedcrnto privateer, ill. 

rallun/iiitc'ife, General Coffee at, 42S. 

TutiniruHu Imiianfi. 19. 

TIoHii.t /.'«!/, Do Solo lands at. 44. 

Taminca, C:aptnicd by Cuiiimodnrc Conner, 4sS. 

Tjlniv, UooEii li.. Chief .iMslicc, Kemoves the Govern- 
ment funds from the United States Bank. 406. Ad- 
ministcr^ the oath of <.llice t.. President \ an Buren. 
470; to President Harrison, 474 ; to President Taylor, 
499. Sketch of, 688. , ,._ . ... 

Tai-if Bill. Of 1S28, 459, 468, 464. Modifications of the, 

TiRnk-roN, Co'lonel, Loss of his cavalry horses on Capo 
Ilattoriis, 809. Defeats Colonel Huser 811. His 
BlauKhler of Buford-s troops, 313. At Sanders » Creek, 
816. At Frshing Crock, 816. At the Cowpens, 331. 
Notice of. 316. . ,„ 

ToawMon, WUhout rei.resentntion, is tyranny, 104, it .>, 
211212. Wlllimn Pin's opinion of, 217. Views of in 
the' Carolines, IM. 106; "ud in Matsachusetts, 219, 

•Vxrum, Batakii, I'ooiii ol, 667. 

Tatlor, DirK, 677. , ^ , , 

Taylor, Zaciiahv, Oemral, SucceedB General Jesiip in 
the Seminole war, 405. Ills army of ■"■•" J^" 



the Hcminoie war, 1UJ. jjis ^uu,. ,.. occ.opatioii, 4^i . 
At Point Isabel. 481. OapUires Matamoras 4b3. At 
Monterv,4Sl; Victoria, 4*: liuena \ Ista, 4S.6. Map 
of the rei-ion of his opcn.lionf, 4^6. President of the 
United St»te^ 1819, 49'>. Uetth of, 601. Nolico of, 

Tatlob, Oeii'.ral, 652. „ ,, „ . o.io i,. 

Tut, Ta.x an by the Brilish Government, 822. De- 

struellon of at' Bi.si..-,n. 22;>. ' _ . _ , , „,,, .,, 
TKT.-liTnA, 20, 4V?. 4 ) ' 1 (efo.d. .1 l.v Colonel Miller, 411. 

KoiiffS tbf; ftou'.he.u U.Loi ol IwUnns, 427. Ucaih, 

425. Notico of, 42<. 
Tt r>«iiiM, The. Suts alit! vlcuTies »n<l dollvoranocs, 

266 
re7..neM««, EuMftlou cf, M7, Pcrsrcotlou cf T-nlon 

men. 576. Lo.^l to lMi.fc(lccr,t.>t,, .OOS. In in.sscs.bm 

of tht. rilcn ».en'c, CO':. Krenu In, 601. Kcbtorcd 

to the. 1/ iv '.23. ' - 

Trr!Tf 'id'o'irj.', Hif. «.' A i.': NewporU 821. Ui» ile.«h, 

•«'■!>• 
'I^'V7 A J!., Atolrsl, '!•• 

nnUor;. In.,!in, Clali.MCd l.y EualMii. 1.. Ronlhwcst 
of Ao" Ohic, HT?. T.-i-orihi Oov, rninc-.t ..f the 
I-r. •..•1«<UI«.. «(2 -lIK TfriU'ri'S, !?«•,,, 

TJxm r,;.l-..incd hv fpiiip, »S1. AoBoxatun of 'i iho 



Unltea States, 477, 473. State Constitution of, 47a 

Claims of. 499. Secession of, 647. Expedition for the 

recovery of, 678. , . „, .. to 

Thamet Riier. Connectlcnt, Discovered by Block, li, 

87. Mohciran Indians on the, 21. 
Thames Jtli'er, Canada, Battle on the, 424. 
Tluinkmil-ing and I'raycr, Congress, reconimends lb» 

appointment of » day for, 870. >atloiial, after the 

Peace of 1814, 444. 
Tbatesdaseoa: sec P.raxt, .JosEfn. 
TiioMAS,GEOBOBlI..Oencral,694, 668. 06,), .o."! 
TiiosiAS, Jons, General, 288. In Canada ; Notice of, 

248 
Tuo.\i'.\s, Lorenzo. Appointed Secretary of War, 781. 
TuoMPSos Benja-MIN, Colonel, Count Itumford ; and 

notice of, 846. 

Tu»sii'SoN, Colonel, At Sullivan « Island, 249. 
TiioMi'soN, pAvip. Ills colony of lishermcn, 79. 
Thompson, .M. Jeep , Guerilla Chief, 676. „, , , 

TuoMfSoN-; Wil.LEY, General, Uis expedition to Florida, 
1»;54 400. llc;Uh of. 4GT. 

Thomson. CnAni.i-s. Secretary of the Continental Con- 
cress ; Coiisress prcseiila an urn l",''!*.*''*;. J-'- 
TIIORNTON, Captain, At the P.io Grande, 4S1, 482. 

Thoroughfare Oap. 026. 

TuuRV, M.. Tha.Iesnit, 180. .... v.,. 

Ticonderova. Samuel Champlain at 69 Abercj-omblo , 
Expedition aitalnst, 190. Ruins ol, 197. Captured by 
Allen and Arnold. 23.8. 

" Tiyrem," Bcliooiicr, 420. 

Tinicum Jslanil. 98. 

Tippecanoe, Battle of. 408. i . j ,„ .» 

ToZcco, Its use amouf the aborlcina.s 14. ntroduo,d 
into En-land. 70. A circulatinK medium In \ iritinla, 
105. James 1. pn.poses to contract for the wh" e crop 
of. in Virginia, 107. Culture of. at Plymouth, 116. 

TolHiHCO, Corlez lands at, 48. Captured by Commodore 

To-Mo"I'm-cui, Creek Sachem ; his speech to Oglethorjic, 

ToMPKi-NS, Daniel D., Governor, 412. Vice-Prosideat 

of the United States: notice of, 446. 
ToftOTiiy Uill Rhode Island, 125. 
Tbli^riu ih^Carolina,. 809. The term Tor.y explained 

226 
Totten Colonel, at Vera CrU7. : notice of, 489. 
TowSend CUARLES, Chancellor of the Exch^juer, 

218 
TowNSHKND. Ooneral, 201. At Quebec, 201-204. 

^:e««e' Indhln, 862, 86.S. Treaty of peace betwe« 
Great Britain and the United ^tatc8. ••■«. 444. Treaty 
between Spain and the United States, 401. 

"Ti-eiif," British Steamer. r.„,„«,.lli» 9fl« 

TrenU.n, ^^•^v Jersey, Captured by Cornwallis, 2W. 
Battle of, 262. 

Tri-Jilountain. or Boston, 118. 

Tripartite Ti-'atj/, The, 613. 

Tripoli. The United States at war with. 89H, 391. De- 
catur at, 44.\ 

TnmT''S'nio'^rp''United States Commissioner to treat 
for peace wlih Mexico, 494. 

Tboup, Governor. 4;.0, ,,„„, 

TEUMuni.u Jonathan, notice of, 8i». 

Trtos. Governor, 228. Driven fio"'. ^<;» '^'IS; I,?" 
At Compo. 270. Atrocities eommiiiod by, 270,271. 
Ills marnndinx exneditions. 290. 

TrcREB., Piesident of the Sew •'<''■-•"'.''.'' 1H01 890 De- 

Tunl','rho United Slates at war with, 1801. 890. A'e 
catur at, 445. 

nTan»"j<.in the Fiyc Nations, 2\, Conspire :.«.inst 
the North Carollu^ settlements, ISb. 
Tttooa". captured by ConimoiloroPcn)y,4*a 

4^«is,-0enevBl, 188^4.89 ^f» <f™^" >'"'"• **'• *°'- 

At St. Aa:;ustlne. 4Vi. Not.ec ol. 498 
Tvii-p, John, \ieo Pivsid-nt of the I.nJM StaU'S, 4.». 

SucScods ITcsidcut Ilmrieon; iioUco of, 47b. 



TJ. 

rw,v. f-.-i.-...M. their lerriivrv- and '»"?"'«*,J?-.f j,„. 
r.'ignn.iitt.^. 165. 



INDEX. 



UwDEEniLL, Jons, Captain, 87, 141. 

Union Flag, 14-t. 

Cnitifrianm, persecuted in Maryland. S*2, 151. 

United States, Confefieration,Article3 of, 266, 267, 353, 
355. Constitution, 355. Mint, 873, 873. Post-office, 
373. Navy, orisin of, 3S3. Commerce, 331, 8S2. Non- 
Intercourse with Great Britain, 3y9. Injured by 
England and France, 400. 401, by pirates. 458. Bank, 
446. Oposed by President Jackson, 462, 465, 466. 
<lovernment in great danger, 627. Treaties -n-itli 
Great Britiiin, S4S. SSO, 443 ■ France, 3S6; Prussia, 469 ; 
Spain, 8S1 : B.?l;^'ium. 469; Mexico. 497; Algiers. 3fl; 
Xnpoli,395. Seminole Indians, 463. Wars :— Enitlund, 
409; France, 8S5; Mexico. 4S0, 522; Morocco." 390; 
Tripoli and Tunis, 390; Algiers. 390. Claims of the, 
against France and Portuiral. 46S. Dispute of the, 
with Great Britain respecting Oregon, 405, 406, 479, 
480. Exploring expeditions return to, 476. Indian 
population of. 32. 

United State.% debt of, 678. Finances of, 67S. Debt in 
1S68. 784. 

* Unitecf^States'' frigate. 3=2,414,415. 

Utah, 499. Territory- of, 537. 

Utrecht, Peace 0^136. 

V. 

Valencia, General, at Conlreras, 493. 

Vallandioham. Clement L., 656,711. 

Valleif Forge. Wnshinirton in xiinter quarters at, 2S4, 

Valparaim, Naval acti(jn at. 4;51. 

Van iiTftEN, Martin, Secivtary of State. 461. Vice- 
President of the tJnited States, 464. President, 469. 
Notice of. 469. 

Van Dam. Kip, 15^ 

Van Dorn, March, Earl, 592. 

A'ane, Henbt, 86. Governor; favors Anne Hutchinson. 
120. 

Van Hornk, Mnjor, 411. 

Van' Kf.nhselae'r, Solomon, Colonel. 413. 

Van JRensselaeu. Stephen. General, commands the 
Army of the Centre, 41'2, 413. Notice o^ 412. 

Van Rensselaer. Killian, 139. 

Van Twillbr, Wotter, 139. 

Van Wart, Isaac. 326. 

Varnitm, James M.. General, 855. 

Vasco de G ama, passes the Cape of Good Hope, in 37. 

VANDREriL, Governor-General of Canada, 203. 

VAtJGHAN. John, General, burns Kingston. 283, 297. 

Velasquez, expeditions to Mexico. 43, 

V&rn Oimz. its fortress: capture of. by General Scott. 4S9. 

Vergennes. Count de, his dissatistaction respecting the 
Treatv of Pence. 848. 

Vermmit, added to the Fnited States, in 1791, 371. 

Verjflancl-'s Point, captureof the fortressat, 297. 

Verazzani. Joun, his expedition to America, 47. 

VerscJie Iiirer,oT Connecticut River. 82. 

Vesper /Jymn., suns by Columbus and his crew, 89. 

Vespvcius, AMERicrs, account of, 40, 41. Visits the 
West Indies, and South America, 41. Discoveries by, 
60. 

Vickxbtirg, 635, 642. Assault on, 645. Surrender of, 
646, 681. 

Victoria, General, 47T. 

Villiers, M. do, 183. 

Vincfjhnf^, Captured, and re-captured, 1779, 303. 

** Viper"" brig, 414, 

Virginia, Origin of the name of, 55. Capes of, 59. 
North, 63. &outh, 63, 6S. First settlement of, 62. 
The colonists of. subdue the Shawnoeee at Point Pleas- 
ant. 19. Lord De la Warr. governor o£ 68. Famine 
In, 69. Representative Assembly in, 71, 105. Tobacco 
a circnlating medium in, 105. Opposes Cromwell; 
invites Charles II. to be king of Virginia, 109. The 
Seneca Indians make war upon, 110. Response of the 
Burgesses of, to Jeffries, 113. Militia of, counties and 
yiarishes of, 114. Takes measures against the French, 
182,183. Grant from Parliament to^ 206. Lord Dun- 
more driven from, 243. The Virgina Plan, 859. Se- 
cession of, 547. 

" Fiirew" brig, 414. 
Volunteer/!, call for. 554, 
VoTjages arui Discoveries, Spanish, 86-45. 

*■ Vulture " Bloop-of-war, 826. 

w. 

WADSwoETn, CflpUiin, 156, 157. 



Wadbworth. General, killed. 6S9. 

Waldkon. Major, Death of, 130. 

Walker, Governor, 165. 

Walker, Sir Hovendek, irt Boston, 186. 

Walker. William. Colonel, his military operations, 628, 
524, 525. 

Walker, Captain, of the Texan Rangers, 491,432. 

Wallace, Sir James, 22-8. 

Wallace, Lewis, General, 590, 633, 695. 
JV>i//a-W'illttjR/rer. Battle at the, 528. 
WiiUoons. arrive at Manhattan, iu 73. 

M'ahmt kjjrings. 484. 

Walpole, Robert, 2^13. 

Walton, George, in Convention on the Articles of 
Confederation. Zl^, 

yVampanoag Indians, 22. 114, 124, 

Wancrese, Indian chief, bb. 

TTtrr, of the Spanish Succe.s.sion. 235. Of the Austriaa 
Succession, 137. See United States. 

War Ciril, end of, 5^S. 721. 

Ward, Artb.mas, General, in the French and Indian 
W3r,l9S. His appointment as General. 280, 234, 238. 
At Boston, 239. Enters Boston, after its evacuation, 
247 

Warner, Seth, Colonel. 234. 240, 176, 277. 

Warren. Joseph. Dr.. 232.233. 

WAKREN,Admh-al, 137, 188, 19L 

Warren. General. 660. 

Warwh-k, Earl of. So. 

Warvnck, Rhode Island, bnrned, 127. 

WA8iiBrp.N0RNE, C. C, General, 678. 

WtiHhingtoii City, burned by General Ross. 1814. 436. 
The Seat of Government of the United States, 888. 
Addition made to the Capitol at. 509, In great dan- 
ger, 55ji. Plans for the capture of, 623. In great 
i.eril, 62.5. 

Washingtost, George, Bearer of Governor Dinwiddie's 
letter lo M. St. Pierre. 131. Colonel Fry's Lieutenant, 
in the French and Indian War, 183. At Great Mead- 
ows, 1S3. Resigns his Oonimissiun. 1S4. Br;iddi.ick's 
Aid, in the battle of Monougahela; his wonderfuj 
escape from death, 1S6. With General Forbes against 
Fort Du Quesne, 198. 

Comm.'mder-in-chief at 
Cambridge, 238. Causes the Declaration of Ind»pen- 
dence to be read to each of his brigades, 252. His return 
from Long Island. 254, 257. At Harlem Heights, 257. 
Exposure at Kip's bay, at the house of Roger Morris, 
259. Crosses tho Delaware, 260. Captures Hessiana 
at Trenton ; invested with the powerof Military dicta- 
torship, 264. His victory at Princeton, 268. Opinion of 
his exploits iu Xew Jt-fsey, expressed by Frederic of 
Prussia, 269. Perplexed by Howe; his first interview 
with La Favette. ^72. Crosses the Schuylkill, 274, At 
White Marsh. 283. Pursues Clinton at White Pl.nina, 
Mlddlebrook, 288. Disapproves of a proposed invasion 
of Canada, 294. At Valley Forge, 274, 2S4. Scheme 
for superseding him, 285. At Monmouth. 2S7. Called 
by the Indians. " Town Destroyer;" Curnplanter's Ad- 
dress to, 804. In winter quiirters at Morriatown, 806, 
Fits out armed vessels at Boston, S07. Lieutenant- 
General of the French empire ; his first interview with 
Rocliambeau. 323. Reprimands Arnold. 325. Propose* 
to attack New Vork, 339. Writes deceptive letters to 
General Greene, at Torktown, 840. 341. At New 
York, after the capture of Cornwallis, 346. Suppresses 
the general discontent in the army, 349. Quells the 
mutiny of the Pennsylvania trnups. 350. Nicola's let- 
ter to hiin, 349. His Farewell Address to his com- 
panions in nrnis, 350. and Bis farewell to his officers, 
351,352. Resigns his comniission ; President of tho 
Cincinnati Society. 352. Presidentof the Convention 
to revise the Articles of Confederation, 856. President 
of the United States; his administration 864. His 
journey to New York, 364. 365. Takes the oath of 
office, 366. His tour through the northern and eastern 
States. 1789.370. His Farewell Address to his country- 
men, 382. Retires to Mount Vernon, 8S3. Death of, 
386, 387. Lee's Funeral Oration on, 887, Bonaparte'i 
tribute to, 387, 383. Tribute to, bv the British fleet, 
388. 

Washington, Martha, notice of, 8S6. 

Washington, William Acgustikk, Colonel, SSi. Ko' 
tice of. -^32. 

Wxftfiin^ioti Territory, 480, 513. 

" Wasp;' sloop. 414, 415. 440. 

W\T80N, Colonel, on the Pedee. 820. 

Waterford, Hunry Hudson at, 59. 



Ul 



INDEX. 



Watkb, Genenil. PurjiriwJ hy C.cnprol Gray, 274. Re- 
fltmins a meetiiiff of reqnsvlvanla truopa, 328. Turpuca 
Coniwftllis ;W1*. At Pavann.ih, 54tJ. His K.xpi'dition 
Bpainst the TmliaDS. ft74. Crushes au ludlaa Confedt- 
racy, 21. Notice of, 298. 

Webb. Cfcruriil. 194. 

Webster. Daniel, SccreUiry of State. 474, W2. His 
neyotiatioti wjtli I/inl Ashbni-tori, 47*2. 

Websthh, Fi.RTriiKK. Aniiuuiicos the death of President 
Harrison. 475. 

Wetjster. Li--utenant-ColoneI, S^. 

Wrbstek, Captain, at Saltitlo, 4S6, 

Weitzkl, Godfeev, General, 713. Entered Richmond, 
71 S. 

" Welcome:^ ship. 0<x 

Wei,i.inoton. Lonl. onters Paris, 431. 

Wells, Col<inel lone i>f chief leaders against the savages, 
416. 

Wehh Indiantt,ii2. 

Weeys9, Major, at the Broad Eiver,819. 

WfroworomoccOy Virginia, 66. 

Wesley, John, Rev., in Georgia, 171. 

West .Iosepu. his colony, 9S. 

Westchester, New Yorli, General Knyi>han8Pn at, 259. 

Weatern Virc/hxi, admitted as a State, 561. Strufjfflu 
to cot possession of, 57S. Clfjs-e of Campaign in, 579 
G6(>: 

West IruHea^ The. Vovases of Colninbus and Vespucius 
to. 4(\41. Trade oC 367. 

Went Jersey^ Remaricable law enacted hv the Assembly 

of. 16i). 
Wesftm ft Cfthmt/, 115. 

West JVnnt, New Yurk, ArnoM appointt^l to the eoiii- 
raand of. 335. 

WEVMOirxn George, Captain, 5^. 

Wtt/tnout/i, Massachusetts, burned, 127. 

Wkiileh.Hit Warfare. 308. 

Whah.ev, EnWARD. Regicide -Judge, 123. 

Wheeler, Captain. 1-6. 

WiiEELorK. Rev. IJr.. his School at Lebanon. 25. 

WiiKELWKioiiT, JouN, R-.V., fouoils Eseter. :iO. Favors 
the rtliirious views of Mrs, Hutchinson, llit). 

Whi{i and Tort/, explanatiun "if tlie terms, 2Wi. 

WaiPi'LE AnitAUAM, Commodore, 223. His llotilla, 
n..tice of. 310. 

Whi-tAy Jnsurrectioii, The, P7S. 

WiiiTK, John. Governor. 56, 57. 

White, Peregrine, tho first English child born in New 
Entriand, 7S. 

While. Colontl. on the Santee River, 811. 

WniTEFiELi), George. Rev., in Geort:Ja, 171. 

White riai/tJi, New York, Washiuirton at, 258. 

Wife, price of a, in Vir^'inia, in 1620, 105, 

WilifernetiA, The, 6S9. Battle of. 690. 

Wilkes. Commodore, his Expedition, 476, 477. Takes 
Mason and Slidell prisoners, 5S7. 

Wilkinson, James, Geiu-ral. sent by Gates with a i 
verbal messace to Congress, 282. His Expedition 
against the Indians, 874. Burr's associate, 896. With 
General Dearborn, Sl'i. Bncceeds Dearborn ; his ' 
operations, 4'i6. At Prescott, 426, 427. At. St. Regis ; ] 
at French Mills, 427. At Plattsburg, 4:32. Notice of, 
426. 

WiLLETT, Colonel. 27S. 

William IU., and Mart, accession of. 130. US. Their 
war with France, 130. William prohibits printini; in 
the Ami-riean colonies, ibS. Interested in Captain 
Kidd's ExpedlU<a, U9. 

Wi/liam ami Mary Collegt, 17S. 

Williams David, cue of the caplors of Andrfi, 326. 

Williams, Epiiraim, Colonel, death of, 190. 

Williams, James, Colonel, at Kinii's Mountain. 319. 

Williams, John, Rev., captured by Indians; late of his 
wife. 1S5. 

Williams, Otiio H., Colonel, 31S. 

Williams, Rookr, 87, 15-5. Founder of Rhode Island, 
S9. 119, Persecuted. 119. Paciflws ho&tllo Indi.iD3 at 
New Notherland. 141. Notice of,S9. 

Winiam''H O^Z/^f/c. founded, 190. 

WilUiimfCs Sprfnif, 90. 

WiUiamHintrg, Virt'lnia. 111. Batlle of, C16. 

WiLLMOT. Captain, death of, 34S. 

WiutoN Jame-s, in Convi^ntion on the Articles of Con- 
federation, 356. 3.^9. Judge of tb© Supreme Court of 
the United Stated, 868. 



I Wilson, Rev. Mr., SaltousUall's letter to, lia 

Wilson. Robert. Ensijrn, 342. 

HV/*o;t'« Creek, oattleat. 574. 

Wittivycl% Indians massacre the inhabitants of. 148. 

W 1 NTH R8TER, General, 416,417. Notice of. 419. 

WispER, General, 426. At Bladensburp, 486. 

WiNCFiRLn, Edward M., His conduct toward Captairt 
John Smith ; deposed. 65. 

Winnebago /w/Zm'/s conspire against the Enfflish.20.\ 

WiNSLow. Edward, (iovernor. 85. 1&5. Received by 
Massasoit, 114 Cows and a bull imported by, 116. 
His letter to Governor Winthrnp, 142. 

WiNsLow, John A. Capuiin of the Kcarsage, 709. 

WiNSLOw, John. General. 1S5, 191. 

Winston, Joseph, CNdonel. at King's Mountain, 819. 

Winter., severe, of 1777-1778. 2S4. 

WiNTDROP, John, Governor. 117, IH. His expedition 
against Canada. 181. Amdies to Charles 11. for a new- 
charter, 155. Indian chiefs at the table of, US. No- 
tice of, 113. 

Winyaw Say, La Fayette lands on the shore of, 273. 

R7scr>7Mi7/, admitted to the Union In 1348,497. 

Wise, Henry A . .VS9 56 . 

Wiss'tguAset Sett/ernent, 115, IIC. 

Witch craft, in Massacluisetts. 132,133. 

WoLKE, James, General, 196. 199, 200. At Quebec, 201. 
Death of; monument to, 202. 

W.i'r'e'H <'<ype. 202 1 241. 

»'.///^ Ravine, 202. 

Women, ludian. condition of, 14, 15. The first two on 
the James River, 67. A hundred and fifty, become 
wives of Virginia planters. 71. No white, in Virginia, 
in 1619; ninety sent by Sandys, in 1620; sixty.'scnt,. 
in 1621,105. (See Wife.) 
Woodford, General, 244, 811. 
WooDiiuLL. Nathaniel, General. 198. 254. 

Wool... John Kslis. General, 418. At Monclova; at 
Parnvs. 484. At Braceti, 453. At Saltillo, 489. No- 
tice of. 484, 526, 617 

Wool, Means used to prevent the scarcity of, in Amer^ 

lea, 216. 
Wo"t.8EV, Captain, 432. 
Woosteu, David, General. 283, 24-3, 271. 
WoRDES, J<tuN L. Lieut, 672. 

Worth. William J., General, ot Monterev, 4f3. At 
Saltillo, 484. At the Castlu of Perote, 490." At Mex- 
ico. 494. Notice of, 498. 

Writv of Ai^sistavfe, 212. 

Wyandot. Indians, 23. 24. Cede their lands to the 
United States. 24. Conspire against the Enghsh, 1763, 
205. Treaty with the. 363. 

Wyandot County invarled bv the Five Nations, 24. 
Wyatt, Sir Francis, 1I)6. 108. 

Wyiminff Valley, devastation of. in 177S. 290, 291. 
AVyTUE, Georqb. in Convention on the Articles of 
Confederation, 356i. 



Y. 



Yale, Elisha, Benefactor of Yale College, 173. 

>'<//^ College, \5S. 178. 

Yamacraw Bhtf, loii. 103. 

Yamasee JndianM, 8it, 163, 170. 

YanA'ee Doodle, the National Song, 220. 

Yates, Robert, iu Cunveution on Articles of Con/lMl* 
eration, 856. 

Yit^oo City, 683. 

Yazoo River, De Soto on the banks of the, 44, 

Yeamens, Sir John, 9^. 

Yeardlkv, Gkokor, Governor, 70, 107. His Represent- 
ative -Assembly, 105 

Yeo. Sitt James. 4*2. 

York, Duke of, 94. His AmericAn pofisession&, 129. 
Sells New Jersey. 159. 

I'orA-Mwn., Virgini.% fortified by CornwalMs, 840. Sur- 
render of. 341. 842, 845. 

Yaunffstoum. burnt, 427. 



Zenofr. John Peter, Editor of the New York Wetii^ 

Journal. arre9te<1. 15t». 
ZoLnooFfEB, Felix K-, 575.517. 59Bp 



SUPPLEMENTARY INDEX. 



Aldbarms Claims, how eettled, 740. 
Amnesty Bill, 787. 
Apportionment, a new, 741. 

Abthub, Chestek a., inangurated President of the 
U. S.; Inangural Address of, 758. 

B. 

Boston, Great Fire in, 739. 
C. 

Centennial Exhibition, History of the, 71/3. 

Chicago, Great Fire in, 739. 

Commission, Joint High, 740. 

Congress, Extraordinary Session of; Special Session 
of, 751. 

COSKLDJO, RoscoE, opposes the President's Nomina- 
tions; Resigns his seat in the Senate; Vainly seeks 
a reappointment, 755. 

Coneiitution, Amendment of, to secnre the Bight of 
Suffrage to Women, proposed, 753. 

Cuba, Trouble with, 738. 

CnsTEB, Destruction of Command of, 744. 

D. 

Darien, tothmns of, Proposed Canal across the, 739. 

B. 

Electoral Commission, 749. 



Embassy from Japan, 743. 

F. 
Fenian Brotherhood, Raid of the, 738. 
Franking Privikge abolished, 742. 
Funding Bill proposed, 753. 

G. 
Gabphxd, James Aeram, chosen President of the 

United States; Inangnration of; Cabinet of, 754; 
' Shot by an assassin, 756; Death of; History of the 

sad event, 756; Funeral Obsequies of, at Wasliing- 

ton and Cleveland, 760. 
Grand Duke Alexis, visit of, 742. 
Grant, Ulysses S., Message of, on Reorganization, 

737; Re-elected President of the United States, 740; 

Inangnration of; Cabinet of, 743. 
Oreenback Party, 752. 



Hates, Rutherford B., elected President of th» 

United States; Cabinet of, 750. 

L 

Indian Policy, the, 742. 
Indian Peservations, 743. 

Inter-Oceanic Canal and Lesseps; Hayes's Message on 
the subject, 752. 

J. 
Japan, Embassy from. 742. 
Joint High Cmnmission, 740. 

N. 
National Xominating Convenfiom and their NomlB» 

ees, 752. 
Xegiv Exodus. 751. 
Ifez Perces, War with the, 744. 

P. 

Pacific Railway completed, 737. 

Presidency of the United States, NominatiODB for tli« 

741. 
Presidential Election in 1876, 749. 
Public Debt at the close of 1880, 753. 

R. 

Seorganization, Message of President Grant on; of 
the Union Flag, 737. 



Santo Domingo, Proposed Annexation of, 738. 
Siovx Indians, Interference and War with, 743. 
Specie Payment, Resumption of, provided for, 742; 

Resnmpuon of; Effects of Resumption, 757. 
Southern States, Feeling in, 743. 

T. 
IreatUs with Foreign Nations in 1881, 758. 

U. 
Union Flag, Reorganization of, 737. 
Vie Indians, Trouble with the, 753. 

W. 

Weather Signals established, 741. 

Wilson, Henrt, elected Vice-President of the Unitsd 

States, 742. 



